Traveling is not always glamorous and beautiful. In 2008, right before our first baby was born, my husband and I went on a vacation to Cancun. In a turn of many bad events, we created our worst vacation.
I was pregnant with our 1st baby. We hadn’t taken a big honeymoon when we got married to save money. So we wanted to take our first real trip together.
From our great examples, here are a few tips to make your vacation the worst.
Setting the Scene for Failure
It was our first travel together as a couple. There is definitely a learning curve on what you like to do on trips and the roles each partner takes on a trip.
Traveling to a 3rd world international country where you don’t speak the language added to our stress and confusion.
Go on a trip when you can’t really afford it
Many of our other problems on this trip were created because we didn’t have enough money to go on a vacation without the stress of all the little expense. Every time we had to spend money I would get stressed and worried.
To have the worst vacation, have no extra savings to cover unexpected expenses that arise.
Buy a vacation package with blackout dates
I bought a package before looking at the dates. The hotel wasn’t available the week we could go, so it was a sunk cost.
Buy another vacation package for a resort you know nothing about.
Do your research and make sure the resort is what you want. Know what you are getting yourself into.
Wait to file taxes until the day your flight leaves the country
Because it’s not stressful at all to find a post office and mail a post-dated check on the way to the airport.
Have 3 layovers to get to a place 4 hours away on a direct flight.
I love layovers. Going through security is my favorite.
Get airsickness on the last 2 legs of the flights.
Leave your iPad in the seatback pocket on the plane
Bye-bye entertainment.
Hurt Yourself
On our trip, the dad-to-be twisted his ankle and mom fells flat on the baby belly. Being slightly disabled and in pain is sure to put a little extra discomfort on the worst vacation.
Go to a resort recent decimated by a Hurricane so the beach is 100% sandbags
No beach at a beachfront resort = depressing!
Gain 20 pounds at the all-inclusive hotel
Eat your sorrows away. That will help, right?
Be too cheap for a taxi ride and walk miles every day… 5 months pregnant
Cancel your sightseeing trip to the biggest tourist attraction to attend church… that you find out was canceled.
Have travel sized sunscreen confiscated at security, pay $25 for a bottle of sunscreen at the hotel
Get Sunburned and pay another $10 for aloe when the $25 sunscreen didn’t work
Take a camera kayaking in a ziplock bag
“It’ll be fine inside my life jacket…promise!” Don’t believe your husband’s promises
Get seasick kayaking
Cancel Snorkeling trip because you are too seasick
Stay in an open-air cottage. Enjoy birds squawking at the crack of dawn.
Definitely, don’t sleep in on your last vacation before children disrupt your sleep for the rest of forever!
Have a delayed flight, missing your connection home.
We missed my husband’s interview for entrance into MBA school. Plus, I had to create teacher substitute plans from Mexico City and tell them to my mom to bring them to my school (internet at the time was spotty).
Break your DSLR camera right before you arrive at your first tourist sight.
As we headed into Tulum, my husband dropped the camera. The shutter wouldn’t click on the camera. There was nothing we could do to fix it.
We got ZERO photos of our entire 6-day trip. The tiny images in this post are a screenshot of videos we took (when video and still shots were on different platforms).
Have your laptop crash losing 3 years of teaching files and photos (This was back when online storage wasn’t even a thought).
Accidentally have your first sip of alcohol when you are pregnant
I have never had alcohol. I was significantly pregnant with a very noticeable belly. Mostly, I didn’t need to tell our all-inclusive servers to make the drinks virgin because they could see I was ‘with child’. One night as we ate at a restaurant, I was served a drink and began to drink it, without even thinking. Since I’ve never had alcohol I didn’t realize what I was tasting. After a few drinks, I mentioned to my husband that it was really spicy. He tried it and told me there was alcohol in it. I was devastated. I wanted to have the perfect pregnancy for my growing baby and wondered if a small drink of alcohol had somehow ruined him. Guilt made it the worst vacation
Results?
Due to losing one camera and breaking the other, we got NO photos of our BabyMoon. The photos in the post are a screenshot from videos we took on a waterproof video camera. There were no cameras on phones at the time. We are pretty spoiled now!
Maybe it is best we didn’t have photos since it was such a rough trip.
Should we give up when things get tough?
Even with all the bad things that happened on this trip, I still cherish the ways we grew as a couple, the beautiful sunsets we saw and the time together.
Vacation time is still a good time, even if it is the worst vacation ever.
Looking back, I was so worried we wouldn’t ever travel again once the kids came, so I felt pressure to go on a trip we didn’t have the money for. It’s ironically funny that we now go on 12-15 vacations a year with 4 kids. I say don’t believe the world when it says life ends at kids! It’s only the beginning!
Luckily, we didn’t throw in the towel after our worst vacation!
If you love reading about other’s mishaps, you’ll love our worst non-rev experience.
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3 Comments
Awesome story! I’m so glad you kept traveling!
Has Dave told you about the trip we took to Hawaii? He was crippled from some basketball accident, so we couldn’t do any of the hiking we’d wanted to, and then he got his pants and wallet stolen at the beach.
yes! That was a pretty bad one!