Tiny travel horror stories

A multipart theory built on superstition

I have a (completely unfounded, largely superstitious) multi-part theory about travel. Basically, it’s that every time you travel, you end up with at least one tiny horror story. 

You know what I mean by “tiny horror story”? We’ve all had them on trips—those aggravating mishaps that may be frustrating or scary or infuriating in the moment. But later upon your return, those are the stories you tell your friends over drinks, their mouths agape at the uncanny situation, their gasps loud at the scary part, their laughter explosive at the stunning twist.

Though nobody likes experiencing tiny horror stories, everyone likes to tell stories about them, and everyone likes to hear them.

I also think it’s just good caution for travelers. Regardless, prepare your tin foil hats. Here’s the theory, with commentary and annotations:

I. Every trip, journey, sojourn, and/or quest has at least one tiny horror story.  

I think this part is pretty self-explanatory.

II. The severity of the tiny horror story is proportional to the length of the trip, distance traveled, and money and sanity invested. 

For instance, if you do a l’il weekender to the nearest big city, your tiny horror story is likely to involve something no more severe than a flat tire, lost wallet, twisted ankle, or messed-up hotel reservation. Maybe it’s as minor as an especially voluminous soup spill or a lost temper at an inopportune moment. 

Whereas if you find yourself hiking up a lonely mountain two continents from home in search of a hidden temple, the tiny horror story severity index will be much higher. 

Those are two extremes. Most lie somewhere in between.

III. Everyone can (mostly) laugh at the end. 

In order for a tiny horror story to be tiny, it must not be actually horrific. Nothing truly awful happens. Everyone makes it back. No one goes bankrupt or perishes or suffers an extended stay in a jail. (Those things do happen in rare instances, of course. But those are actual horror stories. Not tiny ones. You get it.)

IV. The tiny horror story inoculates you against more severe mishaps. 

This is likely the most controversial part of my theory, but I find it comforting. Think about it: It’s exceedingly rare to have more than one thing go sideways on a trip. If you get mugged in an alley in Barcelona, you don’t also crash the rental car. If you miss your transatlantic flight, you probably won’t also get food poisoning. And so on. 

(Sure, there’s some statistical probabilities at work here. But that’s no fun. Besides, what is a probability but a de facto inoculation against X happening twice? It’s really just how you spin it.)

V. The inoculation is protective only insofar as you behave reasonably responsibly and in good faith. 

For example, as I’ve articulated above, you generally don’t face multiple awful mishaps on a single trip. And that’s partially because the vast majority of us are not looking for trouble and are actually trying very hard to avoid it. 

But the rule breaks down if you violate those good-faith prerequisites. For example, if you take a bunch of LSD that you bought from a random French kid (with dreads) at a hostel in Romania, and then try to run across the border naked because you’re convinced the leaves of the trees turned into bees and are trying to steal your thneed, and you end up imprisoned in Bulgaria without a passport because you were screaming anti-Russian epithets during said border cross attempt and forgot that the Bulgarians are buddies with Russia and also there’s a war on…then that’s just on you, my friend. 

And if it happens twice, then honestly, you deserve it.   

Stay tuned for some tiny travel horror stories here on Adventure Hat. Subscribe to get them all if you haven’t already.

If you have tiny travel horror stories to share, please shoot me an email; I’d love to hear it.