My 6 dumbest travel mistakes

1. Converting wrong and getting way too much cash from an ATM

Those living in the European Union, like me, are spoiled. We use euros and we can use them in the vast majority of the EU. Traveling to France or Spain or Germany? No problem. In Hungary however, they use the Hungarian Florint (HUF). One euro is now 312 HUF. If you don’t pay close attention to currency conversion, like I did, you might end up withdrawing 10 times the amount of money you need, two days before departure. Oops. I converted the extra back to euros but lost a lot of money in the exchange process.

2. Losing my debit card and not having a credit card (twice)

In the Netherlands, we only use debit cards. Credit cards are hardly accepted in general stores and only used for big or online purchases. So I didn’t have one. I only had a debit card. And if you only have one card, you better not lose it. This turns out to be easier said than done..

Summer 2010: I was working at a summer camp in New York and went shopping on my day off. The lady behind the counter was in a hurry and there was a long line waiting, so, instead of putting my card back in my wallet, I threw it in the shopping bag to sort it out later. Big mistake! By the time I got back to the camp, I had totally forgotten it was still in the little plastic bag, and threw the bag out as waste and I only realized a few days later that my card was gone. I rushed to the garbage, but by then it had been picked up. My card was gone.

It wasn’t a total disaster as I hardly used it while working at the summer camp and I had enough time to order a new one. It’s a different story, however, when you lose your card at the airport on the day of arrival. When withdrawing money from an ATM in the Netherlands, the machine first gives you back your card and your money after that. In Beijing, it’s the other way around. After landing, I withdrew some money. But instead of giving me my card back, the machine dispensed my money, kept my card, and asked if I wanted to withdraw more. I was so impressed by the cool Chinese money that I totally forgot about my card. Only when I got to my hostel, I realized my card was gone and the ATM had swallowed it. Great way to start my trip!

3. Losing my visa documents

As a tourist you don’t need a visa for the US if your country is part of the visa waiver program (ESTA), but if you stay longer than three months you do. And so I had a visa when working at the aforementioned summer camp in New York. One time I suddenly needed them and I remembered I had put them in a really, really safe place…but I couldn’t remember where that really, really safe place was. Seriously, those moments are the worst. I turned the entire place upside down and eventually found them in my night drawer. Looking back, I’m not entirely sure why I thought that was the perfect place to put them, but I got them back. So, 1) store your visa documents in an actual really, really safe place and 2) don’t forget where that really, really safe place is!

4. Having two months of salary wired to the wrong bank account

This is probably the dumbest mistake of them all. By far. I had over $3,000 of salary in my US bank account, but of course I wanted to bring it back to the Netherlands. So I was going to wire transfer it to my Dutch bank account. I filled out all the forms at the bank in New York.. yup, looked good, all set. It would show up in my Dutch bank account in a few days. So I checked, and checked again, and checked again. After a week still nothing. After 1.5 weeks, still nothing. But by now, all my colleagues had received their salaries, but where had my money gone?! I checked the forms again and realized I had entered the wrong bank account number…so $3,000 gone?

Thankfully, it was no one’s bank account number, so the money was still stuck and on hold somewhere in the wire system. When I called the lady at the bank in New York from Toronto, she was like, “But you signed the form, confirming the details.” Yeap I did, but apparently I didn’t pay enough attention. All turned out okay eventually, but I was very lucky it hadn’t ended up in someone else’s account, as it’s then pretty much up to the willingness of that person to give it back.

5. Forgetting travel health insurance and ending up in a US hospital

My parents are always really keen on insurances, but none of us had ever traveled outside Europe when I took off to New York back in 2006. So I had a health and travel insurance, but as it turned out the insurance only covered me in Europe. None of us had thought about this.

And then it happened. While camping in the Catskill Mountains of Hudson Valley, a pot of boiling water tipped over and burned my entire foot — second-degree burns, big yellow, jelly blisters. Not cool. There was no fast way out of the mountains, so when we got back to civilization the next day I was brought to the hospital. They popped the blister, put some cream on, and applied a few bandages. A few weeks later I got the bill — over $800! Yes, that’s a shitload of money for some burn cream and bandages! Imagine the cost of getting hit by a truck! Lesson learned — never travel without proper insurance.

6. Forgetting my luggage on a plane/train station

Ok, full disclosure: I also made this mistake twice.

The first time I was traveling back from the US and everything went wrong. Flights were cancelled and changed, and someone in my group suddenly wasn’t listed on the flight — complete chaos. Instead of flying to Amsterdam we were put on a flight to Paris and so I spent those seven hours trying to come up with a plan. When the plane touched down I had so much on my mind! Number 1 was finding the airline desk and getting us on another flight to Amsterdam as soon as possible. And so I just jumped from my chair, got myself out of the plane as fast as I could and tried to sort things out. Meanwhile, I totally forgot my carry-on luggage on the plane — including passport, wallet, laptop. I only realized it an hour after the fact. Luckily, the plane was still at the gate and one of the flight attendants went back inside to get it for me. (Thank you Air France for helping us out in so many ways that day!)

The second time was at a train station in Canada at Niagara falls. My friend and I had been waiting a while and carried lots of bags with us during that trip. And when the train finally arrived, we jumped up, ran to it, and tried to get a good seat. Totally forgot one of the bags. Thankfully, nothing really important or valuable was in it as I never got it back! Maybe it’s still out there somewhere, traveling.

This article originally appeared on Flying Dutch Girl and is republished here with permission.

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