Member-only story
My Worst Travel Day
When you run around the planet, mistakes happen
Any sort of travel be it a roadie, a nice jaunt on a train or flight to another continent opens the door to a flat tire, a sweaty fellow passenger with hygiene deficiencies, or a suitcase that’s sentenced to forever slowly loop the baggage claim belt in Calcutta when you’re in a lonely dark section of O’Hare. It is part of the deal. Travel means rolling the dice, getting out of the routine, and leaving ourselves vulnerable to some unexpected force that might try and ruin our vacation.
I’ve had too many of those days to count.
From riding in the back of a pickup in Guatemala during a tropical downpour to busing across Mexico at the height of the drug wars and getting out every 45 minutes to run our bags through airport-like metal detectors to falling asleep by the gate in Valencia and missing my flight to taking the wrong train in Cataluña, doubling back, having my phone battery die, getting on the right train, taking a taxi to my friends only to find they had panicked and gone to the train station while I was in the cab, and I waited outside the house in the cold for an hour before wandering to a local pub for a Dorito and three beer dinner and then going to neighbor’s to make a phone call.
