This past weekend, my wife and I were talking about our upcoming trip to Istanbul and London and we started to reminisce about the great times we have had in London on past visits. During those stays, we had ventured out to a few surrounding towns using the fantastic rail system. One of these venturings made us laugh all over again at the embarrassment that it had caused and has prompted me to write about it, and even put a contest together randomly awarding someone a prize for sharing their most embarrassing moment as a tourist.
OUR STORY:
On our last visit to London, we had planned to be there for 8 days to give us an opportunity to see as much as possible. My wife had been to the UK many times and had put together a great itinerary based on her past experiences and also based on things that we had not done on previous visits to what she refers to as the home of “Sting”.
In my desire to help come up with places to visit, I had asked if it would be possible to visit this place, solely on it’s appearance:
For those of you in the “know”, you will recognize this as Leeds Castle. For those that have never heard of this place, keep reading so that you don’t make the same mistake as we did.
My wife agreed that it would be a great place to visit, so off I went to the travel map and figured out how we could get to the castle. Looking at the map, I suggested to her that it is approximately a 3 hour train ride to Leeds, and from there I suggested that we can just hire a cab to take us the rest of the way. I mean Leeds castle has to be close to Leeds…..right????
So off we went, we dedicated one of our 8 days to go see this beautiful castle and took full advantage of our unlimited first class rail pass that let us travel where ever we desired on Britain’s railways. We figured to get an early start so that we can be back in London for an early dinner. After a 2 1/2 hour train ride north out of London, we finally arrive at Leeds Station and I make way for the information booth to inquire how we can go about getting to the castle.
At this point, I know something may be terribly wrong when the person manning the Info Booth returned a blank expression with a hint of suspicion as if I were setting them up for some kind of prank. The conversation went a little bit like:
ME: Hello, can you help me figure out a way to Leeds Castle
INFO BOOTH: Leeds Castle sir?
ME: Yes, we’d like to visit the Castle for the afternoon.
INFO BOOTH: Sir, Leeds Castle?
ME: Yes, the one with the water features surrounding her.
INFO BOOTH: Sir, Where are you coming from?
ME: We just came up on the train from London….
INFO BOOTH: London, Sir?
ME: Yes…..
INFO BOOTH: Sir, Leeds Castle is not here.
ME: Where did it go? What did you do with it??
INFO BOOTH: Nothing Sir, but Leeds castle is not in Leeds!!
ME: @$&#*@()!, where is it?
INFO BOOTH: When you return to London today, go 45 minutes the other way south of London and you’ll find Leeds Castle in Maidstone, Kent.
ME: Really? @#(**$@$…..Thank you for your help. I’m glad I stopped and asked!
INFO BOOTH: Your welcome sir, enjoy the rest of your visit to the UK!
ME: Thank you! (go back to my wife who had gone to buy water)
MY WIFE: So, do we know where to go?
ME: Yep…..#&$^(@#^@#
MY WIFE: What??
ME: Leeds Castle is 45 minutes SOUTHEAST of London, not 3 hours NORTH.
MY WIFE: @*&()~*$
ME: My sentiments exactly……
A MAP SHOWING LONDON (B), LEEDS (A) and LEEDS CASTLE (C) JUST TO PUT THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE:
So, a day was wasted sitting on a train for 6 hours and accomplishing little except for the memory. We never did make it to Leeds Castle on that trip, but we have made it a point to make sure we see it on our upcoming visit. No doubt, we will laugh about this a few more times!
There you have it, what I would consider one of my most embarrassing moments as a tourist. A moment that I think could win most contests for Most Embarrassing Travel Moment. That memory has prompted me to run just such a contest!
All you need to do is to share your own Embarassing Tourist Experience that you now look back upon and laugh. Just leave a comment to this post with your “moment” and I will pick a random winner (using a random number picker) from all entries received. The winner will receive a $25 Apple Itunes Gift Card!
ONE CAVEAT: IN ORDER FOR THERE TO BE A DRAWING THERE MUST BE AT LEAST 15 ELIGIBLE REPLIES (so please Tweet or otherwise share this post with others to ensure we get enough people!). To be ELIGIBLE it must be an actual moment or brief anecdote. Simply posting a reply without a story or description of the moment will render that reply ineligible.
The contest will end Midnight Wednesday, Eastern Daylight Savings Time…..
Due to technical issues with Boarding Area preventing the post to be published, The contest will end Thursday, March 15 at Midnight Eastern Time.
Good Luck! I look forward to reading about your moments!
While I was studying in Paris a friend came to visit me. We decided to visit the Arc de Triomphe. I had paid and was waiting for my friend to do the same. He decided that he wanted to get ride of his coins since he was leaving the next day. He had them all stored in a zip top bag. He opened the bag to retrieve some coins and apparently pulled too hard because the bag tore in half spilling coins all over the floor! We spent a good five minutes on our hands and knees picking up all the coins.
While in Colombia my wife and I wanted to check out the Salt Cathedrals which were a bit of a trip from Bogota. The hostel owner told us it was easy to get to and we followed his directions by bus to our first stop. When we arrived, we could not figure out where to pick up the next bus to get us the rest of the way. We asked around a bit but nobody really spoke english. We ended up chatting with some locals that were also heading to the same place. In our broken Spanish we heard them say to follow them. The bus we got on brought us back to pretty much the place where we started out 2 hours earlier! I was not happy but decided to continue on. We made it to the site to find lines that were absolutely ridiculous. We somehow managed to talk with some people on line and cut to the front pretty fast. Once inside, we had little interest in looking around and rushed through the site in about a half hour. We wanted to get back to Bogota asap. We then found a bus heading back to Bogota which was full but we were lucky to get to squeeze into the front cab area with the driver.
We made it back to Bogota and wished we had just used our time to see more of the sites we would now not have time to visit thanks to our little adventure.
During the volcanic ash cloud out of Iceland a couple of years ago, I was stranded in Frankfurt, Germany. As I was there for a few days, I decided to make my way to Prague to via train to visit a colleague of mine.
I was staying in a small German town, Mainz, near Frankfurt at the courtesy of Lufthansa. The morning I set out, I bought a train ticket and got thorough instructions on how to navigate the train system from the hotel staff.
I arrived at my first stop at the Frankfurt airport to switch trains. I was quite surprised when the connecting train to Nuremburg wasn’t there and the timetable appeared incorrect as the train had just left before I got there. I spoke to the ticket agent and she suggested I hop a later train.
As there was a high probability I would miss my connecting bus in Nuremburg, I called my colleague to let him know what had happened. We both spent considerable time discussing how surprised we were that the normally punctual German train lines were off. I also spent quite a bit of time complaining to fellow train passengers about this.
On my return home through Frankfurt, I happened to notice there were 2 train stops in Frankfurt – I had taken the wrong one! So in the end, all my bad-mouthing of the German train system should have been directed at the stupid American that couldn’t navigate a train system!
Needless to say, I finally admitted to my colleague in Prague what the real problem was and haven’t lived that one down since!
First backpacking trip to europe during undergrad…
I had never been out of the country, we flew from Detroit to Amsterdam for a connection to Scotland. We had to go through additional security for our connection to the UK. The Dutch customs asked for our passports at the gate, looked at me funny then proceeded with;
Customs: is this your passport?
Me: uh… yeah
Customs: you are American?
Me: yup!
Customs: you are educated in America?
Me: that’s right.
Customs: you are college educated in America?
Me: yeah, is something wrong?
Customs: tell me why, with your American education, you come to holland and do not sign your passport. I can have you arrested and fined.
After loving that he could humiliate some young Americans in his country, he allowed my friend and I to sign our passport and go on our way. He did want to fine us 500 euro, but gave us a warning.
I also had a similar incident like the castle, when flying easyjet For the first time in Germany, I went to the main dusseldorf airport… only to fin easy jet flew out of an airport 2 hours away. After getting there and finding out the flight was gone without another for 2 days, I hopped a train and negotiated with a mon English speaking polish conductor to allow me on the train and on the way to krakow 1 day late! Great times!
Last summer I flew F on BA from IAD-LHR-PRG. During my stopover in LHR, I was in the Concorde room and while waiting for my appointment time to get into one of the cabanas for a much needed nap, I sat down in what was a VERY crowded main lounge. I ordered a drink and without realizing it, dozed off. I was awoken a few minutes later by the cabana attendant to let me know he had gotten a room for me. I noticed the main lounge had cleared out and there were an inordinate amount of people on the outdoor patio. It was also 2 hours before my cabana appointment. Apparently, I snored so loud when I dozed off, the management cleared cabana appointments to get me into a room ASAP. Everyone fled the main lounge for some quiet time. (Honestly, I’ve never been known to snore. I guess I was way more tired than I knew!)
In the ladies room at the airport in Depensar, Bali, I pulled a lever from the ceiling I thought flushed the toilet. I learned very quickly that it was a was for the overhead shower! I returned to my travel companions drenched and had to sit in soaking clothes for my flight to Bangkok as my bag had already been checked.