Hi,
It's very interesting to know about the most unpleasant travels (some problems occured during ur trips)

No where I've been has been all that bad (well, there are some places that I would rather not go to, like Houston, but they're not all that awful), but I have had some bad experiences getting to and from places. Which one do you mean?

maybe there occured some overbookings in the hotels, rudeness during the flights, in the restaurants

I try to roll with the punches and concentrate on the things that are going well; it doesn't do any good to dwell on the "worst" - you deal with it and move on.

Staying with my in-laws in Maine for two weeks over Christmas and New Years -- I had severe bronchitis the whole trip. My husband got pneumonia. We didn't have a car to 'escape', so were at the in-laws mercy for transportation. We're from Florida, so the winter kicked us in the belly

Maybe we are lucky, or maybe we take only the good part of the things-, but I can not say that I had a worst travel!

Ah, but even the worst day traveling is better than the best day at work, right?

Seriously, 'worst' is a very relative term. If you've traveled twice, once is best and the other is worst, even if they were both great. If you've traveled a dozen times, you still have a best and a worst, though it may be more difficult to figure it out

Two actual experiences of travelling, rather than being somewhere, stick out in my mind. The first, and probably worst, was a bus trip from Ibbenbueren, Germany (in Northwest Germany) to some town somewhere in Slovakia (not Bratislava). It was part of a music exchange thing, and they told us it would be a 6-8 hour trip. Unfortunately, someone either couldn't calculate distance or speed (the fact that buses are limited to about 60 mph on the Autobahn didn't help), and it was actually a 24 bus ride, on a bus with roofs so short we had to take turns standing under the air vent, as that was the only place we could stand upright. And it was too small to sleep properly. Yeah, that was pretty much awful.

The second was this past summer; I was on La Maddalena, an island north of Sardinia, Italy, and had to get home to Dallas. That involved a ferry from the island to the mainland of Sardinia, a van from the ferry to the airport in Olbia, a flight to Rome, a flight to Detroit, and a flight to Dallas (I didn't get to pick the flights, which is why it wasn't nonstop). A total of 24 hours travelling time, on just about every non-animal type of transportation (I think there was even a shuttle-type train in there somewhere, at one of the airports). That wasn't much fun, either.

But wasn't La Maddalena so worth it?

my first overseas trip was the owrst of my life. Traveled with a friend of 20 years who has traveled solo all over the world. She turned out to be the meanest, most sadistic person who was so critical of everything I did and said. I almost got out of the car in the middle of the night with my bags to go home. I will never forget those 2 weeks of hell. When I got home, I told my husband that I had to go back to Italy next year with him so I would have good memories of that beautiful country. We did, and now we're hooked.

La Maddalena was absolutely worth it (going home might not have been, I would have rather had a few more days there, plus the 5 hour layover in the Rome airport was just cruel, only a little too short to actually go into town and see something).

Sandi - I truly sympathise! In 1990 I took an fellow "school mom" on a trip to France and to my absolute horror found out very early into the trip that she was a case of "One flew over the cuckoo's nest". High on tranquilisers all the time she virtually slept through the whole trip.

Sandi, I sympathize as well. You really never do know until its 24/7 and away from home.

My worst was a trip to a family farm and resort with my kids years ago. I got symptoms of a horrendous flu upon arriving and spent the entire 5 days in a 101 plus fever.

One of my few memories of the five days was of a doctor coming in once, trying to sip soup, and another time hearing a "konga line" of kids going through the outside room during a nighttime camp event- all beating drums. I thought I was halucinating. LOL!

I have had some bad travel experiences, and they are painful to remember on different levels. I have never cried so hard as when I left Spain after my year abroad there. I was already miserable to have to leave my friends and host families, so the tears were already there. However, it got much worse when we flew into London. It was unusually hot, and we were detained on the runway for 3 hours. I went from sobbing into my airplane pillow to fainting, and was almost taken off the flight (think goodness the other students said it wasn't necessary). Well, we arrived to NYC really late and I missed my connection to Dallas, meaning I would have to spend a night there. I was so exhausted that I didn't even care, but my mother (who had not seen me for a year)went balistic over the phone and I thought my dad might have to sedate her (we are not normally drama queens, but this was a very tumultuous time). I finally left early the next morning after 2 hours of sleep.

This past summer my mother and I got to Venice and when I finally found our hotel, the guy claimed we had no reservation. He even said "we have a reservation for 2, but not under your name." I had out the reservation number and everything, and it was around 9 pm, but he said we could not stay there. So, we had to go find another hotel and my mother started crying she was so tired and upset. I yelled at the guy and he said he would call the carbinieri. So. . . we found another hotel and in the morning resolved the whole thing and went back to the first hotel. The guy nearly had a heart attack when he realized that it had been his mistake and when we checked out a day early, citing his behaviour and our dislike of Venice, the owner was none too pleased.

Morocco - lots of flies, lots of dirt, bargaining for everything (including groceries), awful stomache upsets BUT met some great friends there who we keep in touch with years later.
Carolena