“It’s all part of the adventure!”: Part 2 of travel disasters, scams, storms and getting lost

As we followed a young guy into a darkening rundown alley in Costa Rica, my Spidey senses went on high alert. Were we about to be scammed, or robbed, or lost forever?  

Sometimes, when travel disasters happen and you get lost or sick or robbed, you just have to look for the lessons and stories to share with others – for amusement or warning. My optimistic conclusion has become “It’s all part of the adventure!”

The benefit of our travel mishaps is that they’ve taught us to be adaptable, flexible, and resilient. And the lessons we’ve learned have prepared us for subsequent travels.

After reading Part 1 of our disaster stories, fellow travel friends shared their own hiccups, which have included leaving things behind, flight delays, flat tires, engine failure, closed highways, bad weather. My friend Lenora defines a flight being on time as “arriving the day you planned.” Not the hour – the day!

Here is Part 2 of our travel disaster stories, in which we confess our incidents of parental neglect, ineptitude, and trust that went wrong.

Drugs and tomatoes

Don’t take white powder in a baggie into Singapore!

During our Round-the-World trip with our three kids, we often stayed in places with kitchens so we could do familiar activities, like bake cookies. Baking powder had been hard to find, and I carefully meted out the white stuff from my stash in a little plastic bag.

We were packing before flying from Darwin, Australia, to Singapore. I looked at my little baggie of white powder and thought, “Hmmm. Perhaps best not to take that into southeast Asia.”

Am I glad I got rid of the baking powder! The Singapore airport had huge billboards with the notice: “The penalty for drugs is death.” Phew! Dodged a bullet there – or at least a long conversation!

I had already learned my lesson about taking food across borders.

Months earlier, before flying from Costa Rica to Dallas, Texas in the U.S.A. for a connecting flight, we had bought food at a market for lunch. When we landed, I realized I still had one tomato. Since I’m basically honest, I checked off a box on the customs form saying I had fresh produce.

Well, quite the hooferaw ensued. (Why hadn’t I just eaten the tomato right then?)

We got diverted into the agricultural area where we were detained for an hour while various officials examined my form and my tomato. One man took a thick black marker and wrote “TOMATO” in huge letters diagonally across my form.

I explained my mistake several times, apologized, and urged them to simply throw it out. They huddled in groups to confer. Finally, one burly man in a ranger hat looked me in the eye and said, very seriously in his Texas drawl, “Ma’am, we’re gonna hef ta seize yer tomata.”

“Yes, agreed,” I said. “Take it.” We left them with my illicit tomata.

I recalled these food lessons again in Greece when my friend Kathleen and I bought and split a large bag of oregano, which looks much like a dried smokeable weed. I took the half in the Ziploc bag, since we were flying within the EU, and would not have make a customs declaration. Kathleen took the half with the original label, since she was flying back to Canada. Neither of us were taken aside.   

Lesson: Don’t carry anything across a border that could look like drugs. Or a tomato.

Getting lost on goat tracks with Google Maps

We spent a night camped on a widening of the narrow mountain dirt lane Google Maps took us on.

England, 1987, the era of (gasp) paper maps. We were lost on a dirt lane with such high hedgerows on both sides that we couldn’t see where to go. A couple walking a dog came towards us. I handed my map out the car window and pleaded “Can you tell us where we are?”

“Yes, love,” said the man, pointing out our lane on the map. “Another 100 yards and you’ll be in the sea!”

And then along came Google Maps, touted as a saviour…. Who hasn’t gone down a questionable “road” on a ridiculous route suggested by Google Maps? Over the years, we’ve learned to question Google Maps’ routes, since it has sent us down lanes seemingly laid out over goat tracks, instead of the easier way that’s 100 meters longer.

• Enroute to Wells Gray Provincial Park in Canada, we planned to stop overnight at a small campground. Google Maps took us on a narrow dirt lane up the side of a mountain. The lane fell away down a steep cliff to the right (no guardrails) while tree branches scraped along our camper van roof. We could not turn around. Night was falling. We finally came upon a widening in the lane, so we pulled our van in and slept there. The next day, we discovered a lovely wide road to the campground. Why hadn’t Google Maps sent us on that road instead?
• The same thing happened when we took our visiting friend Galen to a site famous during the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal. Google Maps pointed us to a potholed dirt lane up the side of a super steep hill. But we had learned our lesson. Bill stopped the car while I scrolled around the map and found a wide paved civilized road up the other side. Whenever we drive to Lisbon, we pass that hill, now dubbed Galen’s Hill.
• Driving to Madrid, Google Maps took us down a farm road and across a narrow old stone bridge – no railings – over the river that’s the border between Portugal and Spain. Water lapped six inches below the bridge.  
• On Madeira, on a steep road of S-curves, we drove back and forth past where a trailhead should have been, according to Google Maps. We finally fired up MapsMe and found the trailhead elsewhere. MapsMe is much better at finding trailheads and hiking paths.
• When we cycled the Camino from Lisbon to Santiago de Compostela, we consulted three maps: the camino guidebook, Google Maps, and MapsMe. We also looked for the painted yellow arrows and blue camino markers. And we still got lost!

We get better prepared with each trip we take.

Lessons: Don’t blindly follow Google Maps. As soon as a route looks wrong – and especially if it turns to a dirt lane – stop and find a better route. Consult multiple map options – Google, Wayz, MapsMe, guidebooks, even a paper map! – and combine the information you find.  

Natural disasters

Floods, blizzards and a hurricane (our first!) have caused many plans to go awry.

We planned to cycle along the Danube River from Passau, Germany, to Vienna, Austria in late September 2024. Everything was booked; we were leaving in four days. But heavy rains and flooding along the Danube (some bike paths were underwater) forced us to cancel at the last minute.

We lost a bit of money (tickets to hear the Vienna Boys Choir and half of one hotel night) but were able to change our Ryanair flight to go to Malta instead – a last-minute backup plan! Some intense trip-planning ensued, but we had a wonderful time.

In August 2025, we drove towards the Bugaboo Mountains with our daughter Rachel and her fiancé, Zach. We planned to hike the steep trail and stay for two nights on the mountaintop. However, flooding from a tarn that had burst through its glacial wall had closed the trail. Helicopters evacuated trapped people. Flooding on a mountaintop wasn’t something I’d thought possible, but it happens. Our Plan B – car camping near two gorgeous teal-blue glacial rivers – was a solid backup that we enjoyed in a different way. 

While driving from western Canada back to Ottawa, in eastern Canada, in April 2022, we opted to go through the northern United States. All was well until Spearfish, South Dakota, when a spring blizzard hit.

Living for most of our lives in Ottawa, we know blizzards. Driving in wicked snowstorms is not fun. Since our road trip did not have a precise timetable, we decided to simply hole up in a hotel for three nights until the storm had passed. Why tempt fate by driving in bad weather if you don’t have to? Once the roads were clear, we drove on.

While camping on Pelee Island in Lake Ontario, Canada, a big rainstorm blew in. The waves were so high the ferry was cancelled. We spent two extra days on the island – the only people remaining in the campground – with dwindling food supplies. Restaurants closed and so did some stores because the ferry couldn’t deliver supplies. To avoid the cold and rain, we hung out in one restaurant that stayed open, shooting pool and playing board games. The campground never charged us for those two extra nights. 

We experienced our first hurricane in January in Portugal. Torrential rains and winds up to 200 km per hour battered central Portugal, where we live, causing floods, mudslides and the loss of an estimated five million trees. Our electricity, water, and internet were out, then on for a bit, then out again. The back window of our car got smashed and took about six weeks to get fixed. We had to rent a car when we drove with visiting friends to northern Portugal for Carnival in Podence.  

Lessons: Stay flexible by booking pay-later hotels and changeable flights. Have a Plan B. Be patient and adaptable. Hole up and wait for the storm to pass.

Scammy border crossings and a bribe

In rough-and-tumble Paso Canoas, you first pay your exit fee and get a stamp (top left), secondly get your passport stamped to exit Costa Rica (bottom left), then enter Panama (top right, under arrow), and finally you can walk the streets in Panama (bottom right).

We decided to take a bus from Costa Rica to Panama, which meant crossing the land border. We’d never done that in Central America, so we researched the process. It seemed complicated, but we thought we knew what to expect.

In Paso Canoas, the Costa Rican border town where we got off the bus, a young guy approached us and offered to take us to the small office down a side alley where you pay your exit fee and get a stamp. My Spidey senses jumped to high alert. Was he scamming us?

Cautiously, we followed him as darkness began to fall. The office looked right, according to our research. There was a short line. Young Guy asked us for our passports so he could get our stamps for us. No way! We declined and said we’d wait. We finally got our stamps and paid our exit fees.

Young Guy, who had hung around, then walked us to the government customs and immigration office where they stamped our passports, allowing us to leave Costa Rica.

Young Guy appeared again and walked us down the road to Panama’s customs and immigration building. Just before entering, we thanked him for his help and Bill handed him $5 US. He seemed pleased and wished us well.

In the Panama building, we lined up once more to visit an agent, get fingerprinted and photographed, passports stamped and then we were allowed in to Panama. Our HelpX host Gilbert was waiting to pick us up and take us back to his place.

Crossing at a land border was more complicated than flying. Even though we’d researched the steps, the locations of the three offices were not obvious, signage was non-existent, and the whole place seemed ripe for scams. However, Young Guy knew the process and took us to the right offices. He was actually a big help and we were happy to pay him.

Not like our experience crossing the land border between Malaysia and Thailand. We had hired a driver and his van to take us across and we were grateful for his expertise. A long line of cars was stopped at the border. The driver quickly asked us for the equivalent of $5 Cdn, which Bill handed over. The driver swerved to the side, a guard approached, the driver handed him the money, and we were gestured through the gate and into Thailand.

I leaned over to Bill. “I believe we just paid our first bribe!”

Lessons: Research the process so you know what to expect. Pay attention to your Spidey senses: sometimes situations are a scam, but not always. Sometimes you must pay a bribe.

No kitties in the bed

Rachel loved her white kitten Beanie Baby and was devastated when it got left behind.

To understand the scale of this disaster, you must appreciate what’s important to a seven-year-old girl in love with Beanie Babies (the craze of that time). We checked out of our Mexico City hotel and left a white Beanie Baby kitten amongst the white sheets. Rachel didn’t notice until we were at the airport. No time to return. She was brave, but her little lips quivered.

When our plane landed, big sister Liz spotted an airport store selling Beanie Babies! No white kitty but Rachel chose a replacement… at airport prices (sigh). Ever since (and Rachel is now 30 years old), when we’re leaving a hotel room, Bill and I still say to each other “No kitties in the bed?”

Recently, we spent a night in Lisbon before an early morning flight to Canada, our bags stuffed with gifts of wine, olive oil, and cheese – 30 euros worth of Manchego, truffle cheese and São Miguel. We put the cheese in the hotel minifridge overnight. And, of course, we left it there…

Lesson: Our hotel check-out mantra is now “No kitties in the bed? No cheese in the fridge?”

When in Rome… don’t always do as the Romans do

Look at those smiling, negligent parents. The propellor of a Thai long-tail boat motor hangs way off the back end… or at least, it should.

This story makes us look like negligent parents. And really, we were. We’d allowed ourselves to be lulled into the “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” philosophy of travel. Which is valid for sipping wine in cafés, but not when lifejackets are needed.

The five of us were on a long-tail boat (think large canoe with the propellor on a long shaft hanging off the back) off Phuket Island in Thailand. Bill and I had been scuba diving while the kids snorkeled. A storm arose. We were heading back to shore over high waves, when suddenly the motor’s hum disappeared. The motor had fallen off the boat! It sank as quickly as my heart rate rose. The wind hit. The waves came at us sideways. I feared we’d tip over at any moment.

I grabbed Rachel and held her tightly but neither Bill nor I could get to Liz right away. She was in the front, holding on to ropes, pretending she was riding a horse, having a grand old time as the huge waves rose and fell. Tom, beside me, was old enough to understand the danger and he chattered nervously about tipping over. I tried to calm him down so he wouldn’t scare Rachel. Or me.

Here’s the thing: None of us had life jackets! I still can’t believe how stupid we’d been to get in that boat without them. Boats without lifejackets are not uncommon in Thailand. Bill and I had inflatable BCDs (buoyancy control devices) from scuba diving. I put mine on Rachel and inflated it, and Bill eventually worked his way to the prow and got his BCD onto Liz.

Meanwhile, the divemaster was on his cell phone, calling for help, while I looked for all the scuba air tanks, planning to grab one when we tipped. Finally, rescue arrived about 30 minutes later. Another long-tail boat pulled up beside us. We had to climb over the high boat sides, with both boats rocking up and down in the high waves. The rescue boat had life jackets! Not enough for everyone, but I made sure the kids donned them first. We finally made it safely to shore.      

Lesson: When in Thailand… or Rome, or anywhere else… never get on a boat without enough proper lifejackets.

Lost daughter

Liz (purple shirt) got lost on the rough mountain trail in Thailand, where cobras and scorpions lurked in the woods.

And here’s another tale of parental ineptitude. After spending a night in a Thai hill tribe village, we were hiking back down the steep mountain. Our group had naturally split into two: the five young Scandinavian men went ahead with two guides, while the head guide stayed with us, the slower family. (A terrible grouping, but that’s another story.) We had let Tom, 13 years old, go ahead with the cool young men. Part way along, 10-year-old Liz wanted to join the faster hikers, so we said yes, thinking the group was just around the bend. She happily scurried ahead.

We reached the bottom of the trail, where everyone had gathered at a waterfall. No Liz. I raced around looking for her. None of the other hikers had seen her. Tom said she’d never joined the group. I fought back tears and tried to stay calm but was panicking inside. There were king cobras and scorpions in those mountains, not to mention human predators.

All the guides got on their phones to call for help. Bill and one guide said they’d go back up the mountain to look for her. It was at least 36°C and extremely humid, so we gave them all our water bottles. Off they went.

After what seemed like forever, but was in fact only 20 minutes, the head guide reported that Liz had been found. She was at the restaurant where we were headed for lunch. We piled into the back of trucks and drove there. I tumbled out and ran to hug Liz, as tears ran down both our faces.

The trail had crossed a dirt road, and she’d turned onto the road, rather than continuing along the trail. When she realized she was lost, she hid in the bushes when anyone came along. Finally, two teenage girls on a scooter came by, and Liz stopped them. They spoke no English but recognized the name of the restaurant written on Liz’s backpack. We had borrowed backpacks from the company that ran the tour. Phew. Smart girls. They took Liz on their scooter to the restaurant, where they gave her food and drinks until we showed up.

Meanwhile, Bill was still hiking up the mountain with the guide. Near the top, they got a phone call that Liz had been found, but then had to hike all the way back down. We waited two more hours for them to arrive. Bill was so dehydrated he wasn’t even sweating – a dangerous sign. We got him hydrated and all was well in the end.

Lessons: Oh, so many lessons from this story! Hang onto your kids for dear life. Take more water than you think you’ll need. Trust strangers to help. 

No medical insurance in the U.S.!

Road accidents – including those caused by Yellowstone’s buffalo – are always a risk that should be covered by travel medical insurance.

I awoke in a cold sweat at 2 a.m. near Yellowstone National Park. Although I’d researched travel medical insurance before our road trip from Canada through the northern United States, I’d completely forgotten to actually buy it! How dumb is that?!

On our drive to the park, we’d been delayed by an hour because of an enormous road accident. As we inched by transport trucks on their sides, my brain still hadn’t cried “Hey! What if you were in an accident and needed medical care?” The U.S. has the most expensive healthcare system in the entire world, so it’s the worst place to be if you don’t have insurance. 

I got out my laptop and trolled through insurance company websites. Most require you to be in Canada (our home country) to buy the insurance; you can’t have left on your trip already. I fretted. I Google-mapped the shortest routes back to Canada. Then I remembered that I´d heard HeyMondo let you buy insurance while travelling. I quickly checked and it was so. Phew!

At 3 a.m. I went back to sleep. In the morning, Bill and I reviewed HeyMondo’s policy together and bought insurance right then, before setting a toe outside our hotel room.

Lesson: Make sure you actually purchase the travel medical insurance.

General Advice

“Do not travel”? What does that mean?

Have all these travel disasters stopped us from loving to travel? Heck no! We’ve simply accumulated a lot of stories and advice to share.

• Do your research! Don’t wander in clueless about possible dangers. Buy the travel insurance.
• Trust your gut. Be aware of surroundings. Listen to Spidey senses. Don’t go down dark alleys alone at midnight. We were with a group of people walking in a dark area of San José, Costa Rica, getting lost between bus stations. My Spidey senses were on high alert. Finally, I called a halt. We hailed a taxi that happened by and rode to the bus station instead.
• Wear travel wallets or belts under your clothes when you’re in sketchy places. Never leave valuables in a car, in a backpack, or on an overhead rack on a bus or train. Use safes in hotel rooms. We´ve never had passports or wallets stolen, knock on wood.
• Don’t argue with police or military if you get stopped. We were stopped at military roadblocks in Panama, but after quietly showing ID were let through without incident. 
• Use a local guide for intimidating areas. E.g. Moroccan medinas.
• Use multiple maps.
• Stay as flexible as possible with airline, hotel and car rental bookings and payments.
• Don’t take driving-time advice from an Italian.

As my friend Lenora said: “The joys of travel. Let me at it!!!”

Previous: Read about our leaky camper, cancelled flights, robberies, the knight who made us barf, parrot and monkey scams, and The Rome Dash in Part 1 of our travel disaster stories.

We’ve been accumulating travel disaster stories and learning lessons together since 1986. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.