People Share The Creepiest Experiences They’ve Had While Travelling

One of the main reasons people don’t travel is because they’re afraid of something scary or creepy happening to them. They’re scared of planes, getting mugged, bad hotels, and getting scammed. While traveling could provide unforgettable memories and amazing stories to tell once you get back home, it is possible that something not so fortunate could happen to you. The stories down below prove that statement right.

You’ll read about a woman who was stung by a scorpion in her hotel bed; a man whose hotel room was haunted, and an unlucky man who fell for a scam and ended up in a place with some very dangerous people. Thankfully, all of these people turned out okay in the end, and now have stories that leave strangers on the Internet on the edge of their seats, but it’s not fun while you’re going through it.
There are a lot of scary stories told here that would make anyone want to hide under their beds and promise themselves they’ll never travel because they don’t want any of those things to happen to them. Some of these people even thought their life was going to end right then and there.

Others didn’t know how they were going to get out of terrifying situations.

So, let’s take you through these tales: here are real people telling real-life stories of the creepiest things that have happened to them while traveling.
29. If It Weren’t For This Man, Who Knows What Would’ve Happened To Them…

“Not me, but a friend of mine encountered some crazy sh*t while traveling in Taiwan.
This was around Taichung. There were four of them. My friend with two other girls and one guy. They all hopped in a taxi and gave the driver the destination. He goes the right way for a while, then abruptly pulls off into a side road.

Still driving along, my friend asks him in Mandarin where the hell he’s going, since they’ve been to this place before, and they know wherever they’re going now is not what they asked for. The driver says nothing, gets on the celly and speaks to someone on the other end in Taiwanese. No one in the car understood this language, the mystery was in how the driver figured this out since they were all Asian and could have easily passed for natives visiting home for the holidays. The car pulls into an open field, surrounded by trees in every direction with only a single house in the middle of it.

He parks right outside, and it appears people were emerging from the building. Several of them. The driver pauses for a brief second, starts the car up again, and commences driving along. A few minutes later, the group finds themselves on the side of the main road as the cabbie drives off.
What the three girls in the back of the car did not know at the time was that upon stopping outside that house, their fourth member sitting up front pulled out his knife and held it right above his knee. Making sure it was in plain view of the driver.

Once the cabbie saw this, he started the car up again. No doubt realizing the dangerous situation he inadvertently found himself in. They never figured out what the driver planned on doing, but anything even close to kidnapping couldn’t have been good. Cabbie was reported to the authorities, but they left for the states before finding out anything further.” Rainyday156
28. Her Roommate Disappeared

“During university, I went on an education-sponsored trip to Singapore. Everything was amazing until the last night we were there.
We went to a club that was a bit of a trek from the hotel. I ended up being way too sober to continue partying so I hightailed it back to the hotel with my boyfriend.

Everyone else stayed behind but eventually split up at last call to catch cabs and such.
A guy and a girl from our group decided in their drunken stupor to walk back from the hotel. They somehow, in some weird way ended up wandering into the Singapore port. Keep in mind, the port is the livelihood of Singapore. They didn’t even realize it until a port authority car pulled up and told them they’d give them a ride to their hotel. They were friendly about it so they hopped in. What happened next was insane…
I get a call to my room at 4 am and someone in very broken English is asking if I knew these two people (I was sharing a room with the girl).

First I thought it was a prank by a friend but then I freaked out when I started asking if they’re okay and this really eerie laughing was heard on the other end. They wouldn’t give me their name or location. That gut-dropping feeling when you realize it’s not a joke and something is seriously up.
Turns out the port authority arrested them, turned them over to their version of the state police and were accusing them of being spies who had scaled the walls of the port to gain intel on trade. Both of them were separated, interrogated, guns were pulled on them in order to get them to fess up.

They were taken to the walls of the port and forced to explain how they scaled them. One cop told one friend that the other friend had already confessed, so they might as well turn themselves in too. These people were totally sh*tfaced when I left them a few hours before. I could only imagine the sobering fear…
It took the rest of the group and the hotel front desk staff hours of calling to finally locate where they were in the city. Luckily, we had met a super successful businessman/lawyer living in Singapore from our hometown, a few days before. We called him up and asked if he could help us.

He went to work on it. 12 hours later with the threat of our government getting involved in the mess, they finally turned our friends over to us. We got out of there pronto.

We think someone messed up their job at the port that day, left a gate opened and rather than admit fault, they would get these young students to take the fall. Thankfully, neither of them gave up because god knows how insane their punishments are over there.
Moral of the story? Take a cab home at the end of the night.”  red_sharpie

27. If There’s An Extra Lock, This Is Why You Should Use It

“I was traveling out of the country right after finishing up a huge 5-day work event where I had about 10 hours of sleep total during the 5 days.

I got to the motel, which is kinda run down and the carpet and blankets are damp but I’m so exhausted I don’t even really think about it. I fall asleep pretty much immediately at like 8 PM local time.
At maybe 11 pm or so, I get a call from the motel phone saying there’s been a complaint about noise. I tell them that’s impossible, I’ve been sleeping. They ask me if maybe it’s someone else in the room and I tell them nope, I’m here alone so there’s definitely no one else making noise. They ask me again if I’m sure I’m by myself and not causing any noise.

I say yes again. Fall back asleep immediately.
When I woke up and thought about it some more, I realize how weird the entire interaction was. There was absolutely no noise I could hear anywhere nearby and I don’t know why the motel staff would need to clarify so many times that I was alone.
Apparently, they never called. So I assume it must’ve been someone calling the different rooms to see who was in the rooms and how many people. I’ve never been so glad to always use the extra latch chain lock.” dontthinkdontthink

26. It’s All Fun And Games Until You Get Stung

I was on a two-day boat ride to get from the Thai border to Luang Prabang, Laos, known among backpackers as ‘the slow boat.’ The boat ride was actually enjoyable but long and hot – there was no air conditioning, and it was so hot that when I bent down for a second to tie my shoe there would be a small pool of sweat near my feet by the time I finished.

When we stopped for the night on a small island, I decided to stay in the ‘nice’ guesthouse for $12/night instead of the cheaper $1/night options where most of my boat-mates were staying. I later found out this was a bad idea: The lack of frequent guests coming through meant that scorpions had made a home in the clean white sheets. I had just fallen asleep when suddenly I woke up screaming in the worst pain of my life. I woke up the guesthouse owners frantically and was taken to a doctor’s home deep in the jungle a mile or two away.

I still had no idea what had happened, but the pain was only getting worse and they said it was a small bug of some kind. It felt like a broken bone, a severe burn, and an electric shock all at once.
When we arrived at the doctor’s house at 2 in the morning, we spent about 20 minutes knocking on the door and then someone said, ‘Oh I guess he must be on vacation. We’ll have to go to the hospital.’ I thought a hospital sounded like a great idea until I was taken behind the doctor’s house to a row of shacks with no walls.

The beds had blood on them and there was no electricity. A woman in regular clothes appeared with a syringe in one hand and a candle in the other, dripping wax on the floor.
In Laos, many people don’t really believe in germs; they still think evil spirits cause disease, and my guidebook had warned not to take any injections in the country. The syringe was visibly dirty. I managed to ask whether it was just a painkiller or if it was needed to save my life. They said it was just a painkiller, so I refused and suffered through the pain for three days.

The hospital had no oral painkillers, despite being practically in the Golden Triangle. All they could recommend was Tiger Balm, a topical ointment that did very little. I spent the next three days, including another day on a boat in 110F heat, putting tiger balm on my temporarily-paralyzed arm and waving it with a paper fan.
What might I have done differently? I will never go to a place without medical care without bringing some serious pain meds with me.” Claudia Gold

25. A Strange Man Kept Telling This Woman He Was Her Father

“I was traveling by train for a journey of 30 hours.

I boarded the train, it was a three-tier A.C. compartment, but quite empty as the train had recently been started and very few people knew about it.

This man, about 40 years of age took a seat in front of me and asked me if I was alone. I replied in affirmative and went back to my book. He then told me that he is like my father and I need not worry about traveling alone. I smiled but did not reply.
Next, he offered me a few pastries he was carrying. I declined because I never eat anything offered by strangers. Anywhere.

He got offended and asked me to have at least one. I declined politely, telling him that I was quite full. He told me I was being arrogant. I ignored.

Later, he commented on the book I was reading, and handed me a book, claiming his book was better. I told him not to bother me. He said, ‘I am like your father and you should listen to me, for your own safety.’

Me: ‘Sir you are not my father. Please stop disturbing me.’
Him: ‘You are such an arrogant girl.’

I ignored, yet again.

Later I went to a different coach and found a young couple who were traveling to the same place as me.

I told them of my predicament and both of them and I went to the conductor and requested him to provide a seat next to them. He obliged.

At night, when I was sleeping, near the couple’s seat, the aforementioned man came there, woke me up and asked me to come back to my seat and that he was worried about me. I lost it. In a loud voice, I told him that I was going to call the conductor and police if he didn’t move. The young couple who had helped me also woke up and asked him to leave. He said he was my guardian (the guts on this man!) and was just taking care of me.

Only when some other passengers gathered around, did he leave.
I didn’t sleep the entire night. Didn’t dare to go to the bathroom and sat upright at the slightest noise. Later I called home to ask my dad to come pick me up in the morning. The train usually reached in the wee hours of the morning, so I would take a shared rickshaw to reach home. That day, I was scared.

The last I saw him was when my dad was escorting me out of the station.” Chhavi Agwekar
24. He Didn’t See The Scam Coming

“This happened in December 2014.
After coming to Shanghai for a month’s project, I thought, instead of cuddling in my beautiful hotel room, I should pick myself up and see the city over the weekend.

On Saturday, I visited the Shanghai Zoo which was a pleasant, but nauseating experience (thanks to the aroma) and on Sunday afternoon, I decided to take a look at the Nanjing pedestrian road for some watch shopping or for any article that pleased my eye. I took the Shanghai metro all the way for the commute, and it was a pleasant ride. I arrived at the place in less than an hour.
Immediately after a quick snack at Pizza Hut, I started walking towards Nanjing street where a man approached me with photos of beautiful Chinese girls, all ready to pamper the crap out of me for a pittance.

I was really not in the mood for any steamy stuff that day, so I bypassed him with a smile. Then another guy approached me a few meters ahead, speaking flawless English, saying how Indians and Chinese have always been friends and that he will show me around. I again politely refused him telling him my need to move on and that I was short of time. Since I was a distinctive looking man (being an Indian, floating in a sea of Chinese people) and walking alone, I would have looked like a sitting duck for these lurkers. Another couple of people approached me asking if I want companions and massages including a pretty young lady who really pleaded and followed me to come with her.

I let all these people go not because I was wary of the impending scam approaching me but I was just not in the mood for any R rated action that evening.
As time went by and after crossing more than half of East Nanjing road, I was approached by a pleasant-looking Chinese youngster probably in his early 20’s asking if I wanted the best fake branded handbags of the world. There was sudden bling in my head (probably that of the proverbial light bulb) where I was thinking of getting the Pradas and LV’s of this world for next to nothing.

I could gift it to my mom or sister or my cousins (we weren’t brought up with brand names ringing in our ears) and could be equally proud of it and hence I decided I would give it a try. After all, it’s a handbag, right? You wouldn’t lose much if you bought it.
This guy promised me that the place is not too far and true to his word, within a couple of blocks we were at this place. The store was pretty big but the door that he opened to go to the other room was pretty dark and scary.

It was like finding the 9 and three-quarters station in Harry Potter, almost untraceable. I had to go through a flight of snaking steps to reach the secret room where these fake bags were placed. It was a well-lit room and had beautiful branded watches and handbags. Their promise was even if you take this to the authentic retailer’s store, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I must admit that this was true. Being pretty impressed, I got a couple of them for cheap, had a smile on my face and left the place happy.
It was at this juncture, that the young Chinese dude made his move.

Seeing that I was happy and that he had won over my trust, he asked me if I wanted a massage from a beautiful girl all for RMB 100 (15 USD). I again said a big ‘no’ and a ‘thank you’ to the guy but he persisted over and over saying this was the best place in town and that the girls are the best China has to offer and such gibberish. My scandal detector section of my brain was in hibernation and I did not smell any rotten rats here. With sheer perseverance, he made me accept his offer of taking the full body massage by the beautiful girl.

I am still not able to recollect what made me take this up.
He took me into an alley in East Nanjing road filled with some hawkers and side store vendors and into a building lit with red light (pun not intended, at least not in my head) and again a flight of swirling steps upwards. Once I was in the room, three beautiful ladies came into the room, scantily clothed. Another lady came over negotiated about some offerings (I’ll leave that to your imaginations) and the money involved. I only want the body massage and nothing else and fixed half an hour for the rate of 50 RMB.

I had to choose a girl as well and I happily did that and she was really beautiful, I must admit. My first surprise was that the intended massage was happening at the very same place that they used to make people sit.
The rest of the crew went, leaving just the girl behind and I was inquiring whether we are going somewhere else for the massage or whether the action is happening at this very same place. She told me that it is going to happen in the very same place and asked me to lie down and relax. The so-called massage started nevertheless (it was pretty sad because she had no clue what she was doing) and I felt ridiculous in the beginning.

She asked me to drink water in the meantime which I duly obliged (from a small 500 ml sealed bottle).
I did not feel alright after some time as she insisted on taking off my clothes for more intimacy and I told her that this part, I was not comfortable with. Minutes passed and things started to get weirder as she said she wants to do more than a massage with me. I told her the fact I am not really interested in that today and that was not what I came for. She insisted as if her life depended on it and then I started to get really freaked out.

I was pulling out from her grasp and started to reach for my bag, where I had my purchases and began to wear my shoes. This was when she left everything and rushed out of the room. I understood that this is not how it should work out for me and hurried in packing everything and leaving this godforsaken place as early as possible. At this moment, one hunk of a guy and a short middle-aged man entered the room and locked it behind them. I knew that they were coming to ask for money as it was a no brainer.

Inside my head, I ran a quick calculation whether I should fight this and flee or hold my ground and comply. I am quite a bulky man myself so I wouldn’t mind exchanging a couple of punches and make my way out. The fact that I was in a foreign land and the fact that these guys are a nexus of looters working like clockwork immediately discouraged me and I decided to comply with the thugs. And also I didn’t want to get punched and die.
They had laid down a notepad and written down a bill of 2800RMB (about 450 USD) for the troubles and asked me to pay it (The expenses included the water bottle for 500 RMB, air-conditioned 1000 RMB and entertainment 1000 RMB among others).

I told them I don’t have any money and when they heard that, they mentioned to me that they would take credit cards. All this was happening in a very tense conversation in the room between me and the thugs (tense for me and not for them as they were masters in this).
The reason for me to stay there patiently was because I knew they were not going to get much out of me that day. After the quick zoning out and mental calculations of my options, I was calmed by a relaxing thought that I didn’t carry much cash or the most important cards.

I had taken 400 RMB and 100$ for my shopping outing and kept my savings bank card and the rest of my dollar allowance back in the hotel locker. I decided I would not spend more than this money shopping and hence decided to keep my alternate spending options locked up (which in hindsight was a brilliant move).
Back to the scene at the massage place, things were getting pretty frustrating for the thugs. They frisked me to find if I have any secret money hidden but got nothing. In my wallet, they could find my 200 RMB (200 was spent for purchases) and 100$.

I had one card which was used to pay my hotel bills and had already swiped them thus leaving very little as balance. They tried for 2000¥ and 1000¥ but still, the machine displayed insufficient balance (to their dismay).
I am pretty sure they mumbled ‘cheap b*stard’ in the midst of all this melee but they understood that I had nothing else to offer them. I have heard from others that these people, in the event of you not having enough cash, follow and demand it to be taken from the ATM. But thankfully that did not happen with me. And to my surprise, they gave me back the 200¥ for taxi and kept the 100$ for themselves.

I thanked them silently for letting me out without any bruises and was happy to part with 100$ in exchange for the highly likely physical damage.
The fact remains that I was scammed. I was lucky to get out without much monetary or physical damage but it could have been a lot worse. There are people who have been robbed of their bank accounts clean with scams like this. A huge and beautiful city like Shanghai comes with an overpopulated crowd and innocent tourists who are easy money for scammers. I would encourage all of you out there who are planning a trip anywhere in the world to read enough information on the places that you are intending to go as there is enough and more information for you to read on the Internet.

Be well prepared and well-read and save yourself from these dreaded traps. What I have learned from this loss of my hard-earned 100$ is to be prepared the next time I go someplace that I am not sure of. It’s a life lesson learned and I am sure that it will never again be repeated.” Rahul Ramgopal
23.  A Traveler’s Worst Nightmare? Tiny Bloodsuckers

“It was back in 2006, and I’d just stepped off the plane to become a newly minted banker in Singapore. Having just ended a year-long backpacking trip, I thought I’d bunk down in a local backpacker’s hostel while slowly getting acclimatized to working in a desk job.

I walked in without a reservation, confident that my good looks and charm would get me a bed anywhere I went.
‘Would you like a private room or a bunk bed in the dorm?’

‘Is it a co-ed dorm?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dorm, please.’

It seemed like a nice place. They had these rows and rows of heavyset double-decked wooden bunk beds with a tiny little light thoughtfully placed above your head in case you needed to finish an oil painting or complete your master’s thesis in the dead of night.
I spent the day wandering about Singapore playing the tourist and settled in for the night. It was about a few hours in when I groggily awoke to an itching sensation on my arms.

The seasoned traveler that I was, a mosquito bite or two was no biggie. I went back to sleep. A little while later, I awoke again. The itching had gradually morphed into a burning sensation, and the mosquitoes had decided to franchise their operations to my legs and scalp. What’re they FEEDING these mosquitoes in Singapore? It was annoying but I wasn’t about to let the insects deter me from catching some shuteye, and spent what felt like a year rolling about in a semi-conscious state trying to get back to sleep.
It was roundabout when the burning spread to my crotch, eyelids, and lips that I realized that something was definitely off track.

I turned on the tiny little light above my head and found a heaving mass of bedbugs scrambling to escape the eye of Sauron. They were in my hair, on my face, on my arms, my legs, EVERYWHERE.

I screamed a cry of anguish and rage and visited my wrath upon them. I scooped the bugs off my face and crushed them against the woodwork. I scraped them out of my hair and smeared their bodies across the landscape. I was the destroyer of their cities; the devourer of their worlds. Many a bedbug orphan was made that night.
I checked out that very instant.

It took multiple baths of lava from the pits of Mount Doom before I felt clean again. Then I had to show up for my first day of work with a bug ravaged face looking like a sleep-deprived survivor of a biological experiment.” Ryan Chew

22. They Skipped Death By 30 Minutes

Wow, talk about leaving the wrong place at the right time!

“It was not scary at the time as it was unknown, but we found out about the incident the next day. On 26 Sep 1980, my wife and I were at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. We left through the main gate a little before 10 P.M.

and proceeded to our hotel. Something like 30 minutes later, a bomb was exploded in that same entrance killing 13 and injuring 211.” William Maloy
21. There Was A Ghost In His Hotel Room

“I had a ghost in my hotel room in Taiwan. I was very tired after a long day and had just drifted into a deep sleep when I felt something shove me in the back (like poking me through the covers). I jolted awake, saw nothing there other than the bathroom light (I leave this on in hotel rooms through force of habit. I’ve stubbed too many toes going to pee over the years).

So, I figured I was just dreaming.
Fell back to sleep, and was poked again, more forcefully. Again, I jolted awake, still nothing there.

‘John, you are letting your imagination get the better of you.’

After a while, finally managed to get to sleep and something pulled my hair. I sat up and saw a dark shadow in the corner of the room that quickly vanished. I do not believe in ghosts, but I decided, ‘F*ck this, I’m leaving.’ Got dressed, packed up, and was off like a prom dress.” John Miele
20. The Plane Started Shaking And It Wasn’t Regular Turbulence

“Landing at CDG airport in Paris in a huge Airbus, in the darkest of nights in terrible winds.

So clouded, so low that I couldn’t even see the huge lighted greenhouses that mark the beginning of the approach. We all knew we were getting very close to the ground while the airplane pitched and tripped and fell and shook and even groaned and there was nothing but black outside. Every passenger and steward sat frozen, totally silent. Perfect strangers gripped other strangers’ hands.
When the wheels safely touched down and the plane began to slow, there was no joy or relief or elation. Just a lot of silent, serious glances exchanged showing how close most of us had felt we were to die.

At the gate, we unbuckled, rose, got down our bags, filed out without a single word. Only at a distance inside the terminal did we begin to glance at one another with small, still silent, rueful smiles.

The pilots had no doubt been totally sure that they could land safely, or they would have taken us elsewhere. But in the back, the comprehension of fate and death had been palpable… and very useful, in fact, the first direct knowledge and use of an extreme calmness that one can call up later when needed.” Kathryn Berk
19. As A Female Traveler, This Is One Of The Scariest Things

“In many years of traveling, I’ve experienced a fair share of memorable moments of all flavors.

Hardly any would qualify as creepy in my book though, but one particular episode does come to mind…

In Muscat, Oman’s capital, I was riding a shared minivan from my host’s home to the Muttrah fish market near the Corniche. After having had my tall frame squeezed into a far too narrow seat by around a dozen Pakistani construction workers who were headed in the same general direction for around twenty minutes, eventually, all fellow passengers got off a few minutes before my final stop.
The only people remaining in the minivan was the Omani guy behind the wheel, and me sitting in the last row of the vehicle.

Before continuing the trip, the driver gestured me to move to the front and ride shotgun, so I did. As we slowly maneuvered through traffic the driver suddenly turned to me and asked with a guttural and strongly accented voice: ‘Is big, or smaaaaaall?’ carefully enunciating and drawing out the vowel of the last word.

‘I’m sorry?’ Not knowing what he was talking about, I turned to him with a puzzled expression on my face. The driver smiled and repeated the question: ‘Is biiiig, or smaaaaaall?’ and then suddenly took his right hand off the wheel and firmly placed it on my crotch.

Yikes!
After a millisecond of delay caused by the surprise, I grabbed his wrist and vehemently moved his hand off me. I don’t remember what I said anymore at the moment, but whatever it was, the driver raised his shoulders, smiled, and said: ‘Sooooorry! So soooorry!’

Moments later we reached our destination and I got out of the vehicle. While I had often been unabashedly flirted with by women and men many times on my travels, this was the first, and so far the last, time anyone had actually groped me. I guess that qualifies as creepy. This experience has also served to make me much more aware of the challenges especially female solo travelers may face while on the road.” Joe Brown
18. Who Knew Photography Could Be Considered As Gang Activity?

“Not me but my dad. He used to be a professional photographer.

He was one of the types who would do anything for a good photo.
Anyway, he’s in Mexico on a business trip. During some time off, he rents a car and goes outside the city looking for good pictures. He sees some young children playing in the street and starts taking pictures of them.

A few minutes later, men and women start shouting and running toward him. He jumps back in his car but they surround the car. More villagers arrive. Soon there’s a mob around his car. They’re screaming, beating on the windows and trying to overturn his car.
Moments later police arrive and he’s arrested – and in doing so they probably saved his life.

They take him to the station and interrogate him. He tells them he’s just a photographer from America taking pictures like a tourist. Obviously, he’s as confused as you can imagine and scared sh*tless.

The police believe him and then tell him that a gang/cartel has been in town taking pictures of children and then kidnapping them. The villagers thought that he was part of the gang.” reddituser

17. Two People Died In Their Hotel Room

“Found a hotel in Yangon (Burma) the day we got there for pretty cheap. They mentioned the rates were low because maintenance was being done on several floors.

We sleep fine, wake up and head to breakfast. At breakfast, we met some Germans who had also stayed the night in our hotel. They said they had not slept well because during the middle of the night someone woke them up to move them from the floor they were on.
We (us and the Germans) found out later that they had been moved because they were on one of the levels reserved for maintenance, and part of the maintenance included gassing the rooms for bugs. During the middle of the night they were just going around the rooms shoving the gas nozzle or whatever under the doors and letting them run; wound up killing the two people next to the Germans before they realized they’d accidentally booked people on that floor.

We weren’t on that floor thankfully but it has always stuck with me how seemingly easy it could’ve been to have gotten mixed up in that.” chiefkhump
16. He Was Looking For A Good Time But Ended Up In A Room With People Who Carried Guns

“In the Yucatan (southern Mexico), my brothers and I told a local in a bar we were looking for ‘mota’ (slang term for drugs). We were in some super small town, where everyone gets home at 4 from work, gets loaded and is passed out by 8. This character says he’ll take us to the town dealer, and since we were drunk, we decide to go along.

This isn’t your friendly suburban stoner who slings baggies out of his parents’ garage. This was next level narco sh*t, with fighting cocks in cages outside, a tall gate and razor wire all around the house, which, by town standards was a mansion but by American standards was a big thirty-year-old house that wasn’t maintained.
My drunkest brother decides to go for it while we wait outside. In a few minutes, I hear laughing and he’s being the life of the party, acting like the jolly drunk American speaking Spanglish. He was in there half an hour but since we didn’t hear any bad sounds, like yelling and fighting, it was ok.

Finally, he gets escorted out and says drunken goodbyes and pulls us along back to the bar. He tells us that was the most scared he’s ever been – there were two dudes with machine guns (that he could see) and he was sat down in front of some big wig with gold teeth. It was like a movie set and he wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a f*cking tiger in the basement to eat people.
This area is known for kidnapping tourists as well as the hanging the headless bodies of competitors and law enforcement from bridges. He didn’t realize how bad it was until he got in and saw he was interrupting some kind of party.

Everyone was pretty f*cked up, though, and he just tried to be goofy and amazed at all their stuff so they’d like him. They wanted him to party but he said his brothers were waiting and he had to bring us a little weed or we’d worry. He used the language barrier to leave against their request to stay and do God knows what. Sober us realized the next day it could have turned out terrible. And the drugs weren’t very good anyway.”  QualitySalves
15. He Doesn’t Know How To Take No For An Answer

“I traveled to Paris when I was 17 with a group of students from my high school.

We were told to keep our money packed away safe and to never talk to the street vendors, especially those who were making bracelets on tourists’ wrists (these men make bracelets and then charge exorbitant fees, and if you don’t pay them what they ask they will threaten you or physically stop you from leaving the area).
I was paired with another young girl when we were traveling to the Sacre Coeur and a man approached us wanting to make a bracelet for us. We declined, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He kept bothering us and following us up the hill while we’re still saying no.

At one point, he grabs my wrist and starts trying to work. I grab onto my friend, and he’s pulling me in the other direction. He starts screaming at me and pulling me harder and I’m not sure what to do at that point.
My friend starts screaming for the police and he took off. Unfortunately, the same thing happened to one of the other students who didn’t understand that the man was not going to let him leave without paying 20 euros. The student tried to leave but the man was threatening to follow him and kill him, kill his family, and do all sorts of terrible things.

The student took a picture of the man and the man snatched his camera and took off.

Tourist destinations are crazy.” dairyqueenlatifah
14. Her Classmate Was Almost Taken Away

“Similar situation. I went when I was 13 with my school. Anyway, we were under the Eiffel tower waiting for our teachers to get all our stuff sorted for going up. We hear some girl scream and look to our left, we all see some guy pulling a girl about our age off into the distance. It was one of our classmates.
She went off to buy ice cream. Well, unfortunately for the dude, the French military was walking around beneath the Eiffel Tower.

Don’t know if this is a regular occurrence, but they were there. One of the teachers ran up to them and started asking for help in French. At this point, the girl in our class had disappeared around a corner and then we saw 4 soldiers run past. All of a sudden our classmate comes running around the corner crying. Out of our curiosity, the class goes around the corner to see what’s going on. Her captor is on the floor at the end of a FAMAS barrel. Yeah, that girl was going through some tough sh*t already and didn’t find the trip easy after that.” deleted
13. He And A Few Friends Were Mugged At Knifepoint  

“Summer of 2011. Scouting project with 4 friends in Dakar, Senegal.

I was 19 at the time. After 2 years’ preparation, we went there for a month to help with the building of new classrooms for the local church’s school, along with providing free animations for the local kids.

A few weeks in, the big event arrives. End of the construction? Nope. The wrestling match between the two most famous wrestlers in the country (who happen to come from two neighboring… neighborhoods in Dakar). After 5 hours (!) of pre-fight rituals, the big fight comes. It lasts a whole ~15 seconds before our neighborhood’s champion wins. Ensues the whole place blowing up with chants, general happiness, etc.

Fast forward a couple of hours, we’re sitting in a taxi to go to a party, or ‘bégué’ as they call it. Our group of 8 (3 Senegalese and 5 French) is separated into two taxis. While theirs drop them off in front of the place we were headed to, ours drops us off at the gas station ~300m(350 yards I think) from there. In the group, there was 4 of us – 3 French (A, F and me), one Senegalese (B).

Two guys appear out of nowhere and tackle B. A and I immediately react and try to get them off when I hear A tell me to stop, stop, sounding quite panicked.

I stop, only to realize one of the two guys had pulled out a knife. Who am I kidding? A f*cking machete and was holding it to B’s throat!
A third guy then comes out and starts searching us. He takes my bag (which contained a bit of medication, the key to our room in some kind of dispensary, and some water. That’s it.) A isn’t carrying anything of value. They take B’s wallet. F has been laying low the whole time and they somehow completely forget to search him, which was extremely lucky. He was carrying our two credit cards, a checkbook, and his passport.

In his wallet, B was carrying a month’s worth of salary, that he was meant to give to his father’s secretary. Out of all of us, he’s the one that had the least roughing up and the most to lose. All of this happened on a street where a lot of people were passing by (Saturday night, after a big sports event, etc). Not one soul to help.
Needless to say, the mood wasn’t quite there for the party, and we didn’t stay long.” RSVive

12. Everything They Had Was Stolen, But At Least They Lived

“In 2005, a couple of friends and I went to Tijuana, Mexico for a day of shopping and cheap tequila.

I got lost trying to find my way back to the border and ended up in a crappier area of town. A cop car pulls me over and out gets 4 men, not in police uniforms and carrying large riffle machine gun looking things.
All four of us girls are trying not to lose our sh*t when they just start screaming at us in Spanish. They’re yelling for us to get out of the car but we weren’t moving fast enough for them. They rip the doors open, pull us out, push us to our knees on the side of the road and start digging through our car.

We all thought we were going to die that night. They just stole everything worth anything from our car then hightailed it outta there. We were very very lucky to have left with our lives.” MuffinTopJiggle
11. He Got Sandwiched In A Verbal Brawl He Wasn’t Ready For

“I spent about 3 years backpacking around the world and definitely came back with some pretty good stories. Here’s a rather interesting one.

After a big night out in Brussels, I started walking back to my hostel/hotel. I was staying in the worst part of the city so things were already a bit sketchy since it was probably around 3 am.

As I came into the neighborhood I was staying in, I passed a small bar with muffled music coming out of the door. I couldn’t see what the scene looked like but thought, ‘Hey, why not?’ I soon as I walked in I realized that I might have just made a big mistake. It turns out that this was the ‘Congo’ bar. Now I’m a 6’2″ blond guy who doesn’t typically feel small in a room, but I felt tiny. There were about 40 guys (no women) all from the DRC and these were some BIG boys.
Immediately when I walk in a guy grabs me slams a class in my hand and fills it from his beer bottle.

I think these guys were just thinking that I was either crazy or had some big cojones. Anywho, we start slammin’ ’em back when I notice a huge guy on the other side of the bar staring at me like he wants to eat my children. We make eye contact and he just starts screaming at me in Congolese. Immediately everyone focuses on this one-sided exchange and the bar quickly splits down the middle.
The guys who were giving me beers, there were about 8-10 of them, start screaming back at this guy, who’s now been joined his buddies. So little old 22-year-old me is sitting there while 20-30 giant central African dudes are just screaming at each other in this 20′ X 30′ bar, not a word of which I can understand.

The only thing I know for sure is that I’m the topic of conversation. Finally, the guy who started screaming at me left and things mellowed out, but for a while there I really didn’t know how things were gonna turn out.” mcmenamin309
10. Think Twice Before You Walk Alone At Night

“From that incident, I always warned people not to go to Paris’s Montmartre alone at night.

Two years ago, I was in Paris on a solo trip and went to Montmartre one night. After getting off the metro, I was dazzled by the beautifully-lit Basilique du Sacre Coeur on top of the hill.

Those who have been there know what I am talking about! Like a siren, Sacre Coeur lured me to ascend the hill to reach her.

Before I knew it though, I was already in the middle of the hill, and a north African man walked towards me as he demanded: ‘Look here, look at me.’ I didn’t pay him any attention and tried to walk to a different direction, but that’s when I realized that I was suddenly surrounded by this man’s comrades who seemed to come out of nowhere and made the same demand, ‘Look here, look at me.’  It didn’t take long for them to encircle me and all of them have blocked any route of escape.

No one was around but me and them.
The encirclement started to close in, and I had to quickly shuffle away to maintain arm’s length distance. During my shuffle, I bumped into something (bench? trash can?) pretty hard and made a very large noise. Suddenly, the encirclement stood still. One guy eventually took a step aside and told me to move on. I took my chance and bolted out of the opening.

I didn’t know what exactly happened then. Maybe I was about to be mugged by a gang? Maybe I was just getting messed with?  Either way, this event was always in my mind to remind me that as a solo traveler who enjoys night walks, I must always stick with a crowd within shouting distance in case anything like this happens again.” jayflying
9. They Were Targeted And Beaten Up

“Haven’t had any major incidents when traveling but it finally caught up with me this April.

My husband and I were in Cape Town and went to Hour Bay to do snorkeling with seals thing. It wrapped up by midday so we decided to go check out a farmer’s market of sorts that was a 10min walk away. Pretty touristy area, broad daylight around noon, short walk – no big deal.
We started walking towards the market and approach the start of an S curve in the road. We see people walking past us in the opposite direction and cars driving by. We get to the middle of this S curve, so the area we came from is now hidden from us, as is the area we are headed to; it’s a blind spot.

All of a sudden, we just notice these two guys walk past us – again. They had passed us just a couple mins earlier going the other way (we remember them since the one guy is in a bright orange shirt). Next thing I know, the orange shirt is walking towards me with a wooden pole raised threateningly. He doesn’t say a word and starts hitting me. There is literally no one else around at this point nor any cars driving by.
The next few minutes are a blur; I just remember yelling ‘no’ and screaming for help and somehow ending up on the ground and trying to kick him away.

After what feels like forever, a community patrol of Hout Bay drives around the corner. He’s basically a local neighborhood watch guy. He sees what’s happening and pulls up and gets out of the car, which causes the two guys to bolt.

We end up being taken to a fire department by our savior, who then patch us up a little bit, before getting taken to the police by an ambulance to file a report. My husband had to get some stitches on his elbow from blocking some blows, and we both had a ton of bruises, but luckily no broken bones or anything else major.

It still feels surreal now, an ‘I can’t believe that actually happened to me’ moment. We thought we’re always aware of our surroundings but let our guards down that day and got really unlucky that no one else was walking when we were. It just taught us that these things can happen to anyone and at any time, not just when it’s dark out. Always be aware of your surroundings, especially in places that have a reputation for violent crime.” Lishym

8. What Everyone On A Plane Fears…

“I’m not sure if this counts as horror but I was on a flight to New Orleans once and the turbulence got so bad that the pilot went on the intercom and commanded in the most non-reassuring, extremely-tense voice: ‘Flight attendants return to your seats NOW.’ And that’s it, that’s all he said.

Ominous.
They were in the middle of serving snacks and drinks and booked it to their seats, meanwhile, I’m imagining our inevitable doom. I’ve never felt a plane jolt the way it did at that time like the wind was coming from the side and tossing us sideways instead of up and down. There was some kind of cold front and a bunch of thunderstorms were flying through. Not through the thunderstorms per se, but in between them at least.” TectonicBallet
7. People Do Crazy Things For Money

SO much beauty, so much culture and history, but people will do what they can if they have to:

“Rural mountain road in Nepal.

A little girl (maybe 8 years old) tried to jump in front of our car. Before I even realized what was happening our guide jumps out and starts yelling and trying to catch her. Guide told me that parents sometimes encouraged young children to jump in front of cars in order to get some sort of settlement money from travelers. Scary sh*t. Other than that Nepal is pretty chill.” jazzjune

6. They Needed A Ride, But Not From A Gang Of Bikers

“My older sister and I were traveling together all through South East Asia last year. We were in Laos and wanted to find the fastest way to meet up with a couple of friends who were in Vietnam.

We decided to hire a private driver to take us there. The driver explained that he could only drop us off at the Laos/Vietnam border and that there would be tourist buses at the border that could take us into the city. When we arrived at the border, we got out of the car and the driver drove off. My sister and I walked up to the window of the only person working, got our visas, and walked across. Immediately we noticed there were no buses, no hotels/shops, and no people around. It was around 5:30 and the sun was about to go down.

All of a sudden we see a group of men approaching us on motorbikes.
They surround us in a circle and one of them says in broken English, ‘Where are you going? Need a ride?’ My sister and I look at each other and realize we have no other way of getting into the city. We tell the man where we want to go and he tells us the city is only 15 minutes away and that it would only cost us $12 USD to take us there. This all sounds great except when he mentions that my sister and I would have to get on separate bikes.

We decline his offer, unsure of how else we’ll get to the city. We start trying to walk away but the bikers try grabbing our arms and follow us. They try to haggle and convince us to get on their bikes. We see a garage door opened a few yards away and we head towards it.
An older couple is watching television inside and we ask them for help. The bikers had followed us there and start shouting at them in Vietnamese. The couple looks at us in confusion and my sister and I realize they were probably trying to somehow persuade them not to help us.

My sister then looks at the couple and says, ‘$70. Drive to city,’ and points at the car sitting in the garage. The older lady shakes her head in agreement and then looks at the bikers and shouts something to them in Vietnamese. The bikers try to convince us one more time to get on their bikes and start laughing. They finally realize there was no convincing us and they leave. We get in the car with the older couple and they start driving to the city. The scariest part is that it took over an hour and a half to get there when the bikers said only 15 minutes.

Just thinking about what could’ve happened to us if we got on those bikes gives me the chills!” enemvee
5. Worst. Situation. Ever. 

“My cousin and her friend got taken off into the jungle in South America at gunpoint by three guys, robbed, stripped, then one of the guys went nuts and tried to drown her friend in a nearby river – the two other guys pulled him off and told them if they told anyone they would kill them.

Well, naturally, they told the next person to come along the road (a bus) and he told them to go away. The next people who came along brought them back into the village to the police station whereby a group of villagers went out hunting the three assailants.”  RobertJ93
4. She Had To Think Fast When She Realized She Wasn’t Alone

“A friend of mine was living in Italy and working as a nanny.

She was on the train on her way home and noticed two men staring at her. She had her mobile phone in her coat pocket and was holding onto it.
Next thing she feels a hand reach into her pocket and hold onto her hand tightly, attempting to restrain her. As the train stops she somehow manages to get out of his grip and run off the train and up the stairs to street level. The men get off the train after her. She sees one come up each set of stairs (there were two sets leading up to street level) and follow closely behind her.

She sees a woman stopped in a car on the street talking on her mobile phone and jumps in the passenger side of the car and pretends to talk to her like she knows her. The woman looks at her blankly and stunned. The men see and keep walking. She then explains the whole story to the random lady in broken Italian who drives her home.
She has no idea what the men planned to do. But can safely assume it wasn’t good.” cherrycherries

3. Bombs Away!

“Copenhagen, Denmark; or more specifically Nemoland, Christiania. Drank a few beers, smoked a little bit and enjoyed some music at an outdoor cafe.

Really soft evening, loved the music and the atmosphere. The night, however, came to an abrupt halt when some kind of explosive charge suddenly detonated in the area (grenade or bomb?), and the place was quickly evacuated in a surprisingly non-panicky manner where people helped each other to find their way. I saw a couple of police cars outside as we left, but we never got to know what exactly had happened. My friend and I, slightly disoriented, somehow managed to find our way through the subway and catch a train to Sweden within an hour or two. Details are a bit fuzzy.” Randsomswedishdude
2. So Scary, Even For The Person Who Lives There

“1989, year out of college, visited my best friend in Colombia.

Beautiful country, but: 1. Riding from Bogota to some small town in a car with other people who wanted to go there, I’m in the front seat. Late at night. We go around this turn on the highway, I’m looking out the window, see this huge cluster of crosses and memorials. I turn to talk to my friend in the back seat.
The moment I open my mouth to say, ‘This must be a really dangerous turn’ the VERY MOMENT, everyone else in the car screams. Including the driver. I whirl back around to look out the front, and the whole field of view is four headlights in a horizontal line.

One bus was passing another bus going around the turn. We went off the road, got back on, and continued on our way. 2. Another one of those collective rides, a bunch of people who don’t know each other find a driver at a bus stop, pay him to take them there, heading toward Bucaramanga.
Again, late at night. I wake up when my friend shakes my shoulder, and he whispers, ‘DONT SAY ANYTHING.’ The car is surrounded by soldiers in uniform, helmets on, machine guns pointed and ready. Everybody has to get out of the car. They go through the luggage, checking everything, machine guns pointed at us the whole time.

They make me open every film canister in my fanny pack  – 1989, remember –  with my hands shaking so bad I drop one. I bend over to pick it up, and I remember everyone drawing breath at once.
None of us is carrying anything they’re looking for, so they let us back into the car and drive on. My friend explains they were hoping the two Americans are carrying drugs, so they could steal all of our stuff and leave us essentially naked in the town. That was the army.

Maybe half an hour after that, we see these arc lights strung over the road.

When we get closer, there’s a rope with a red rag tied to the middle, and the rag is just filthy. It’s really red and black, it’s so dirty, but you could tell it used to be red, though.
Car stops. The driver gets out, is surrounded by men in camo uniforms, and these guys are again just incredibly dirty, stained, caked with mud. You knew that these guys had been living in the jungle for months. And again, they’re carrying machine guns ready, aiming them, not just letting them hang the way the police do. They frisk the driver, them make him walk around the car with them as they open the trunk, the hood, check the wheel wells, and so on.

My friend and I are sitting rigid in our seats. No one inside the car is moving.
Finally, they clap the driver on the back and let him get back into the car.

I wait as long as I can to talk, we must be miles away, and turn back to my friend and say, ‘that one had me worried.’

My friend, who’d been living in Colombia for a year, whose idea this whole trip was in the first place, who had ridden on the ROOF of a bus to meet me in Bogota, says, ‘That one had ME worried.’ zingorriffic

1. Thank Goodness He Couldn’t Help Fix The Car

“I was walking home from a wedding on Sunday night in Jerusalem.

The group I was with just crossed the street and continued on their way, and I turned left to head toward my apartment. I’m on the left side of the street because I had crossed the intersection with them. After walking about 80 feet, I see a car parked on the other side of the street and a gentleman standing beside it.
He’s not Israeli. I can tell from his accent. He asks me to come (in a combination of broken English and Hebrew) to help him with his car. I respond, ‘I don’t speak Hebrew.’

I keep saying that as I walk further down the street.

After another 15 feet or so, another man gets out of the car. And they start to come after me.

I have never run so fast in my life. Fortunately, I was only about 30 seconds from my apartment.

I don’t know what happened to them, I didn’t look back. And I try not to think about what would’ve happened to me if I had gone over to help.” harddata
Some of these traveling stories are truly bone-chilling. Creepy, scary and unfavorable! Thank goodness everyone made it out alive to tell the tale, because they are pretty entertaining, to say the least. Have you been anywhere and encountered a strange situation while in transit? Tell us everything!