26 Vacation Horror Stories That'll Definitely Make You Break A Sweat
Reddit user u/ujin- asked the community: "What was the scariest moment you've had on vacation?" The thread quickly filled with tales of travels gone very, very wrong. Here's what people shared:
1."On our way to the New Orleans airport at like 4:00 a.m., the vehicle next to us on the highway shot at us for no reason. The bullet went through the windshield and rearview mirror, lodging in the roof right between me and my wife's heads."
2."My uncle decided to mess around on a trail in Yellowstone near some hot pools. He was walking backward on the trail and FELL OFF right onto the crust near the hot pools. By sheer luck, he didn't fall through. It was horrifying. I thought we were witnessing a man die."
3."On a three-week tour of Thailand with my Muay Thai instructors, we happened to be in Krabi during December 2004. We took an early boat ride for about two hours to a little uninhabited island called Bamboo Island to snorkel and hang out on the beach. We noticed a weird feeling in the water, like something was stinging, and got out after a while. Then we noticed, 'Wow, that is a bizarre loud wave coming in.' Our next thought was, 'Wow, that big wave just keeps coming. I wonder if that's related to how all the water receded a few minutes ago, making the shoreline a thousand feet wider?' Then we climbed the highest point on the island and sat there for about 12 hours, watching the next two tsunami waves come in and leave, all while wondering if the highest point would be high enough to avoid the water."
"The pre-smartphone days were rough; we had no idea what was happening. After being rescued by the Thai Coast Guard and getting back to the mainland 12-15 hours later, we found out that thousands of people died. It was a shock. Overall, it was the scariest vacation moment I've had and the scariest day of my life."
4."I was snorkeling with my wife and son. My wife was free-swimming, so she went ahead of us while my son and I gently paddled over to the main snorkeling area. She was probably about 50 yards away, and everyone else in the area was about 30 yards away. I was swimming and suddenly felt something start pushing me into the water. I recovered and realized my son, who's 17 and bigger than I am, was holding onto me. He took water into his snorkel and started panicking, so he grabbed me. I was trying to tread water, hold up another full-grown man, and figure out how I was supposed to get somewhere safe where we could stand or get to shore."
"I started dipping in and out of the water because my arms and legs started getting tired, and I was treading for my son's life. Finally, I got the other snorkelers' attention and called for help, and a group of them came over. Someone with a paddleboard got my son, and then I floated and paddled as much as possible while a dude there pulled me toward a boat. I almost passed out from exhaustion when I got on the little boat. I legitimately thought both my son and I were goners. The thing is, we're both good swimmers. If he hadn't been panicking, he could have swam to shore, which wasn't far away, or expelled the water from his snorkel and continued swimming. And since he was pulling me down, I was panicking and not thinking straight enough to tell him what to do. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life."
5."We lost my baby brother at Seaside Heights Boardwalk. My family went wild for about an hour. We finally found him sitting outside a saloon surrounded by bikers and their chicks. He had a bowl of popcorn and a tall soda. They were all facing the boardwalk and watching people go by, waiting to see if he recognized anyone looking for him."
6."When I was 12, my dad took me to the Grand Canyon. He had bad arthritis and couldn't walk well, so I asked if he wanted to walk down a trail. He said he'd stay put, but I could go. I walked down the trail, like a switchback, only a little ways. Then I turned to see if I could see my dad and was waving to try to get his attention. I kept waving and backing up and waving, then turned, and my back heel was right at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I was not the smartest kid."
7."I was on an overnight bus from Delhi to Dharmsala. (I am female and was 26 at the time). We stopped at a gas station at night to use a restroom. I was the last in line, and when I came out, the bus was taking off and headed back onto the highway. I sprinted after it, repeatedly screaming, 'No!' at the top of my lungs. Someone must have heard or seen me, and the bus stopped. I truly do not know what I would have done had I been left behind."
8."We were on our honeymoon and flying into the Toronto airport. We were about to land to make a connecting flight overseas when we heard grinding under the plane. This repeated a couple of times, and then the pilot, calm as can be, clicked on the intercom and said, 'We seem to be having a little trouble with the landing gear. Everyone, please take your seats and buckle your seatbelts. We're going to delay our approach. Please bear with us.' One of the flight attendants rushed towards the cockpit. The seatbelt light went on, and I looked at my husband, who hates to fly. He just gave me a look of pure dread and terror, not saying a word. I knew this trip was my idea, so this was all my fault."
"There was more grinding, and the plane tilted as we started to circle. The pilot returned to the intercom and said, 'All flight attendants to their seats, please.' More grinding. Then, the pilot said, 'Everyone, we have the landing gear down and engaged. We will be landing shortly. Thank you for your patience.' The whole plane cheered when we landed."
9."My in-law's family overloaded a golf cart shuttle, and as it was climbing a hill, it tipped, falling 10 or so feet down the embankment. My father-in-law was underneath it with his mother and two other people, including the 20-year-old driver, still in the cart. If it weren't for him holding it up, his 70-year-old mother would have been crushed as well, and the cart would have continued falling into the lake 20-30 feet below. He had some nasty bruises, but everyone was okay overall."
10."We were tent camping in a state park, and a large tree limb fell in the middle of the night in the campsite next to ours. It fell directly across where a tent would go if we had picked that site, which we almost did. It scared the living crap out of us when we heard the 'boom' sound that woke us up at 3:00 a.m."
11."It was the last day of our trip to San Diego, and my friend and I called an Uber for brunch. A car pulled up that didn't match the app description at all. The car was the wrong model and had the wrong license plate. The driver yelled my name, acting super casual like, 'It's your Uber! Come on in!' My phone rang, and it was the actual Uber driver I requested. He was confused about why I hadn't gotten in the car yet. I tell him I didn't see his car, and he says, 'Uber hasn't updated my car model or license plate yet,' but the person in the car clearly wasn't even on the phone! He was looking straight at me!"
"I told the person on the phone I was canceling, and the next thing I know, the driver in the car yelled at me through the window to get in. He even got out of the car at this point. My friend and I ran back into the hotel lobby. We explained the situation to the front desk, and thankfully, the staff jumped into action. We also reported it to Uber. I am grateful we were close enough to the hotel to run away. If we weren't, I don't know what would have happened."
12."I was 13 on vacation overseas with my mom. We woke up at 5:00 a.m. due to jet lag, and the morning was beautiful, so we decided to go for a swim. We are used to a very calm sea (technically, a bay), so we didn't think swimming was a big deal when there were no lifeguards. As a result, we got caught in a rip current without knowing what it was. My mom was a very weak swimmer, so she told me to swim to the shore and call for help. But the shore was empty, so I knew she just wanted me to leave her and save myself. I grabbed her by the hand and swam as hard as I could. Luckily, we were close to the shore, and my desperate 'sprint' got us to a place where we could stand. We returned to our room and felt incredibly sleepy, so we went to sleep and woke up 10 hours later. When we looked out the hotel window, we noticed the red flags on the beach, and no one was swimming."
13."It was the mid-'70s, and we were in Casper, Wyoming, on a family vacation. I was about 12 years old. My dad had a bad habit of driving until it was dark before trying to find a hotel for the night. This put us in some very shady hotels over the years. This particular night, the hotel was an old, two-story brick building that looked more like a jail than a hotel. There was one bathroom on each floor. When my dad asked for a room for two adults and four children, the clerk laughed. We were put in a room with one bed and given an extra mattress to throw on the floor. About halfway through the night, a commotion woke us all up. We heard people shouting and furniture banging around. Then there were three gunshots followed by silence and then the sound of footsteps running down the hallway and out the door. I've never seen my parents pack a car faster in all of my life."
14."My appendix ruptured while on vacation in England. Full perforation. I was on a school trip, and my classmates had to continue their trip, so I was left behind. It happened on my second day in England, and I spent 13 days alone in the hospital before getting out. Then, I had two days left before I flew home. I was puking my guts out and crapping my brains out. Tubes down my throat, oxygen in my nose, catheter down my pipe. I was 15, and my parents didn’t have passports, so I had to handle it myself. I had one amazing nurse (we are still friends with to this day, 19 years later), and that alone made the whole ordeal worthwhile."
15."Remember that 2018 Hawaii Ballistic Missile false alarm? That. I was visiting my brother and sister-in-law, and my girlfriend and I thought we were going to die. We called our loved ones to say goodbye and cried in the closet, taking shelter, waiting for our imminent doom. The funny thing is we were supposed to have left days prior, but I decided we should stay an extra three days since the seven-day flight round trip ticket was the same as the 10-day one. It took 45 minutes or so for the correction to go out. Everyone in public looked like they went on with their day just fine. We remained shell-shocked the whole day, and my girlfriend and I needed therapy when we got home."
16."I went vacationing in Mexico with my family when I was 9. I lost my parents in a marketplace in Cancun and tried to tell a guy I was trying to find my family. He told me he'd find me a new one mere moments before my father arrived."
17."I got food poisoning while in Japan. I was with a tour group on a bus with no bathroom when the diarrhea struck. I had to wait until we arrived at our stop, which was five agonizing minutes away. When we finally got out, I had to scramble to find a store that A) had a bathroom and B) wasn't busy to avoid the embarrassment of crapping my brains out. And it's not like anyone spoke English, which made it harder. It took 10 minutes of me searching, all while holding in impending diarrhea before I finally found one. 10 minutes is an eternity when you're holding in liquid poop. I was drenched in sweat from the effort of holding it in and the fear that I might crap myself in public, in a foreign country."
18."I got bitten on the neck by a cheeky monkey in a park in Vietnam. I did not have a rabies vaccination and had to rush to the nearest hospital to get the shot. It was scary as hell. I was traveling solo."
19."I arrived at the airport in my long-distance girlfriend's country. I was traveling alone, and she was coming to pick me up. As I was leaving the airport, people aggressively tried to offer me rides (cabs, Uber, unlicensed, etc.), which I obviously declined. Then, one guy called out to me by name and said he was sent to pick me up. I called my girlfriend to ask about it. She freaked out and told me to return to the airport immediately until she arrived to get me. So, I guess I almost got kidnapped or something? I have no logical explanation as to how they knew my name."
20."We were on our way back from a small trip. My mom had texted that my kiddo was sick, so we were doing our best to get home fast. It was about a three-hour drive on all back roads with few places to pass. We got stuck behind two semis. My partner kept insisting I go past them, but something told me not to. He pushed it for about five minutes, but I just would not. Something in me said no. Suddenly, the first semi stopped to turn, and the semi behind it had to slam the brakes and swerve to stop in time. You could see the smoke coming off the tires. If I had tried to pass, we would have been hit. I fully believe we would have died. It was a silent ride home."
21."While studying abroad in New Zealand, I took a solo trip to the South Island. I was supposed to go with a few friends, but they canceled at the last minute. This was my first solo trip ever, and I booked a few hostels along the way. There was a French man who I immediately noticed upon arriving at my hostel in Queenstown. I remember him saying something odd to me. Then, after a day at the hostel, he moved into my room. He then spent an entire afternoon in the room staring at me while I watched YouTube in my bed. Later, when I went to grab dinner in town, I spotted him off in the distance as if he had followed me."
"Later that night, when I finished showering, he was waiting in the room and again wouldn't stop staring. I told him off and had a worker at the hostel change me to a private room. I gathered my stuff and booked it out of there the next day. I was 20, and it was my first solo travel experience. It sucked."
22."I was in one of the ruined temples of Cambodia and got lost from my group, and I ended up in a restricted section by mistake. I photographed a dead end with roots coming down the wall. Looking at the photo later, I noticed an infamously venomous snake in the corner, staring at me in a defensive position."
23."Driving in Maui, I noticed a dump truck headed toward me, getting closer and closer to the lane line. I kept watch, and we passed each other with no incident. I looked in my rearview 10 seconds later, and it collided head-on with a car behind me in our lane."
24."I was about 11 years old while on vacation at the beach with my family. I was swimming in the ocean and got stuck in a rip current, which pulled me decently far out from the shore. My father came out to save me. As we were both succumbing to exhaustion and starting to drown, someone on a surfboard floated over and had us hold onto the board until lifeguards made it out to us. As we were catching our breath on the shore, we looked around for the surfboard person, but they were nowhere to be found."
25."I got sun poisoning as a kid, became delirious, slept walk (which I have no history of doing), opened the hotel doorway, and knocked on what I thought was my parent's bedroom. A guy answered and told me I had the wrong room. Luckily, I somehow found my way back to my room, went to the bathroom, and went to bed. I remember it all, so I don't know if it was sleepwalking or only happened as a result of my sun poisoning. Who knows. It's terrifying to think about what could've happened, especially as a kid."
26.And: "I was 7 years old on my first European trip, and we were in Brussels. My dad and I were waiting for the subway, and when it arrived, it was crowded, so my dad decided not to get in, but I decided I could get in between people, given my small size. I remember turning around to realize my dad was not on the train with me, and the doors closed as he reached to pull me out. Panic. Tears. My dad yelled at me, 'Get off in the next station.' That brief ride to the next station was the longest wait of my life. Luckily, a man saw the whole situation and got off the train with me, and we both sat on a bench waiting for the next train, not even being able to speak the same language. My dad finally arrived on the next train, but that was a horrible and traumatic experience. Thank god for good samaritans; it could have been awful."
I'm shaken up! These are wild. Have you ever had a vacation go wrong? What did you experience? Tell us in the comments or submit anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
