‘World’s Unluckiest Travelers’ awards revealed for 2024
And you thought your vacation horror story was bad.
The “world’s unluckiest traveler” has been named in a new contest of calamities — put on by a travel insurance provider.
The most sordid saga — involving skydiving and a friend being hauled out in a bodybag (but not necessarily in that order) — turns out to be just the tip of travel terror, however, with many unwanted honorable mentions posted in the online hall of shame.
The awards, handed out by Travel Guard, come with a cash prize of $10,000 for first place.
The sad sequences, all available to read online, span from earthquakes and wrong airport dropoffs to French fry-stealing lizards.
In ascending order, here are the four top winners for 2024.
Mamma Mia!
Anna F. will never forget her 2001 trip to southern Italy. Things started off as a wonderful time in an apartment looking over the Tyrrhenian Sea. However, things were quickly spoiled on a mountain hike when her son was “having a little problem in his private area.”
“He knew he had to show me but as an 11-year-old they are so shy so he was a little hesitant but I could see the pain on his face. When he finally allowed me to look I was both scared and mortified!” she recalled.
“He was extremely swollen and I panicked because now here we were in a country where I had never been in there was nobody that we knew so I didn’t even know where the closest hospital was.”
When they did finally get him to a hospital, Anna was shocked at what she saw.
“It was so bizarre because in the hospital there were two doctors that I was speaking to and one was actually smoking a cigarette while I was speaking to him!” she wrote.
“One of the doctors saw him and gave him an injection which was of significant concern because they had not even asked me if he had any allergies so now I had something else to worry about!”
Ultimately, the boy was alright, and doctors thought it was a bacterial infection brought on by dog poop on a beach.
“Needless to say, the stress and worry of all this happening was certainly not what we had planned!”
Plane foolish
A man and his wife decided to go airplane watching in Saint Martin at popular Maho Beach, which is located near Princess Juliana International Airport.
“We positioned ourselves on the beach to get the perfect video of these massive aircraft flying incredibly low over our heads as they approached the runway,” the man, Lloyld L. wrote.
“As my wife aimed her camera to capture an airplane soaring just above our heads, she tripped over a raised concrete curb resulting in distressing injuries to her legs.”
Crossing the border of sanity
A Wisconsin woman, battling kidney failure, wanted to travel as much as possible before she went on dialysis in 2022. Jennifer G. traded the true north winter for sunny Mexico where a pool and beach oasis awaited — or so she thought.
After a rough flight, hearing about the bowel issues of the woman next to her, the beach called the second Jennifer landed.
However, “I went out to enjoy the beach only to find that they had NO BEACH ACCESS AT ALL — it was completely roped off,” the woman wrote.
“I went to call the front desk & they never answered so I walked to the office & they said “beach closed all week, use pool.”
She then decided to go back to her room and start unpacking her clothes. But really, she unpacked her worst nightmare.
“I found MOLD, BEDBUGS, A BROKEN SAFE, FILTHY AIR CONDITIONER THAT WENT FULL BLAST & WOULDN’T SHUT OFF and absolutely NO RUNNING WATER! Again, I tried to reach the front desk but still no answer.”
Adding insult to injury, not only were no other rooms available but the pool was closed for maintenance. The woman quickly tried getting back to Wisconsin as soon as possible.
“I couldn’t get a flight that day so I laid towels down & SLEPT IN THE EMPTY BATHTUB because I didn’t want to bring bedbugs home,” she added. “I was shivering all night. I got 2 hours sleep & somehow still woke up with ITCHY RED BUMPS ON MY ENTIRE BODY.”
That wasn’t the end of it, though.
“After landing I waited 3 hours for luggage..it never showed up. I went to the airline desk to find out MY LUGGAGE WAS LOST! Crying, I drove home in a blizzard,” the woman who later went to urgent care and was diagnosed with Covid, added.
While at her doctor’s office, she noticed that her wallet and sunglasses had been stolen at the resort.
When going to cancel her credit card, she noticed that the resort had charged her for a week rather than the one day she was promised upon complaining. On top of that, there was an outrageous charge of $659 for phone calls the woman claimed she never made.
“They refused to refund me & offered me a free spa upgrade if I went back. WHAT THE ??!”
Crash landing
One woman, Julie S. had the story of stories that won the grand prize of $10,000, however. During a November 2021 trip to Phoenix for skydiving, Julie, her friend Sam, and others went to a nightclub in Scottsdale the night before.
Sam began not feeling well after a few drinks and got her friends to leave. After stumbling around and eventually being put in a shopping cart for easy carriage, they finally got her back to their Airbnb.
The next day, fearful that her drink was spiked, they called 911.
“Next thing I knew, a firetruck, ambulance, and police car were outside,” Julie recalled, adding that a police officer said they were taking her to a local hospital.
“He then hesitantly gave me a warning about what was going to happen next… since the entrance to our building was so narrow, a stretcher wouldn’t fit in the room,” she added. “So the paramedics were going to carry Sam out in a body bag…talk about traumatizing.”
The next day, Sam woke up with one thought on her mind.
“After I explained it all to her, suddenly she sat up and said ‘Wait, we need to leave, we have to go skydiving!’. I said, ‘No way, you were literally just in a bodybag!’ Julie recalled.
“Against my wishes, and after spending all night in the hospital, we were going skydiving. The skydiving itself was a breeze compared to the night we just experienced.”
