I was planning on doing this at the end of the month, but since I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon now seemed as good a time as any!
I feel like the majority of travel bloggers paint their travels out to be these perfect, magical experiences where nothing ever goes wrong. Every picture they take is in the most perfect setting, with no other humans in sight and it makes the average person wonder what they’re doing wrong on their own trips. In reality, that image of Utopia is almost never the whole story. Maybe I’m the only klutz in the biz, but there’s always at least one thing that goes wrong on every single trip I take, and a lot of them are doozies!
So, without further ado, I give you my top 5 travel fails of 2020!
#5: Don’t Worry, Bee Terrified
A little known fact about me is that I am deathly allergic to bees. But, despite this fact, I don’t carry an epipen because they’re expensive and eventually expire resulting in nothing more than a heaping pile of very expensive crap.
When I first got to Joshua Tree National Park this year, I was greeted by a giant flashing sign that said something like, “WARNING! Swarming honey bees! Turn off your air conditioner to prevent them from swarming around your car.”
It was the end of July…in Southern California…in the middle of a desert. Shutting off my AC completely really wasn’t much of an option. I talked to a ranger and they told me that as long as I turned the AC off about 20 minutes before arriving at my final destination I should be fine. Because of my allergy, I decided to double that and turn it off forty minutes before arriving. Surely that should be fine, right?
Nope!
I planned on having a peaceful evening watching the sun set over Key’s View, maybe get some stitching done while I sat by myself. But nope! Those damn bees had other plans.
First, they started swarming my backpack because they somehow knew I had water in it. Fair enough, I thought, I’ll just toss it into the car then come back to my spot and they’ll leave me alone.
I walked down to my car only to find that there was a whole crazy swarm around it! I had to figure out how to open the door to toss the bag in without them all swarming inside and pray that they would be gone by the time I was ready to leave. I walked through the swarm, cracked the door open, and quickly threw my bag in the backseat. When I closed the door, I saw that at least a half dozen bees had gotten inside. Awesome.
I went back up to watch the sunset, and when it was time for me to leave the bees were still swarming! It was like nothing I had ever seen before! I got in my car as fast as I could and watched as the bees threw themselves against my window in an attempt to get in. It was disgusting! I also quickly realized that there were at least a dozen in the car. Some were in the AC vents, some were on the chairs, others were just hanging out in the backseat. The only good thing was that they seemed to be almost lulled to sleep by the extreme heat, so when I reached a part of the park that wasn’t swarming as badly I was able to scoop them out with my hat. Thankfully I didn’t end up getting stung!
#4: Air B n’ Beat It
When I visited Joshua Tree National Park, I booked the most charming little AirBnB in a secluded part of the desert! After spending about 6 hours in 100+ degree temps, I was beyond ready to finally check in.
I arrived at what I thought was my AirBnb, only to find a group of men doing some kind of work on the property. I assumed I must have the wrong place and drove around for a bit before finally calling the host.
The host told me that it was totally fine, the guys I saw were just a company that he hires to take care of the landscaping and as soon as I pull in they’ll leave. I didn’t love that, but I felt safe enough knowing that a friend of mine only lived a couple hours away and I had given her all the information for both the AirBnb and the host. If anything were to happen, at least someone was closeby to initiate a search party pretty quickly.
When I finally got the courage to return, the guys were heading out. I parked my car and walked around to what I thought was the front door and put in the code to get into the house…
It didn’t work.
I tried a few more times before I gave up and went to find another door. I found two more freakin’ doors and the code didn’t work on any of them! I was sweaty, exhausted, and I really needed to pee. I needed to get inside ASAP!!! I called the host again…apparently I had missed the door that I literally parked in front of. Sure enough, the code worked on that one. Whoops.
#3: The Crawling Wake Up Call
I briefly touched on this in my post about the 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Visiting Joshua Tree National Park, but it is definitely worth repeating in this post since I still have PTSD from the event.
Because my stay in JTNP ended up being longer than I initially planned, I had to find a second AirBnb to stay in. The second one was just as nice as the first one and exceptionally clean! I went to bed feeling safe, cozy, and content.
Then, around 3am, I had the worst wake up call ever! I woke up to the sensation of something crawling across my face. I screamed and quickly grabbed whatever this giant, almost plasticy feeling creature was and whipped it across the room…or so I thought. In reality I only threw it to the other side of my bed. I quickly turned on the lights, grabbed a shoe, and with my heart beating about a million miles a minute I nudged the pillow aside to discover that the intruder was A GIANT FREAKING COCKROACH!!!
I’ve never seen a cockroach as big as this one in my entire life, and I’ve definitely never seen them run before. This guy was so fast! I chased him around the room and eventually got him trapped under my laptop, which had been charging on the floor. I quickly slid the laptop away and crushed that sucker beyond recognition. Talk about an awful way to wake up!
#2: GoPacific
Unfortunately, when you only take three trips in the year of a pandemic the location of your stories all tend to be about the same. But this one is a little different!
After visiting Joshua Tree National Park, I spent a few days with my friend and her husband in San Diego. They asked if I would want to go paddle boarding in Coronado, and I obviously said yes!
We got to the rental place, got our gear, and headed out into the ocean. Everything was fine…until it wasn’t.
You see, my big wedding present for Mark was a GoPro Hero7. He has really only used it a couple times, and I’ve never used it without his supervision, but I’ve been wanting to get more into video content so I brought it on my trip to California. I attached the wrist strap that it came with and brought it out paddling with me.
The water was pretty rocky that day, so I had no intention of standing up. I just slowly and casually paddled myself out further and further. I wasn’t doing anything crazy when all of a sudden the wrist strap broke and the GoPro went flying into the Pacific Ocean!
I instantly panicked. I know I bought it, but if I lost that damn GoPro Mark would probably kill me! I ripped off my life vest, secured it to the paddleboard, signaled to my friend that I needed to go in and she needed to hold my board, and dove in. I don’t think I even gave her a chance to get to me before I dove in. All I could think about was the fact that the water was crazy rocky and the likelihood of me finding the camera was slim, but I had to at least try.
Thankfully I found it at the bottom of the ocean almost immediately and my friend got to my board fast enough that I didn’t need to swim too far to reach it. But oh my God that was terrifying! Thankfully the GoPro made it safe and sound. Thank goodness for waterproof action cameras!
#1: Do Not Pass “Go”. Do Not Collect $200.
I don’t think I’ve actually spoken publicly about this one yet, but it is certainly the creme de la creme of travel fails and is the perfect metaphor for 2020.
Typically when Mark and I go on trips together, we do Park Ride Fly. If you’ve never used Park Ride Fly, it is a company that partners with secure parking lots around airports to provide cheaper parking options to travelers. Rather than paying the astronomical prices at the airport, we pay about $12 per day to leave our cars off site in a secure parking lot and the facility has a shuttle service to bring us to the airport and pick us up when we get back. It’s a great system and in almost a decade of using it I’ve never had any issues.
I did some research leading up to our trip to Austin and discovered that the lot we would normally use wasn’t open during the pandemic, but there was another lot about a half mile back down the one way road that was open. The prices were about the same and it was still using the same Park Ride Fly company, so it was fine. Mark booked it and we were good to go.
The morning of our flight came and when we got in the car I asked Mark if he was sure where he was going, because it was a different lot. He assured me that he did and we were on our way. Austin, here we come!
So we’re driving…and we get to the one way road and Mark turns into the lot we normally use. He told me he knew where he was going and I had no reason to doubt him at 4AM, so I figured maybe I had been wrong and the place actually was open, they just didn’t partner with the company we go through anymore.
But as we drove over the spikes that prevent you from leaving the property the same way you get in, I knew something was wrong. There were almost no other cars in the lot, the office lights were off, and the worst part…there were two massive black Escalades blocking the exit with no people in sight. I didn’t immediately have the heart to tell Mark that we were essentially trapped, but I knew there was no getting out.
Mark panicked pretty quickly and just started driving around the lot in circles looking for an alternative exit. We called the “emergency” phone number that was on the office door dozens of times, but no one was answering. Then I tried calling the police, maybe they could tow the Escalades out of our way or something. They told me that unfortunately there was nothing they could do, but it’s a known issue. They gave me the cell phone number of some guy and told me that he would be able to get us out with no problem.
I called this guy 57 freakin’ times! He didn’t answer! We were now about 45 minutes away from missing our flight, and I was starting to panic. I was about to tell Mark that we should just leave the car with a note saying we would call them when we landed to pay over the phone, but he had disappeared.
I scanned the parking lot and found him fiddling with the giant spikes that are designed to slash your tires beyond repair if you try to exit through the entrance. Rather than listening to my idea, he wanted to give his idea a shot first…and that was to drive over the spikes.
Now, as a friendly recap, at this point Mark had been unemployed for a few months and he had just gotten all new tires. This was not the time to voluntarily slash all your tires!
But he found two giant signs, similar to the ones above, and laid them over the spikes to create a sort of ramp for the car. One of them looked like it was just cardboard and I was convinced that the spikes would go right through.
By some effing miracle, the car made it safely over the makeshift ramp and we made our flight! I still don’t know how it happened…
On to 2021!
Honestly…I’m trying to not get my hopes up too much for 2021.
After the amount of epic trips I had to cancel in 2020, I’m trying to not set myself up for another tailspin into depression when more trips are cancelled. Right now I have about 2.5 trips planned for 2020 (one is just an overnight). I’m sure I’ll book even more as I see incredible deals pop up, but thanks to the shitshow that has been 2020 I know that nothing is guaranteed…and that’s okay! Because sometimes the things that don’t work out make room for even better things.