15 Vacations That Turned Into Stories No One Believed

Vacations are supposed to be a time for rest, adventure, and unforgettable memories — but sometimes, they take an unexpected turn. From sudden mishaps to bizarre encounters, these travelers found themselves living through moments worthy of a movie script. Here are 15 real-life stories of trips that turned from dreamy getaways into unscripted dramas.

• In Greece, we had rented a small house by the sea. Everything seemed idyllic until the third night. Around 2 a.m., we heard heavy footsteps on the terrace. My dad thought it was burglars and decided to sneak out to check.
  When he opened the door, he found himself face-to-face with... a horse. Yes, a real horse, standing alone, pawing at the ground right outside our room.
  The strangest part? By morning, it had vanished without leaving a single hoofprint in the sand.

• Our hotel room had a lovely colony of ants accompanying us for the week we were staying there. We didn’t discover them until the last day when my mom left a cracker out, and 40 minutes later, it was crawling with ants. The periodic itching during the night throughout the week suddenly became much more unsettling...
  For the record, it was a “nice” hotel, and we were on something like the 18th floor—not exactly the kind of place you’d expect to find insects. © sunlitsonata / Reddit

• My ex-boyfriend and I had booked a trip to Hawaii about four months in advance. We broke up two months before the vacation. Since two of our good friends were going as well, we tried to be amicable, go on the trip, and have fun, even though things were difficult between us.
  Of course, when we arrived, the hotel messed up and booked us in a room with one bed instead of two singles. They didn’t have any more rooms with separate beds. So, I was stuck with my super emotional ex every night, bickering about why things never go right between us or why we’re supposedly meant for each other. Needless to say, we kind of ruined the trip for our friends. © Unknown author / Reddit

• I was seven and on my first family vacation to Disney World. At the Orlando airport, we were waiting for the tram to take us to the other side of the airport (I’m assuming from our arrival gate to baggage claim, but I’m not sure because I was seven).
  A tram arrived, and my mom said, “Let’s get on this one.” I remember literally hopping on, but the doors closed behind me, and my family wasn’t on the tram. I began sobbing uncontrollably, and a kind woman pulled me close to her family. She held me tightly on the tram and stayed with me at the next station until my family arrived on the next tram.
  I never got her name, but if she reads this by chance, please DM me so I can thank you thirty years later. © ScottyToo9985 / Reddit

• When my friends and I were in Spain, we ran out of toilet paper. We thought we’d just use the kitchen rolls since we only had one day left before heading back to London and didn’t see the point in buying a whole pack of toilet rolls for just one day. Big mistake.
  Turns out kitchen rolls don’t dissolve well in water, and combined with the small toilet drains in Spain... yep, our toilet flooded the next day. The whole apartment was overflowing with dirty water. It didn’t stop, no matter how many times we mopped it.
  That’s not even the worst part—the neighbors below us started complaining about water dripping from their kitchen ceiling. We didn’t have the heart to tell them it was literal toilet water dripping into their kitchen.
  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry the whole time. One of my friends even threw up on the floor, which, surprisingly, was the most disgusting part to me. The landlord was furious when we called him about it, as he should have been. © MidnightHost55 / Reddit

• I took my girlfriend at the time to St. Louis (I lived in Louisville then) for a weekend getaway. I got a pretty decent hotel room and made a bunch of plans. I paid for everything on the trip. On the first of the three days we were there, I found out she was cheating on me with her ex-boyfriend. I tried to salvage the trip by telling myself it was all okay, but I was angry.
  The worst part? I carried all of our stuff out and asked her to grab my guitar. I got to the car, packed everything, and she came out and shut the trunk. Thinking she had put my guitar in the trunk, I drove off. When I got home, I realized she had left it in the hotel room. I was beyond furious. © Black_Plazma / Reddit

• I went to an area with a very different elevation level and got intense elevation sickness. It turned out it was also spring, and the trees were giving off so much pollen that I started having intense allergy side effects.
  Then, to top it all off, I never had my wisdom teeth removed (still haven’t), and the teeth in the far back of my mouth started breaking through the gums—which was the worst in-mouth pain I’ve ever experienced. Nothing like a trio of pain to make it hard to enjoy a vacation. © Gorssky / Reddit

• In 2016, my best friend and I went to Italy for the first time. We had been looking forward to seeing Venice for years. On our first morning, I stepped out of the Airbnb, tripped over a cobblestone, and sprained my ankle so badly I couldn’t walk.
  We spent the next three days exploring the city... in a wheelchair we rented from a pharmacy. Navigating bridges and narrow streets was an adventure in itself.
  It wasn’t the trip we planned, but we still laugh about how my friend became the “Venetian gondolier” of my wheelchair.

• I was on the beach with my family, swimming in the ocean. I got dried off, and we started walking. My brother went back in to swim again, and I dove in right after him without thinking. I wear glasses and had put them back on.
  The glasses were immediately swept off, and I never saw them again. Luckily, at the time, I didn’t have a ridiculous prescription, so we could get them replaced in a day or so. But still, being on a week-long vacation and not being able to see literally anything sucks. © chcampb / Reddit

• We were on a family vacation to Hawaii. My aunt had been having some hip pain but didn’t think much of it.
  About halfway through our trip, as soon as we got to Maui, her hip gave out. And by “gave out,” I mean the hairline fracture in her hip basically shattered. She had to have a full hip replacement in Maui and then fly home—just after a hip replacement—from Maui. © Hoorayforkate128 / Reddit

• This happened in 2012, around August. My family and I had been saving up money for years for a trip to Hawaii, and we finally got our chance. We managed to stay for two weeks, and for the most part, the trip was amazing.
  But there was one major caveat. On the very first day—the first day—my brothers and my father went surfing while I stayed on the beach with my mom, playing in the water. About two hours passed, and we started wondering what was taking them so long.
  Then we figured out what happened. I saw my father swimming with my brother laid prone on the surfboard, and 11-year-old me was like, “What happened?”
  Turns out, my brother tried to stay on his board when a wave hit him, and his foot scraped along a coral reef and struck a sea urchin. Sixty-three quills in one foot! He was wheelchair-bound for the rest of the trip and spent the next two years dealing with his foot.
  That will go down as the worst moment on any vacation we’ve ever had. © Unknown author / Reddit

• On a cruise in Italy/Greece, at night, my family started to snore loudly like they never did before. I couldn’t sleep or block my ears to not hear them. It didn’t work, and the snores were driving me crazy.
  So, I went to the cabin’s bathroom and made myself a makeshift bed of used towels (some of them were still wet) and slept shrunken. Surprisingly enough, I woke up well-rested and had a good night. © PB_ACKY / Reddit

• My husband and I were on our way to a cruise of a lifetime in the Mediterranean on a high-end cruise line. We had invested over $10,000 in the trip. Before our long flight from JFK Airport in New York to Italy, we took a sleeping pill to prepare for the journey.
  As we approached the flight boarding desk, we were told there was a volcano eruption in Iceland, and no planes would be flying. We had to find our way back home, still woozy from the pill.
  Fortunately, we had travel insurance. It cost us $500, but it saved us $10,000. © tanyanubin / Reddit

• I was 13, on vacation overseas with my mom. We woke up at 5 AM due to jet lag, and the morning was beautiful, so we decided to go for a swim. We were used to a very calm sea (technically, a bay), so we didn’t think it was a big deal to swim when there were no lifeguards. As a result, we got caught in a rip current without knowing what it was.
  My mom was a very weak swimmer, so she told me to swim to the shore and call for help. But the shore was empty, so I knew she just wanted me to leave her and save myself. I grabbed her by the hand and swam as hard as I could. Luckily, we were close to the shore, and my desperate “sprint” got us to a place where we could stand.
  We went back, felt insanely sleepy, and went to sleep, waking up 10 hours later. When we looked out of the hotel window, we noticed red flags on the beach, and no one was swimming. © Sleepy_Glacier / Reddit

• On a beach trip to Thailand, I decided to try parasailing for the first time. Everything was going smoothly until the boat pulling me hit a wave, and I ended up spinning midair like a malfunctioning kite.
  The landing wasn’t graceful—I crashed straight into the shallow water, face-first, in front of what felt like the entire beach. My sunglasses disappeared instantly.
  At least the instructor said it was “one of the most memorable landings” he’d ever seen. Not sure if that’s a compliment.

These stories prove that even the most carefully planned vacations can take an unexpected turn. But there are also trips where surprises turn into truly unforgettable memories.