What's the dumbest mistake you've ever made while on vacation?

Dumbest mistake ever was thinking that any restaurant in Paris would be good. We ate at a place that served soggy peas and carrots with the meal and jello for dessert! YUCK! Always do research before going anywhere!

When we went to the Dominican Republic many many years ago, we called home from the hotel literally just to say "We arrived, we are fine, bye" Our bill - $50 US dollars!For us Canadians it's more like $80.

We won't make that mistake again

Tango--LOL

For our first meal in Paris our son ordered a hamburger. After a VERY disdainful look from the waiter, he brought out the "hamburger". We had warned our son, but he didn't believe us--it was a patty-like concoction on one piece of bread with an egg-over-light on top.

I'm sure my son considers that HIS worst mistake!

Waiting at the San Jose Airport, Costa Rica, for my GF to join me, with flowers to boot. The plane landed, everybody came out and no sign of her. Apparently she was enjoying the fine Miami Beach hotel that I have booked for her for the night before the flight, way too much. We both lived in Sarasota. She did show up the following day, and we did have a civilized time together for the next 6 days, but it was over once we got home.

reminds me of a story my mother once told me about how she ordered 'french toast' once for breakfast when she was little

Got a rental car in Seattle and didn't take the time to learn how to work the electronic locks. The key chain had a button on it that had to be pressed twice to lock the car. Stupid me only pressed it once.

Stopped at a beach, came back and the doors to the car were open & my leather jacket & CD case were gone. That was a dumb, expensive mistake.

Climbing onto an unofficial look-out spot on the road to Hana, at my husband's encouragement. Everything was fine ...... beautiful view.......... until the red-dirt clumps shifted under my feet, and I fell down a six-foot drop........... One broken ankle later, I was on my way home to see an orthopedic surgeon....... cutting my vacation short by about ten days!

In Vancouver, BC went to a museum, after a computer search at home "knew" hours, location, etc... Came to the closed door to learn it closed 2 weeks before for the lack of funds. Never again going anywhere without a phone call to confirm first!

DH and I on a trip to Vegas went to Circus Circus in search of the "great" $6.95 prime rib dinner our brother in law told us about. After wandering around the hotel for an hour, trying to find the restaurant and getting misdirected several times, we finally called home long-distance on a pay phone (pre-cell phone days) to ask said b-i-l where the hell this #$@% dinner was. Got directions, waited in line for an hour and then ate the worst meal of our lives. Disgusted we walked back to our hotel where upon entering the front door we spot a huge sign "PRIME RIB DINNER $5.95".

Dumbest mistake?
We took a Chicago-Alaska-Cabo San Lucas vacation about 4 years ago (pre-9/11).
We were heading to the Anchorage airport (end of leg 2 of the trip) when I realized for the first time that we'd both forgotten our passports!
We had an hour to figure out a plan.
We ended up connecting in Seattle and getting makeshift documents at the airport to get us into and out of Mexico.

Had a few hours to kill before our flight from Miami home. It's Sunday afternoon, so we went to South Beach to kill a few hours. We parked the rental car on the main drag, (Collins?) and put our valuables in the trunk. Upon returning to our rental car, the trunk lock had been "popped" and everything was gone! Our ID's, plane tickets, cash, credit cards....all gone. We were in shock. We went to the police station, spent an hour doing a report.

The airline rep told us we had to buy new tickets, and my husband explained we had no money. She made some calls, and we had our police statement...long story short, without ID, or tickets we got on the plane with about 2 min. to spare. (this was before security was so tight, 1994) We were grateful to get on the plane.

Insurance covered most of our loss, but there were personal items taken too.

Since then, I make a copy of my tickets and ID and keep them in my suitcase.

You can't be too careful!

My mistakes usually have to do with being too cheap and/or jumping to conclusions. Case in point: at Xel-Ha in Mexico, there were lockers for valuables. The rental price was the equivalent of an American dollar or two, but for some reason, I didn't convert from pesos and assumed they wanted $24. I thought this was way too much. My husband said he'd just put our money, credit card, cruise ship cabin keys and boarding passes, as well as his contacts, in a ziplock and carry it with him. That seemed fine until I found out (too late) that his new swimsuit didn't have a zip pocket; he'd just stuck the ziplock in his side pocket, then cavorted around in the water until the ziplock floated away. Luckily, they let us back on the ship and gave us new keys. About 2 months later, we received a package from Mexico containing everything but the cash.

Arrived at DIA nice and early for our trip to D.C. and N.Y. last October, congratulating ourselves all the way for being so nice and early, only to discover that dear spouse left wallet containing all forms of ID at home -- a little over an hour away!

Broke all land speed records (O.K., we took the E-470 toll road too, lol) careened back home, grabbed the troublesome wallet and rocketed back to the airport. RAN with luggage to the check in counter, showed I.D. and had counterperson tell us that we just made within a two minute cutoff time for accepting luggage on the flight.

Now every time we leave the house the first question is.....got your wallet?

On our honeymoon we were newbies to travel. We ran out of money a couple of days before we left but managed to scrape enough together for hubby to eat at McDonalds. I still remember sitting on the curb outside the hotel and watching him walk into Mickey D's in Kauai and return with his sad, sorry meal. The next day we took our flight from Kauai to Honolulu for the return to CA. We had many hours to kill and it was Sunday. We were starving and we saw a sign for brunch. We realized, we could use our credit card to pay for a meal. We ate soooo much, like we'd been deprived forever. We also ordered those drinks where you could get the tiki glasses with them. We realized we had been complete idoits in not using the credit card before.

My wife would tell you that I have made some dumb mistakes....

Me? I just refuse to stop and ask for directions!

Holding that stupid fish that I caught, in Sanibel Island, Florida and holding it up for the kids to see.
Dropping the wiggly thing on my foot, where it's fin stabbed a hole through my foot, so I had to go find a doctor and among other miseries, get a tetanus shot.
Dumb...next time you catch a fish, just look at it and let someone else take it off the hook.

Now I don't feel so dumb--but then I had forgotten about the time DH left ALL of our passports in an Amsterdam restaurant. We had copies but amazingly the passports were waiting for him when he returned to the restaurant and hour later.

AA--I think you covered both travel mistakes AND relationship mistakes!

Bonnie--ouch--in more ways than one!

On a camping trip with another family, to an area far from grocery stores. We had planned the food together but each of the guys got ahold of the coolers before us wives noticed...and the ONLY things we had to eat for several days were hamburgers, buns, bacon, eggs and scotch! Absolutely nothing else! It is still a running joke with us...and the kids double check when we pack coolers from now on.

I hate to tell this on myself, but my husband and I had just arrived in Paris, checked in, and went around the corner to the bank I had located before leaving home. He was putting in numbers and there was some confusion on the amount we entered - those pesky decimal places. Well, I got impatient and said, "just push this," which I did. He yelled, "no" and sure enough the machine ate our only ATM card! I got sick. Saturday afternoon, $14 dollars in my wallet and the credit cards until Monday. So we had to find restaurants that would take the credit cards - smaller cafes don't - and missed a concert we had scheduled that night because they only accepted cash Monday morning a nice lady at the bank who understood some English returned our card. It was an interesting few days which my husband has not let me forget

Warning, this is disgusting! On my first visit to Europe when I was 18 I spent a week at my boyfriend's grandmother's house in Germany. I was nervous and felt I was under scrutiny by the whole family. This was some years ago and their bathroom in the house did not have a flush toilet, just a handle with a trap door, like an outhouse. After using the toilet I couldn't figure out how to "flush". I kept trying to push DOWN on the handle, instead of lifting UP. The handle broke off and the trap door fell down into the pit. They had to hire someone to come and crawl down there to fix it. That "boyfriend" and I are celebrating our 34th wedding anniversary this Sunday, so I guess the mistake was not fatal.

This is more in the line of a dumb question I heard.

Standing beside the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge train in the Silverton terminal talking to the conductor, who is also my friend. A lady walked up to him and, in all seriousness, asked: "Can you tell me what time the two o'clock train leaves"?

Hmm you guys got me thinking on this one....

Can remember the night before returning home from Milwaukee that I got incredibly drunk and vomited all over the bathroom. (The friend that I was staying with simply took me bar hopping...and I was too young and stupid to refuse.) Make a long story short, I was hung over the next day, and despite running at top speed to the airport, missed my flight home. I was now left to take a connecting flight via Cleveland to Newark. Any wonder I don't drink anymore??

Another dumb mistake: While in Cancun, while walking through the lobby of my hotel, I slipped and sliced open my knee. I was too tired to really care, and they took me to my room in a wheelchair, but had I known better, I might have complained....turns out the floor was just waxed and there was no signs announcing this.

Two tales, both from my honeymoon. I left all our travel papers, passports and a little cash on a plane from Sydney, to Hamilton Island. This was a long honeymoon. Two nights in Hawaii, 12 days in Fiji, a night in Sydney (had to see the Opera House!), a week saing the Whitsundays, a week in Bali and then return. Our tickets to Bali and return home were part of the documents left on the plane. I did not notice until the next morning, on our sail, several hours from the airport. Our captian told us, 'not to worry mate', I'll contact the Hamilton Island Airport as soon as we get radio reception. About an hour later he was able to contact the airport and we were told our documents had been found and would be waiting at the airport upon our return. I was worried, but when we returned, just one question about the missing documents and they were in our hands one minute later, with nothing missing! (It's a VERY small airport).

So, on to Bali where we enjoyed another week. Our return flight was at 1:00AM in the morning. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time after a nice long farewell dinner, only to discover that our flight had been at 1:00AM the previous morning. We had missed it by 24 hours and the flight that morning was full, so we had to go back the following morning. By this time, we had also missed our other flights by 2 days...from Sydney to LA and LA to Texas, but luckily, not one of the airlines charged us. This was in 1993, way before 9/11.

Man these are truly some boneheaded stories.

I honestly can't think of any mistakes I've made on vacation.

Oh my gosh, I remember it all too well. We had booked a trip to Bermuda with our then 18 month old son. I was told we would need birth certificates for everyone. Well, I had mine and my husband's, and for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me that my little one would need a birth certificate, too. I know, how stupid of me.

To make matters worse, his birth certificate was locked up in our safety deposit box, so we couldn't have anyone go to our house to retrieve it. We live 45 mins. from the airport, so that did not leave enough time to go and come back. I got on the plane with all our luggage, my husband went home with the our son and retrieved the document to prove we weren't kidnapping him. He drove back to the airport and waited for the next flight, which was then cancelled! They didn't get to fly out until the next day!

We have never made a mistake that huge again, or prior. I have always thought of myself as a very organized person, but I think the more years that I am a mom, the more scatter-brained I become.

This was pre 9/11:
Waiting for our flight home from St. Thomas after a glorious time in St.John we are delayed several hours because they can't get the cabin poperly presassurized.

It was getting later, and later and
Mr. R5 and I considered cabbing to
the Westin or such and spending one more night instead of wasting the day
at the STT airport. Well, we didn't and
accepted a flight to JFK then onto
LAX-but we hadn't calculated just how late we were going to be and ended up
running-luggage and scuba gear across roads and terminals at LAX to get to (by a hair!)the last Southwest flight into Oakland. Next time we'll be smart enough to stay in Paradise!
R5

On my last trip (to Peru) I made the mistake of packing a few valuables in my checked luggage: a small battery charger for my digital camera and an even smaller memory card. I hid them under socks and underwear. Well, both these items were stolen at some point at the airport (either Newark, Lima or Cusco), along with a box of granola bars! (Enen stranger: I wrote about this on the South America message board and someone else also had his granola bars stolen on his way to Peru!!)

Luckily after much searching around in Cusco I was able to find a new battery charger for $60. Phew. I think my trip insurance will cover the loss if I can find the $^#& receipt (not likely)!

I could answer this question so many times that all of you would think I was an idiot ... but, I think the dumbest mistake I've made was trying to save the cost of an $11 cab ride in Las Vegas.

I had promised to buy my daughter a t-shirt at the Hard Rock Cafe, and the 2 friends I was with didn't want to go there. We were staying at Circus Circus (don't laugh - not our choice - arranged by the organizers of the cat show we were attending). It was Labor Day weekend and already dark, so it must have been around 9 or 10 p.m.

I took a taxi to the Hard Rock Cafe, grumbling to myself about "wasting" some of my gambling money (which I'd had to borrow from my elderly mother due to poor financial planning). After buying a t-shirt and shorts and browsing a while, I decided to head back to the Strip -- on foot. I asked an employee to point me in the right direction; she pointed and said "that way", and I started walking, confident that I could see the lights of the Strip in the distance.

As I walked, I noticed there were fewer and fewer people and not so many buildings. The places I saw were small clubs, and the other people out walking all seemed to be weaving. I walked around a young woman who seemed to be holding up her boyfriend to keep him from falling ... but on I went. I thought about the small laminated map in my purse, but decided against getting it out, lest someone realize I was "lost". Soon, there was no one on the street but me. No people, no cars ... hmm? A chain-link fence across the street to the left told me I was at the edge of the airport. (Don't ask me how.) The lights from the Strip seemed farther away. Now in a cold sweat, I debated turning around and walking back to the HRC, but decided to press on ... and on ...

Finally, I saw a "road" up in the distance ... and cars! The horizon to the right seemed to be lit up. At last, I arrived at an intersection. I turned right and continued walking toward the light, thinking "if I could just make it to the MGM Grand and sit down."

Finally, there was nothing between me and civilization except one long-haired, tattooed man holding a beer bottle. Trying to look like I knew what I was doing, I squeezed my purse to my side, picked up my pace and walked quickly by. (I wondered if he knew how far it was to the next bar.)

Finally, I arrived at the MGM and stopped for a few minutes to catch my breath.

The rest of the night is sort of a blur. I remember riding on a "tram" in one of the hotels, thinking how nice everone else looked, while I was probably all red-faced and sweatty. I think I had a sandwich at Excalibur, then walked back to the back of the MGM hoping to catch the monorail -- but it had closed for the night. Reluctantly, I got in line for a taxi and waited. I remember the man in front of me fell flat on the seat getting into the back on the cab. The next ride was mine. I told the driver "Circus Circus." He drove out to the highway and took the long way back, instead of going down the Strip, and I paid more than I had paid for the ride to the Hard Rock Cafe.

The next night, I did virtually the same thing -- minus the trip to HRC and getting lost. My friends had tickets to a show I thought I couldn't afford -- well, actually, I preferred to spend my money gambling. Armed with confidence from the previous night, I walked from Circus Circus to Mandalay Bay and back, zigzagging in and out of casinos. I had lots of fun gambling, never had a single drink (I swear), until I finally lost all my money. I finally made it back to the hotel and fell into bed at 4 a.m. At 4:15, the alarm went off, signaling that it was time to get up and get ready for our flight home. On the first leg of my flight home, the little girl in the next seat insisted I play a game with her. On the last leg, I took a well-deserved nap. I can't wait to go back.

Wow! This is easy.

A few years ago we went on our 42 foot trawler to a lovely spot called "Big Bay" between Vancouver Island and mainland BC. Our son was dying to go salmon fishing, so we decided this would be the place. We called ahead on our cell phone to make reservations. It was hard to hear, as the service was spotty, but I understood the cost would be $80 for two people to go out with a guide. We decided my daughter and I would go in one boat, my son and husband in the other boat. Such a deal!

We docked our 42 foot boat into Big Bay and gulped. We felt like we were in a canyon, with huge yachts on either sides. The Thera Foss, owned by the tugboat family, was there and had a Rottweiler on board who had been trained to do his business over the side of the boat.

Off we went on our salmon trip. Such a lovely day, with bald eagles soaring overhead, sparkling blue waters, snow capped peaks! My son caught a couple of salmon we could keep. When we returned one of the guides cleaned the salmon and I gave him a $30 tip. I didn't understand why he scowled at me.

When I went inside to pay, it turns out the cost was $80/hour/boat, and the bill, which I had expected to be $160 was over $800. Shows what I know about fishing! Those were the most expensive salmon we ever ate, and I burned them on our grill, to boot!

A couple of years ago my friend and I were taking our annual trip to Birmingham, Alabama to visit our friend who lives there. We live in PA but it is much cheaper to fly out of Baltimore so we left early in case of traffic. We thought our flight was to leave at 5:35 but it was actually scheduled for 5:15. Well, there was no traffic and we got to the airport before we could even get our boarding tickets, so off to the airport lounge we went for some Red Hook beers to pass the time. When we went to the gate at 5:15 the doors were already closed and we were refused entrance onto the plane. It was the last flight to Alabama that day so we had to spend the night at a hotel (on our bill - so much for saving that money on the flight) and take the 6 a.m. flight the next day. Because the flight is short and there is a time difference, our friends were already waiting for us at the airport by the time we got everything sorted out. Now we are known as her drunk friends who missed their flight because they were in the airport lounge.

I've got another one, but it was someone else's blooper. My husband worked for a company outside of Portland OR, and some Germans were coming to visit. Their company booked them into Portland. They arrived at the airport and asked where they could get transport to Beaverton. They learned the difference between Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon the hard way that day!

Orcas,
You had me thinking the Rottweiler's particular training was going to be central to the story. Shucks!

Beachbum,
No. Thank goodness! Our boat wasn't docked next to the Thea Foss! It was so big it had a dock all to itself....That would have been an even better story, wouldn't it? Yuck!

Orcas, you story reminded me, I heard it on the news a couple of years ago, there was in international convention in Monterrey, Mexico and the group of translators ended up in Monterey (California)- and it was a tour agent who got them the plane tickets.

My husband is a big Denver Broncos fan and a couple of years ago bought tickets to see them play the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore. We live in NY. The game was on a Monday night so we decided to make a weekend out of it and spent Sat and Sun in Washington, DC. The airport we flew out of is about 3 1/2 hours away from our house and at almost exactly the halfway point between our house and the airport, I realized I didn't have the tickets to the game. There was no time to go back home and get the tickets so we called my parents who went to our house, found the tickets, and then overnight mailed them to our hotel in Baltimore so we got them on Monday afternoon. Thankfully the game was on Monday and not Sunday! Now everytime we leave the house, the first thing we do is make sure we have any and all tickets.

While we would all like to be seasoned travelers, I'm sure we've all had lapses in memory and judgement.. a few of my own that come to mind(I was also much younger in my own defense):
1. not enough sunscreen for first week of Mexican honeymoon(though our Frankenstein walk to the poolside bar must have been worth a prize).
2. as an 18 yr. old, not realizing that one needs vet papers and a carrier in order to bring a pet onboard a flight. SOLUTION? I smuggled the tiny chihuaha in my newly purchased ski jacket through security(I was sweating like a drug dealer. It was August in Fresno.). Then, the late Vitas Gerulaitus ended up sitting next to me on the way to San Fran. Though I removed my jacket carefully, the dog yipped and Vitas gave me an odd look.
3. eating bad pineapple on a Hawaiian bound trip. My husband remembers having to stop our rental car before we made it to the hotel(happened to my first son twice on one trip on the plane). Family rule now is no pineapple enroute, no exceptions!

Going to Newport, RI without reservations for accomodations. We found out JUST "how bad can it be" after hours and hours and paying a positively ridiculous rate. (My husband's idea to "be spontaneous".)

I made the mistake of relying on a car rental agency map of Colorado in selecting a "short-cut" route to return to Breckenridge after a long day at Rocky Mtn. Nat'l Park. It was 10 pm, and dark, and the map roads were not labelled well. After an hour of white- knuckle driving on the edge of mountain cliffs on a gravel road, I looked at another map and discovered that we were on the "OH MY GOD ROAD", which it turns out is very aptly named! Needless to say, it was no short-cut.

Bonn - I've read about this road - what a nighttime adventure you had!

We've learned the hard way that we need to bring our own maps, too. Also that distances out west are much greater than distances out east and we need to keep food and gas in the car. We've almost run out of gas in the middle of nowhere in Oregon. On another Oregon trip, we ended up hiking 7 miles on no breakfast. We thought we'd just pop into a 7-11 on the way. Out here (eastern PA) you're never far from a store/gas, and we learned the hard way that that's not the case out west!

We also learned that to fly into Denver and drive that day up to the top of Mt. Evans is not all that smart either. We really felt the effects of the altitude.

We also learned that yes, the desert southwest is a dry heat, but that doesn't mean you can hike in the afternoon when it's 105.

These don't qualify as our dumbest mistakes, but they were important learning experiences!

Great question! I have two that I will post.

The first was our stupid mistake to drive into Washington, DC during the week with no hotel reservations. We figured we could just find a hotel and then do some sightseeing. After calling just about every hotel in the area (we had a AAA guide with hotel listings/phone numbers) we finally found a hotel an hour away in Fredericksburg.

The second one was more recent. We were in Vienna in February and it was absolutely freezing, snowy, etc. We had planned on taking the train for a daytrip to Munich. As this was our first trip to the area and our first train experience, we didn't realize that the "daytrip" would involve 4.5 hours of travel each way. Then we finally arrive in Munich and its so cold (colder than Vienna at the time)and snowy that we stayed an hour, ate at McDonalds, and hopped on the next train heading to Vienna because it was too cold to meander around the streets of Munich.

I alluded to this one on another thread but I think it bears repeating: I had been in NYC visiting my daughter. Departure day came and I asked the front desk staff at the hotel how long they thought it would take to get to the Port Authority Terminal to catch my bus to the Newark airport. They suggested a car service rather than a taxi - they thought it would be safer and more reliable. I scoffed, figuring there was some kind of kickback going on with the car service company. I hailed a cab outside the hotel, chatted pleasantly with the driver on the way there, and then hopped out of the car and paid him. I stood there waiting for him to spring the trunk - which contained my suitcase and a smaller bag with my passport, airline ticket, journal, and a few small purchases in it. The driver sped off with the speed of light (no mean feat at that intersection) and was lost in a sea of yellow cabs. It took days before I realized he had really, actually, unmistakeably done that on purpose! The airline replaced my ticket and I got home OK, but that was definitely DUMB. Had it been a car service, of course, they could have traced the driver. So I guess the front desk staff was right that time. Moral of the story: don't pay until you've got your belongings safely in your hands!

We were headed to Aruba for our honeymoon and we had to change flights at JFK. We didn't have a whole lot of time between our flights, but thought it was adequate. Having never been to JFK, we didn't realize we had to go outside and take a shuttle to get to the other airline terminals (we just assumed it was one big terminal - duh). Needless to say, we missed out flight to Aruba, and there wasn't another one until the next day.

I had traveled a bit before I got married, so I'm not sure why I did this. However, the only things I had in my carry on bag were shoes! I had about 6 or 7 pairs of shoes (hey, it was 1986 - I had to have a different color pump for every outfit I didn't end up wearing)! All our clothes and toiletries went to Aruba, and we were stuck in some disgusting hotel in Jamaica, Queens, NY with a bag of shoes. I vomited and cried the entire night...I was certain I would get to Aruba and have no clothes to wear.

It all worked out. When we arrived at the airport, an airline employee led us to a supply room that contained our suitcases!

The 2nd dumbest mistake I ever made while on vacation was getting off the plane in Manzanillo, Mexico. But that's another story.

Making fun of tourists. While at Windsor Court in New Orleans we saw an older couple at the pool absolutely purple with sunburn. I commented that you'd think at their age they'd know better. Well dontcha know how this post ends.........ouch!

Hate to admit this it is so unlike me....drinking Long Island Iced Teas in the pool at the the Ritz Carlton in Palm Springs in 100 degree heat. We were there for a one night quicky vacation and had already checked out and had our bag held in the lobby. I got sick and we had to stay another night and all they had left was a suite which was beautiful but all I saw of it was the lovely marble floor in the bathroom where I spent the night hating myself (and my husband who ordered those drinks). I also had to call in sick to work the next morning. Humiliating!

coming home from a weeks vacation with the whole family, our flight got in at about midnight. I left the wife and kids at baggage claim, while I went to retrieve the car in long term..Got off the shuttle were I THOUGHT I parked the Bronco. Starting walking,,,,and walking,,,didnt see it anywhere..beginning to think someone stole it..after about 45 mins, and after walking for what seemed like miles, a security guard came by and asked if there was a problem,I explained my dilema, so he told me to get in the truck and we drove up and down the rows searching. After about 30 mins of this, he gets a call on his radio..there was a women in baggage claim worried about her husband who had gone to long term parking and never returned, and had he seen anyone..He radioed back that yes, I was with him and they where having trouble finding my "Bronco"...

There was a long pause, and then he came back on with..." you might wanna look for a Subaru..." DUH!!!!!!!

Ranger..your story is pretty hilarious!

I can't think of anything that I did that was stupid (although I'm sure there's quite a few). I'm pretty anal about doing lots of research (as you can see), so I've prevented quite a few dumb mistakes from happening.

But, our travel agent once booked us an overnight train ticket from Paris to a small town in Portugal. We had to take 2 trains. Well, she didn't realize that we were riding the train overnight, meaning the 2nd train would be taken the next day! She booked both tickets for the same day, meaning the 2nd train was booked for the day before. We had a tough time on the train when we realized this (they tried to kick us off in the middle of nowhere!), but somehow we were able to stay on.

I was on a choir tour of Eastern Europe, where we went from country to country. Upon arrival in Prague I bought a sandwich and pulled out a "twenty" to pay for it. I got change it their local currency. Later I was looking for that last twenty I had in German marks and realized that I had given that to the shopkeeper in Prague, who had accepted it from the dumb tourist....given the difference in the exchange rate, I think it turned out to be about a $15 sandwich. It was such a stupid touristy mistake to make...no wonder I got taken advantage of.

I booked a return flight for an Alaskan cruise a day BEFORE our ship arrived in Vancouver, BC! I checked about changing our Northwest tickets to a day later and learned it would be an additional $3000. I nearly threw up while on the phone. Knowing that I had ruined our summer vacation, I got on line and checked Orbitz trying to think about how I would explain this to my wife who had been reluctant to do an Alaskan cruise. I found one way tickets on Delta from Seattle via Cincinnati that actually gave us a faster connection than our original NW flight schedule. We earned miles on NW, our airline of choice and the tickets were only $79 each! The best $240 I've ever spent. Victory from the jaws of defeat!

I got really irritated with an Egytian kid on a donkey near Luxor Egypt who was relentless in trying to sell me a suvinier. I was hiking in 100 degree heat and very exhausted. I told him to get off of me or I would knock him off his donkey. He understood English very well and told me he was going to get his brothers and beat me up.

I started running like hell and never saw him again. I was totally wrong in saying something like that but I was out of my mind with the severe heat. My bad.

I have two, and both on the same trip.

At 8pm, we had just gotten off a long ferry from the island of Hokkaido in Japan. It was in the dead of winter and I was with my husband our 4 month old baby. We planned to take a short train ride into the city of Aomori to stay the night. We got on the train and I asked the conductor (in my limited Japanese) "is this for Aomori?" while pointing to the floor of the car. He said "yes" and I repeated again, "Aomori??" and he again said "yes, Aomori"

We sat down for our quick ride, but realized something was wrong when the train raced into the countryside. The conductor thought I meant is 'this' Aomori, when I meant "this train". We had been in Aomori where the boat docked!!

We jumped off at the next stop and spent 2 hours waiting for a train back to Aomori. The station was very, very old and had a fireplace to keep us warm. At least it was a charming wait.

About a week later, we arrived in Tokyo. Our Japanese friend had said rooms wouldn't be a problem on a Tuesday night. He didn't live in the city and forgot that the World's fair was happening outside the city, but everyone was sleeping in Tokyo!

Nothing was available (I called every hotel on a list of about 30) and the train station was shutting down for the night.

We asked at the police box and the cop referred us to a taxi driver who would take us to a hotel. $80 for the whole package. It was a huge amount at the time, but we had NO choice. Turned out he took us to a cheap "love nest" hourly hotel.

I knew we'd been taken when the landlady gasped at what the driver told her to collect from us. (He didn't know I spoke Japanese). Doors were opening and shutting all night long, and the place was dirty, but we were glad not to be wandering the streets.

We stole a tea cup to even the score, and keep it as a reminder of our love nest night!

In New Oreans for Jazz Fest two years ago staying at the Hyatt. Second night there got extremely drunk and decided I would return to the hotel, on foot, by myself.. I instead walked to the Hilton (we had walked by it earlier in the day), went up to the 8th floor, and realized the floor did not look right. Instead of realizing right away that I was in the wrong hotel, I thought I must be in the wrong part of the hotel. Went back to the lobby to search for another bank of elevators to take me to a different area of the hotel. Returned to the same spot on the 8th floor about 3 or 4 times before I realized I was in the Hilton. Once I realized my mistake, I stubbornly walked back to the Hyatt, taking the longest possible route through some pretty bad areas near the interstate. I think it ended up taking me about 2 hours to get back to the hotel which should have been about a 15 minute walk.

I had a two hour drive to the DFW airport, where I was supposed to return my rental car and fly home. Even though I thought I gave myself plenty of time, I found myself running late. As I neared the airport I frantically began searching for a gas station to refill the rental car, but couldn't find one anywhere. Now running very late, I turned the car in and paid their outrageous rates for a full tank of gas (even though I only need a half tank.) The rental car company charged me $65.00 to fill that gas tank up! (At the time, gas was about $1.20 per gallon in Texas.)

The worst part is that when I got to the gate to catch my flight, I found out that I wasn't late at all. In fact, I was two hours early! For some reason, I got confused about my flight departure time and didn't even consider doublechecking my itinerary paperwork.

Boy did I feel like an idiot!

I went on a day trip to the boarder town on Nuevo Laredo with some buddies. On the way back it was dark and everyone else including the driver was drunk.

we were in the middle of the dessert and I got desperate because of the dangerous driving and asked the driver to pull over. He did and I ran into the night. They took off and I wondered for about four hours along the road.

In the mean time the driver got stopped for drunk driving and the police found out there was another person who got left in the desert (me). They all got hauled to the police station because they thought the missing person got beat up and left to die. Hours later the police spotted me. They told me that the rest of them were in this little town all under arrest.

All these years later I still think I did the right thing. One of the guys was nearly shot when the police stopped them because he was wheelding a stick which they thought was a gun.

Well, folks, can we all agree that that extra drink or two can really get us into big trouble............???

Some of these stories are just hilarious, and Jayne, the one you started off with is still one of the funniest!

Here's another one of my "mistakes":

Seven or 8 years ago, a couple of days before my first trip to Canada, my old Ford Aerostar broke down, and I rented a small compact car from a local rental company. I successfully made the 2-hour drive to DFW the morning of my trip, but stupidly laid the car keys inside the trunk as I was getting out my luggage. Before I realized it, I had shut the trunk lid with the car keys inside. Figuring I would deal with it when I got home, I proceeded with my flight and had a great time in Edmonton and Calgary. Returning home, I called the the Dallas branch of the car rental company, who referred me to "Pop-a-Lock". The Pop-a-Lock service agreed to meet me in the airport parking lot, so I took the shuttle to the lot containing my car. After waiting sbout an hour, the guy showed up and promptly infomred me he could only open car doors -- not trunks -- but said he would "try". He fiddled around for about an hour, trying different tools (in addition to putting a few scratches on the trunk lock). Finally, I asked if there was any possible way to get into the trunk from inside the car. I guess neither of us were familiar with the design of small compact cars, as we both soon discovered all he had to do was unlock the car door, and fold down the back seat to reach inside the trunk. Boy, did we both feel stupid! Net time elapsed from end of flight to getting back in my car -- four hours! -- longer than the time it took for my flight from Canada to Texas.

I agree BB, these are too funny!

Reading the honeymoon stories reminds me of another "dumbest travel related mistake" that happened to us but was not OUR mistake. A "friend" decided to pull a prank on us on our honeymoon. When I opened up my case of birth control pills --ON OUR WEDDING NIGHT -- this joker had replaced them with chicklets. No need to elaborate on THAT night any further.

The next morning we went into a pharmacy and tried explaining what had happened; we even showed the pharmacist the evidence. He just walked away without saying a word, came back and GAVE me full pack. The only thing he ever said was "if you tell anyone I did this I'll deny it to my death".

That was almost 20 years ago before the days of FedEx and mega drugstores!

Jayne...same thing happened to my brother and s-i-l on their wedding night. Yikes...if those are friends, I'd hate to see their enemies! I don't know what their "work around" was but you were lucky.

This story is a hoot to both my husband and I now that its about 10 years later. We had rented a home in Cape Cod for two weeks. At the time we rented, our girls who ran track on the Junior Olympics circuit, hadn't qualified for the Nationals. Well, since money was tight, we decided he would take the girls to the Nationals and I would take the boys to Cape Cod. We would all be together a few days later. So my beloved husband shows up three days later, tired but glad to be there. After an hour he asks where the bedroom is because he wants to take a shower and a nap. He yells down the hall, asking where his clothes are. I say well where'd you put them. He says all he has is the overnight bag with the clothes he took to the track meet, where's the rest of his clothes? I ask, "Well, where'd you put them?" Seems he assumed I would pack for him and bring him clothes from home (I didn't). Never having packed for him (an adult male of over 40 years old) in the past, I asked him why he assumed I would do so now? (I never did get an answer to that question.) So, we had to go out and buy my husband a complete wardrobe for our two weeks on the Cape. It's funny now, but at the time it wasn't very funny to him.

Two dumb mistakes:
1. Many many years ago, my sister and I were going on our first vacation without our parents. My sister took out her airline ticket to show one of her friends and forgot to put it back. We didn't realize this until we got to the airport. There was no time to go back home so my mom sent the ticket up via taxi. However, the taxi didn't get there in time. About one minute before they were closing the doors, the airline staff came and told us we could board without the ticket! Boy were we relieved.
2. More recently (like last Fall), my husband and I went to Phoenix for our vacation. When we got to the rental car counter, my husband decided to rent it in his name on his Mastercard, rather than my American Express card (which covers some insurance). Sure enough, we're driving away from the Grand Canyon, where it has just started snowing by the way, and a herd of deer run in front of us across the road. The first deer gets by safely but the second one, a huge buck, runs into the side of the car. A huge crunching noise and we think the whole side of the car must be caved in. When we get out and look, however, it's just the driver's side mirror that's damaged. We spent the remainder of our trip driving around to GM dealers trying to find one that had a replacement mirror for that make and model. Luckily, our blunder only cost about $200--could have been much, much worse (and no one was hurt). We've learned our lesson: either use the Amex card or buy the insurance.

dwooddon, I had a similar experience in Jasper National Park. There was a lady on the same tram going up the mountain as we were. She asked the tour guide (referring to various wild animals bears, elk, cougar etc.) "when do you put the animals away?"

She was perfectly serious.

OO--you know what they say about payback. This guy got married a few months later and DH and several other uncouth buddies put a frozen fish under each hubcap.

I had the exact same thing happen to me but it was in Wahington D.C. I had been living in a corporate apartemtn for 6 months of Mon. to Fri. outside of Philly. My work stint finally came to an end, and I had boxed up all my stuff and shipped it back to D.C I didn't want to ship my vauables (good jewlery, laptop, DVD player, etc.) so I brought those back in the suitcase on Amtrak. When I got out of the cab at my office in D.C., the cab driver took off, but he never even got paid and without popping the trunk. I had to file insurance claims and police reports. Not sure how I could have stopped that form happening- but I ALWAYS get the driver's ID and cab number when I get in a taxi now, and I write it down, and I let them see me write it down, so there is no thought of anything like that happening again.

I meant to write my post to Meetshare, as he/she posted on almost the same thing happening.

Yes, one is still pretty vivid:
My mom and I went to see the Fantasy Island waterfalls on Kauai one Saturday morning. Somehow, we didn't realize the falls were visible from the curved road in(where people had been standing prior to our discovery). So we park ahead, in the turnaround, and proceed to follow a trail into a cane field. We walked maybe 100 feet in, spot some "workers", big brawny guys with machetes who gave us a definite "evil eye". Figuring we'd made a severe mistake, we turned on our heels and got back to the parking lot. My mom walked around the curve where she spotted the falls and called me over. We took our photos(the other tourists had left), and I went back to bring the car around for my mom. I was just about to the car when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, three guys quickly duck down behind the cane near the car! In a panicked voice, I called my mom's name. She walked toward me, (my face was white, she said later), and thank heavens, she had the intuition that we were in danger. She started to call my father's name in a loud voice. The guys took off running, and we ran to the car, locked the doors and sped off. In our fear, we didn't stop to warn a couple who were about a mile from the falls in their car. The next morning, the paper said a couple was robbed at gunpoint of their valuables around the same time. Talk about guilt. I'll always believe we had a guardian angel that day. I shudder to think about us being left for dead in that field(my younger teenage sister had stayed at the hotel). I had posted this before, and every time someone asks about things to do on Kauai, it flashes into my memory. I'd hate to scare anyone off, and this was in the early eighties, but we were told by a local that a few in law enforcement were related to many members of the "growing operation", and were reluctant to do much. I later lived on Maui for a year, and heard several stories about people wandering into "out of the way" areas and being confronted. I've since returned many times over the years, and believe common sense should be first and foremost. Sometimes, those photo ops or looking for the unspoiled areas are not worth taking chances, paradise or not.

Oh, wow. I have sooo many!

I guess the most entertaining would have to be on a trip we took to Anguilla a few years ago.

We were staying at a resort that was just up the beach from a restaurant we wanted to try, so we asked one of the waitstaff at lunch if we should get a cab or just walk.

Lauren said it wasn't far and was an easy walk, so we set out in the early evening along the beach. (It had just gotten dark.)

Before too long, the gorgeous sandy beach came to an abrupt halt and changed to rocks of varying shapes and sizes. Still we soldiered on. (Despite my footwear being a pair of low-heeled fashionable metallic sandals.)

Next we encountered a brackish area where we were assailed by an onslaught of mosquitos the size of pterydactls. (I was almost carried off.)

Around the corner from there, we had to walk red-facedly by several carloads of couples parked along the shoreline having vocal "love encounters."

An hour later, past the pile of oyster/conch shells and fish guts from the day's catch (which I happened to step in/onto with the aforementioned previously-fashionable metallic sandals), we managed to arrive at the highly-recommended restaurant, only to have a meal reminiscent of Red Lobster.

Upon leaving, we mentioned the hike it took to get there and were told there was an extremely straight, flat and uncircuitous road which led directly fron the resort to the restaurant which toook less than 10 minutes to navigate.

We saw it the next day in our rental car... on the way to the market to look for something to assuage the itching from the mosquito bites and buy new sandals.

The dumbest mistake I've ever made on vacation was spending WAAAYYYYY too much for a leather coat in Florence. I thought I had done all my research before I left, but noone told me to bargain for my leather purchases! I still cringe each time I see that coat in the closet.

In 1999, mr_go and I took at week-long trip to the Loire Valley. I booked the rental car through my employer's corporate travel desk, because they offered a good discount. They ultimately booked it through Auto Europe and sent me a "confirmation," which I never looked at and shoved into my carry-on (okay, work was really hectic at that point). So I never noticed that they had failed to send me the required voucher or any indication of which rental car company our reservation was with. So we stumble off the plane at CDG at 8am, only to find out that we have to go from counter to counter, stand in long lines, and, in broken French and hand gestures, try to find out which agency was holding our reservation. Of course, it was the last one we visited.

All's well that ends well. We ended up with an upgrade to a Mercedes, but it was a big waste of time that I hope never to repeat again. From then on, I have done all the booking myself.

I don't know if it is a royal boo boo but a few years back I use to overpacked for a vacation. Brought way too much. Now I'm more likely to bring a pilot case and carry on bag and that is it, especially when travelling to warmer climates.

Well there was the time (in my much younger and dumber days) when I locked the keys inside our rental car...while parked on Dayton Beach...as the tide came in! How to explain to Hertz that their car is in Cuba??

A few years back, my husband & I and another couple were in a park somewhere near Sedona. It was a February morning and a little chilly so I had a coat on. It was one of those LL Bean barn coats with large pockets and I was carrying my wallet in one of them. My girlfriend and I went in to use the restroom which was a building with about six stalls containing non-flush toilets. I'll spare you the details of exactly how it happened, but suffice to say my wallet fell out of the coat pocket and directly into the toilet's tank. I remember the loud splash and me making a kind of groaning noise because my friend in the next stall said she somehow knew immediately what happened. Well, she goes out to tell our husbands as I stay behind freaking out. I had several hundred dollars in cash, my checkbook, and all my id and credit cards in the wallet. The next hour was spent with my poor husband leaning halfway into the toilet tank using a long board with a nail that we found near the bathrooms to try to hook the wallet. You can imagine the confusion as other women came to use the facilities and see us all hanging around this toilet! Luckily (and I use that term loosely in this story), the tank had just been emptied that morning and quite miraculously, he was able to hook the wallet and drag it up the side of the tank. We tossed it in a ziplock and drove to our very fancy bed and breakfast in Sedona where we proceeded to sterile anything we needed to keep and tossed the rest. It was pretty funny later when we walked into our room and there was money hanging out to dry all over the place. Sorry it's a pretty gross story but once it was over, it was pretty hysterical.

Gee jetset--

You should put that one on the "hair-raising" post. Thank goodness you weren't hurt as well as the couple who was robbed.

I think we tend to let our guard down when we are on vacation. Somehow that invincible feeling of a teenager seems to return that week or two!

Almost ten years ago, we flew to Hawaii to get married. We used a TA who had no idea what she was doing apparently. The hotel's wedding coordinator was at a conference leaving us to wander around trying to find the marriage license place ourselves, which was being re-done due to Asbestos and the office had been temporarily relocated - where no one knew. We finally found it and got our application and everything in order. Wanted to keep it small, so we had someone take pictures with our own camera, and ended up shooting over the same film, not realizing it, so we essentially have no wedding pictures. The following day, out at Pearl Harbor, I went to take pictures, tripped on a sprinkler head, went spinning, picking up speed and didn't stop until I fell between the ropes and the cement parking blocks. Because of that, not only did I have difficulty walking for the remainder of the honeymoon, but I was not able to go into the ocean OR the pool due to the probability that I would get an infection. We finally returned to Hawaii for the first time in February because we felt like we were almost jinxed there. I'm very happy to report that except for being stranded on Oahu for the first night, once we got off of the island and on to Kauai, things went great!

Knowing: The disaster with your wedding pictures reminded me of a dumb mistake I made while preparing for a vacation -- my honeymoon 28 years ago. The week before my wedding, I bought my first ever 35mm SLR camera at WalMart and stocked up on film, planning to take lots of pictures on our honeymoon trip to San Antonio. I guess I was so excited about getting married that I just naturally assumed the WalMart clerk would know I wanted COLOR film. (Yes, I can read, but I just didn't bother.) Needless to say, we ended up with 7 packages of black-and-white pictures from our trip. Determined to have color pictures of our honeymoon, we repeated the entire trip 6 months later, this time with color film!

What a fun thread! It makes me feel better about all my blunders.

Possibly the dumbest thing I've ever done on vacation was trying to drive in Washington DC during the evening rush hour. I wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial at sunset, so went down to the hotel valet and requested my rental car at about 5:00 pm. I figured I could find my way around easy enough. Who knew they change so many of the streets to "one way" at evening rush? I spent an hour driving in circles. I could see the memorial, but just could not find anyway to get there from here. Finally I returned to the hotel and as I returned the keys to the valet I said, "If I ask for these keys at anytime before I checkout to leave DO NOT GIVE THEM TO ME!" Now when I visit DC I just rely on the metro.

I didn't take the time to read all the posts, so this might have already happened to someone, but I once had to put my boss's family's suitcases on a Greyhound bus to meet up with them in Seattle as they realized halfway during the drive to SeaTac to catch their flight to Florida that they had left them sitting in the foyer of their house.

My husband and I were on our way for a 2.5 day trip to NYC. (All the time we could get that fall) We decided to leave wallets and purses at home, traveling only with two backpacks. After traveling nearly 250 miles to the Mpls airport after work, he realized that he had left his ID and credit cards in his wallet, back on the kitchen counter.
Luckily, we had a spare key hidden under our deck at home, a cell phone and a good friend. She crawled under the deck,in the dark, found the cards, scanned them into our computer and e-mailed them to a local Kinko's in Mpls who printed them out.
He underwent quite the search at the airport each way, but this was in the fall of 2002 and security was much tighter.
We had a whirlwind tour of NYC. Had major shin splints from walking, met lots of helpful people and can't wait to return when we have more time so we can see museums and more of the city.

We visited York in Britain - an old walled city. Found a B&B for the night, had dinner and after dinner, insisted (against my husband's wishes) that we drive into the old part of York. Wandered around, then realised that (a) we didn't know which gate we had entered the old town; (b) didn't know the name of the B&B (where all our belongings were); (c) didn't know the name of the street where we were staying; and (d) didn't even know which district. Spend a long time driving around until we spotted some thing that looked familiar and eventually found our home for the night. I'm still living that one down!
Now we always carry the hotel's business card and a map.

The day before leaving for a summer in England I left my purse with ALL of my spending cash ($600 was alot to me 20 years ago)hanging on the back of a chair at an ice cream parlor on High Street by the Ohio State campus. Went back hours later and they had it behind the counter.... all the money still inside! Whew!

Going back home! Does that count..

This must be the dumbest,I think. Travelling alone from Saigon to Paris, I returned my allotted seat in Row 9 because I suddenly realised it wasn't a window seat.
On the plane, I realised I had changed my up-graded business class seat back to the economy window seat I had paid for. Ugh!!!

After the non-stop LAX-LHR we picked up our rental and headed west toward Salisbury of course were"punchy" from the flight and the time change.

We stopped for lunch and then took off again.

After about a half hour it dawned on me that the sun was coming in the wrong side of the car.

I had driven quite a way back to LHR

Back in college, I studied abroad in Sheffield, England along with 30 classmates. One weekend a group of about 10 of us did a trip to Scotland. One the return trip at night, we were on the train for what seemed like a long time when an annoucement came on that the Sheffield stop was closed. So, I went (alone) back to another train car to ask for help since we didn't know our geography very well. The lady told me that we should get off at the next stop and they would take us by taxi for free to the Sheffield train stop. Well, walking back to our train car, another annoucement came on that the train was nearing its next stop (can't remember the name). Well, I freaked out, told all of my friends that we had to get off the train NOW -- go, go, go!!! We all grabbed our stuff in a matter of 1 minute and got off the train...to a completely empty platform, in the dark (9pm), and NO ONE else got off.

Turns out, we were about 2 hours from Sheffield. The lady on the train meant that we were to get off at the next stop AFTER Sheffield, not the next train stop on the journey. There was one poor old man holding down the fort at that station, and after several heated conversations between me, him, and the train people, they agreed to take us in taxis to Sheffield for free (we had no money on us to afford that ride).

10 pissed off friends, 20 pissed off parents (they all called their parents that night from pay phones), and 1 very embarrassing morning the next day in class...priceless!!! SG

Here's SEVERAL.

I booked a place just south of Calgary, as a stop-off point before heading for Banff National Park. Didn't notice till I started heading for Banff, but I was driving through Calgary on the opening day of the Stampede!

Decided to view a couple of waterfalls near the quiet town of Telleride. Quiet, that is, except during the Telleride Bluegrass Festival, when 10,000 people descend on this town of 300 residents. The traffic patrol (amazingly) believed my story that I just wanted to see the waterfalls and let me drive through the town without paying the entrance fee.

Had never even heard of the Calais - Saint Stephens Festival, but ended up staying in Calais the day of the parade (and narrowly missed the closing of the bridge over the border).

Do I see a pattern here? Don't worry, I've made several others!

Calculated it would take eleven hours to travel to my first day's stop, thus meaning I could get to the motel before it got too late. Didn't figure that I might hit traffic in the Boston area during rush hour (well, duhhh!!), and arrived at the motel at almost 2 am.

Calculated the miles of a hike WITHOUT including the return miles, and didn't realize the mistake till I was four hours from the trailhead with only three hours of daylight left. Hiked as fast as I dared, and ended coming down a mountain trail in pitch dark.

I left my daily medicine at our home, missing my Lipitor for almost three weeks. A pharmacist at our first town we came to said I could only get a refill by going to an emergency room; my mail order pharmacist said I should have had a neighbor go into my house and Fed-Ex my bottle. In case you're wondering, my doctor said going without Lipitor for three weeks was the best choice.

Taking my brothers in law to Vegas (my hubby feels sorry for them). We paid for the trip and all they had to pay for was their gambling and souveniers. They had 3 months to save up and my one brother in law brought a whopping $30.00. So guess who had to give him money to gamble with?

I actually put my backpack on my back getting of a train in italy. Got blocked at the door and pushed to get off,just barely saving our stuff as the blocker's gypsy partner had gotten both zippers on the bag undone but hadn't yet taken anything. We were very lucky!

This is an old one.

I've been pretty careful, but this comes to mind.

It was my guy, who is an absolute top engineer and tech person. He retired at 53, and can fix the unfixable. You need to know that first. He and I are both not young.

Well we did the Grand Canyon all day long. He had a new digital camera. He had been posing on ledges and hanging with back views and seating me places etc. etc. He had me going into all kinds of places I'd prefer not to go and spent 1/2 the time fooling with picture framings etc. But the views were outstanding, of course.

After we have driven about 140 miles to the next destination, he sat down on the hotel bed, and one of my strongest memory of him is the look I saw on his face.

He sat down, went to adjust some computer defaults and change a disc. and had with 2 clicks succeeded in erasing all our pictures.

I'll never forget the look on his face. He just kept saying, "I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I did that."

He wanted to drive back and redo, but I won out and we spent some time in Sante Fe. I'd only known him a couple of years then, but I know now that when he tries to get everything "perfect" there is always some danger or risk involved.

I accidently left my house keys in my check-in luggage when flying home from brazil thinking to myself all during the VERY long flight back from Sao Paulo "what if they lose my bag". They didn't lose my bag, but I learned my lesson.

JJ5, I know this is too late to help you, but I did that exact thing once on a vacation to Hawaii and I was sick about it. After I got home I even took the memory card to a camera store and they said they couldn't retrieve anything. I did some research and found a website where I could download something (for $20) and retrieved all my pictures! I don't remember the specific site anymore, but here are a few options:
http://www.iolo.com/sm/6pro/indexsr.cfmhttp://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=3

http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=3

My wife and I spent a wonderful 18 days in the Lake Chapala area of Mexico. The day before we were to leave I made a deal with a Taxi Driver to take us to the airport in Guadalajara. He arrived on time and even helped with the luggage. We made it to the airport with time to spare. Once at the check-in counter I presented our tickets and passports. The clerk studied them very very carefully. He then handed them to the clerk in the next window. He also looked at the tickets and then the passports and then again at us. He then picked up a phone and the "suit" arrived. He too scanned the material. Finally he spoke ," Senor , I am very sorry but your plane left yesterday without you." It cost an extra $50.00 each to get on the plane but the story is priceless.

While at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon I locked the keys in my rental car. We were hurrying to catch the arriving shuttle and I laid the keys on the back seat while I was getting something out and shut the door before I realized I didn't have the keys.

We were lucky that the garage at the canyon was still open. I think it cost me $50 or $60 to get the car unlocked, otherwise we would have had to spent the night there (with no reservation) or paid who knows how much to get a locksmith from Williams or Flagstaff.

My dumbest mistakes are finding myself alone in dangerous areas... In London, Paris, LA and NYC. I should know better but I would just get caught as it's getting dark and find myself suddenly all alone.
Scariest place was the Père Lachaise Cemetary in Paris. I was so freakin' scared. It got dark quickly and I found myself almost lost in the dark. I felt I was being followed... I know I was being followed. Here I was, a female tourist all alone in this huge cemetary.
Geez.
I suddenly heard some American teens talking and laughing somewhere in the distance and I literally ran until I got close enough to yell out to them to wait up.
Even with 6 of us it was scary. They were from St Louis, just a few miles from my corporate office!
Stupid, stupid...

Flying back from Phoenix to SFO I was stopped at the security x-ray machine as they were unusually interested in my backpack. This was pre-9/11.

I felt like a total ass when they made me take everything out and I realized that I had forgotten about the 12 razor sharp steak knives I had bought earlier in the week.

At that point I wasn't sure what would happen next - am I able to check the backpack? Would my purchase get confiscated?

To my surprise (and horror, actually) after I told the security officer I had forgot that I'd purchased them - he said it was fine and let me through to board the plane - knives and all.

My biggest mistake was clearly locking my keys in the rental car. This, by itself, was overcome-able, but then the rental car company gave me the wrong key ('ignition', but not the 'door', which I obviously needed) and ruined my plans.

Other than that I've had a few map misinterpretations, some of which probably cost me serious time and distance, but I haven't had any complete flub-up's that I didn't allow reasonable time to overcome.

My date and I went out drinking to an after hours club in a small island in the Caribbean: no electricity, no running water, and an outhouse in the back. Our friends got straight rum and coke and we two fools had rum punches with lots of coconut juice and other goodies. I was sick for 24 hours and he wound up in the hospital for 3 days.

going to maui trying to save a troubled and doomed marriage! The worst vacation of my life.

walking into the Vegas airport about 2 minutes after they stopped all flights on 9/11 and walking up to some airport person at the door to see what to do and saying

"This has never happened to me before".

No kidding...what a dumb thing to say.

I think Carrabella wins.

Thank, Maggi, for the info. They tried but couldn't retrieve the pics. I heard the same thing, that now they could do it. But it was for more than $20.

Actually I did put it on another long past thread before, but I did do something that was a "winner" in any dumb category.

In 1983 on a trip to Germany / Berlin- I went shopping and into the underground without knowing what hotel my parents and aunt had checked us into. This was VERY BAD as the process to get into the American sector had been bad enough without getting myself into this kind of directional problem.

I was really, really scared and it was not good. I found a taxi driver who didn't understand much German or any English. He drove me around long enough so that I could figure out where I had to go by following the Berlin wall and the tower look outs etc. Since then I always try to find matches or something with the name and address of the hotel on it when I'm with a group. And I don't leave the thinking to others either.

We had just come from 3 days with DDR soldiers accompanying us everwhere in East Germany. I think I was so happy to get somewhere without them that I went caution blank for awhile.

Biggest mistake I made is not adequately informing the wife that when in Southern California, you measure how long it takes to get somewhere in time/minutes, not miles.
She thinks something 40 miles away is 40 minutes.
She got a rude awakening in going from Universal Studios to Huntington Beach - in rush 'hour'.......

Leaving my credit card at the front desk when checking into a hotel. And then leaving to go about my business for the day. Luckily, the desk clerk was honest and left the card under my door in the room. I did not even know it was missing. From then on I always make sure I get my card back at check in.

Leaving my passport at the Shannon Airport in Ireland and not knowing it untill I got to Doolin and having to drive all the way back to get it.

thinking a short vacation in Vegas with my teenage kids would be fun! Not!! At least we were driving in from southern California; can't imagine making it a big trip with kids from a faraway destination!

I was on a bus in Bermuda with my daughter. There were no seats left, so we chose to stand up while the bus was speeding and swaying from side to side on curvy roads (while the driver was engaged in a cell phone conversation!)

My daughter held on to nearby seat backs, but I used both hands and held on to the overhead bars. It didn't hurt and just pulled my arms from side to side. What harm could that do? It tore tendons and pulled BOTH of my arms out of the shoulder sockets. After unsuccessful shoulder surgery, I gave up and live with the results. I don't think I'll ever go back to Bermuda, but if I do I will certainly boycott Bermuda buses!