things you have lost on a trip
 

have you ever lost anything on a trip? ...your purse? your wallet? your car keys? your jacket? your kids? your mind?

Left my husband's wallet on the toilet paper holder in a McDonalds during a quick stop while in route home after a vacation... the wallet had actually been turned in when we called to check hours later!

My very favorite story is my close realtives' story: They lost my aunt! While on their way home from a camping trip with a camper that sits on the back of a pick up ... the kids in the back thought mom was in the front and my uncle thought she was in the back with the kids after they pulled out of a gas station! My aunt had to borrow money from a stranger to take a bus the rest of the way home!!!

Years ago I was taking the train to Montreal with some friends and we were getting some fresh air by standing and chatting in the between-the-cars area (in fact, someone was probably having a cig). I stuck my head out the open side and my glasses blew right off my face. They're probably still there somewhere, in-between Toronto and Montreal

In Pompeii, Italy last week, I was carrying an umbrella and my Rick Steves book which I'd been using as my primary guidebook all over Italy. I had a camera around my neck and was tired of carrying all this crap all day.

I finally put down the book and the umbrella for just a few minutes, in an area where I thought there were mostly tourists. I was just taking a few pictures. I came back a minute later and the umbrella was falling off the step, so I set it back up, walked away again for two more minutes. And when I came back, the book and umbrella were gone! Swiped. Now this cheap umbrella had been free anyway, and the book was a 2006 version not worth much - but I had Rome to tour yet and really needed the book! A 2006 Rick Steves book couldn't be worth much to anyone else, could it?

In Naples at the national museum a few hours later, I saw an American couple carrying a 2007 Rick Steves book. Little introduction seems necessary when you meet fellow Rick Steves fans - it's like you know each other already. I was so mad about losing my book that I had to complain to someone, so I just blurted out to them that someone had swiped my book. And the man was like, "Take ours." And I'm like, "No, no, that's OK..." and he's like, "No, really, we're out of here TOMORROW." And I'm like, "Really? Are you sure?" Then I looked at the woman, who had this stony look of "He's offering WHAT, to this STRANGER???" and I immediately declined, thanking them for their generous offer. Sure was nice of this guy to offer a stranger his book after 10 seconds, though, huh?

Back at my hotel, which has in the lobby a section of "old travel books" tourists leave behind at the end of their trips, I found, miraculously, a well-used 2007 Rick Steves Italy book! The back cover was ripped off the book and a few pages missing, but the Rome section was intact! So I took it. I felt a little guilty taking it, but a brand new Lonely Planet Italy book remained, among others. I'm sure the person who left the Rick Steves book behind would be happy for me to take it knowing what happened to mine - that person saved me a lot of trouble. Whoever you are, thank you!!!

It never did rain on my entire trip to Italy - but I hope the person who swiped the cheap umbrella will get some use out of it!

On a trip to Sardinia last summer, we lost the case to our camera (in which I had put the charger and an extra battery). It just disappeared! The only thing we could figure out is that we (that would have been my DH) put it on the roof of our rental when we were stopped at a lookout to take some pictures. We went back to look for it but never found it. I replaced the case and the charger and now only keep the camera in the case. And my DH lost his favorite hat on the Tower of Terror at Disneyworld (blew right off his head). But nothing I've read so far tops losing an aunt!

I left 2 pair of shoes in Cinque Terre. We are 56---well traveled---NEVER have left a thing anywhere!! We always check and recheck before we leave!

When we got back, decided to to to Marshall's to replace them. No luck, but did find a cute designer skirt. The very odd thing was, the tag inside the skirt (for the collection) said "Cinque Terre".

My then 3 year old sons stuffed lion, Barney, at a Disney hotel back in 1988. He wouldn't sleep for days. Called the hotel, the said they hadn't found it. Ended up calling the San Diego Zoo where Barney was from, they overnighted one to me! Lucky too, since they had discontinued the size, and only had the 1 left.
Barney came home, all fluffy and clean, I had to tell my son he was at the hair salon getting spiffed up on vacation.
Still has Barney!

My Sunglasses are part of the Rhode Island coast...they also just flew off my face this summer. My hat did too, but I recovered that. So, the cheap hat from Target, $3.50 -found; the very expensive prescription sunglasses - gone.

We also have a lost stuffed animal story. Maids at a hotel in Vail mixed up "cow" with the sheets. Long story, but "cow" returned a day later (after a zillion phone calls), clean, soft and fluffy!

Money's the only thing I've lost traveling.

My virginity.

During my last trip to Paris in 2002, I put down my umbrella on Champs Elysees when this woman asked me to take a picture of her near Arc de Triomphe. Her camera wasn't working and we had to play with it so long to make it work that I walked off and left my favorite golf-size folding umbrella.

When I got home I also discovered that I lost a button from my Ralph Lauren blazer and no number of visits to the Polo store or emails to Ralph could shake a matching button free.

I have lost jewlery more often then I want to admit. I have now stopped traveling with anything but what is on my person.

On a ski trip to Banff I lost my house keys. I think they fell out of my coat pocket when I put my coat in the overhead. The key ring was registered. One of those "Drop keys in any mailbox" and they will be delivered to you. They never turned up. I felt bad b/c it was a Coach key ring my BBF bought for me.

Luckily the pet sitter had a key to my house.

At Ephesus in Turkey, we sat down in the theatre and I read the guidebook information. I handed my camera to Lee so I could read the book. We got up and walked on. I asked Lee for the camera and he said, "what camera". We raced back to where we had been sitting, but it was gone. The worst part was that I was on about picture number 34 of a 36 exposure roll of film. I checked at both entrances through the day but it never turned up.

Glasses are an issue for both of us. Lee once took his off to take a picture on a hike in Canada. When we got to the end of the hike I noticed he didn't have them on and immediately knew where they were. About two miles back and two miles return to find them, but there they were. In Ireland, I took mine off at a viewpoint and sat them on the roof of the car to look through binoculars (how dumb is that?). As we drove off I thought of them, went back and there they were on the ground. Fortunately no one had run over them.

And last year on the plane flying home from Paris I noticed Lee didn't have his watch on. Sure enough, when I contacted the apartment owners they had found it on a table and they sent it to us, but it never arrived -- thank you US Post Office. They were more worried about it that we were as he really doesn't tell time anymore and it was not a great watch -- an older Swiss Army one.

On our first trip to Europe with our kids, we were evacuated from the Paris metro around 1 a.m. (not sure why, but we thought it was a bomb scare). There were buses lined up outside as substitutes. We got on with everyone else and met some nice people, students from Minnesota and were talking the whole time. My daughter, who was then 11, was on her knees facing backwards. When we got off the bus, we realized that she had left her little backpack on the bus, with our camera in it (film in those days, so we didn't lose too many pictures!). By now it was 2 a.m. or so. We watched the bus moving down the fairly busy street. Next thing you know, I turn around and my son (then 13) is GONE. I start screaming (in English); everyone of course is staring at me like I'm a madwoman (which I was at that moment). Turns out my son had taken off running after the bus, sure he could catch up to it at a light. We got my son back, never did see the backpack (a souvenir from Edinburgh) or the camera again. (P.S. We also left a camera in a cab at SFO once, but that isn't nearly as fun a story! By the way, my daughter, now 20, recalls that incident not very fondly -- for years we couldn't even discuss it in her presence).

Somewhere in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada is my GoreTex{R} jacket. I have no idea how, where, or when I lost it. One day on my trip I just went to put it on, and couldn't find it. Most likely I put it on the back seat of a restaurant and just forgot about it. I now keep better tabs of my second GoreTex{R} jacket!

I lost the key to the apartment I'd rented one day on the beach in Mexico... had to dig thru the sand around where I'd been sitting. Can't believe I found it.

The worst was losing my camera! I had dropped it while riding in a NYC cab, and the cab sped off before I realized it. What I learned is that you must get your cab receipt or at least know the cab number in order to retreive any lost items from a New York City cab.
Sad lesson...it was at the end of the trip and I lost all the photos taken.

Does a fishing trip count? My BF recently went fishing locally and lost his jacket (favorite travel jacket from Amsterdam), cell phone and car keys. Keys and cell were in jacket pocket, jacket flew overboard and not noticed till much later.

Cell phone was insured but lost pix of Josh Beckett (only Sox fans will relate). Had a spare key at home. To replace key is $240!!!

He caught a very expensive fish :)

Keys, underwear, stuffed animals, my son's hat at Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse at Disney, a single black stiletto, glasses, but my best story--although we got her back fairly promptly--was the time my sister, then 5 (this was thirty years ago) went to the restroom by herself in a train station in Zurich and didn't return. My father left me with our backpacks and went to go see if he could find her, sent an English speaking woman into the toilets to see if she was there, and discovered that she had accidentally locked herself in a stall and was yelling "Help! Con spreckenze Duetsche! Get me out of here!" The station staff couldn't make her understand how to unlock it, and then cleared the bathroom, brought my father in and tried to get him to explain how to unlock it. They finally had to call the station manager from his dinner with the key to let her out. Quite exciting, even if she was never really that lost. We missed our train, though, and wound up hopping on one to Trieste.