5 Travel Mistakes I made, So You Don’t Have To

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In my life I have traveled quite a bit. I’ve visited 22 countries so far, I’m usually the one organizing the vacations and I have studied to become a travel agent. You can probably imagine traveling this much doesn’t go without mistakes. Let me tell you about some travel mistakes I made, so you don’t have to!

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Everyone makes mistakes when traveling, but some stick out more than others. These travel mistakes I made are the ones that I keep telling at parties, so I figured I’d share them here too!

My travel mistakes

Forgetting to check what plugs/sockets they use

This sounds so obvious, but when you travel a lot, but barely encounter things like this, it’s simply not on your checklist.

In my life I have been to 22 European countries, of which only 3 used a different plug than I’m used to. Actually it was only 2 where I couldn’t use any of my normal plugs.

I bought a world plug adapter and I’ll always be able to charge my stuff when I travel now.

Booking a layover at night (at the end of the trip)

In 2021 I was in charge of booking the flight tickets for a vacation to Greece with some friends. We were (read: still are) broke students, so I was on a mission to find the cheapest possible flights.

We discovered pretty quickly that direct flights were way too expensive, so I booked a layover both ways. On the way there, the layover was just 2 hours, the way back was 9 hours in Milan Malpensa Airport.

Multiple mistakes were made here.

We thought we could take a bus to Milan to go out for a couple of hours before catching the final flight home. What we didn’t realize was that the airport we were at wasn’t near the city at all. Out the window with that plan.

The next disappointment was that there was literally nowhere to comfortably lay down on a chair, so not much sleep happened, even though we were all super tired from our vacation.

It was also the middle of the night, so all the shops at the airport were closed. By the time they opened we had to fight our way through the queue to get some food.

Yea, never again. Next time I’ll spend a little more to prevent a long layover at night!

Not booking campings in the middle of summer

To me, ultimate freedom when traveling comes with spontaneity. Not knowing where to go when and doing whatever. Sounds amazing.

Except for that most people think ahead.

I went to Austria a few years ago, not booking any campings, thinking just about every camping would have a spot for a tent and a car. In the middle of summer. Well… they didn’t.

It took an expensive night at a hotel and about 10 desperate calls to several campings to finally get a spot at a camping in about the middle of all the activities we wanted to do. We chose to stay there and not travel further because we found out it was that hard to find a place to stay that wasn’t too expensive.

If you’re on a budget, plan ahead. Spontaneity in the middle of summer is as good as impossible unless you don’t care about what you spend.

Go on a hiking vacation in a not walkable country

When I was a teenager I had the amazing idea to go on a hiking vacation in Belgium. I was so unprepared.

We had packed everything we needed, but we didn’t look into the country itself as much as we should have. Also walking 20km with a heavy backpack everyday was not the best idea…

We soon found out there were barely any walkable roads. We mostly hiked along 80km/h roads, which felt boring and unsafe. The sun was burning and it was so hot. We weren’t able to bring enough water each day.

Belgium mostly exists of small towns that are too far apart to walk properly. There are barely any supermarkets or atms. Busses only go maybe twice a day. Everything together was a disaster.

We gave up 2 days in. On a Sunday. We were told the train would most likely not even go. It fortunately did.

If you’re planning a hiking trip, check if it’s a hiking country first!

Read more: No More Blisters With Double-Layer Socks

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Looking back at this list, a lot comes down to being unprepared. Make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into, so the basics won’t go wrong.

Travel isn’t always perfect and you’ll always make mistakes, but with a little preparation you can limit those mistakes, so you can enjoy your vacation the way you were supposed to.

Hopefully you learnt from my travel mistakes, so you don’t have to make them!

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