bad travel experience essay

Frederic Paulussen

My worst travel experience (so far)

I just came back from what so far is my worst travel experience. It was a city trip to Riga, a beautiful city I would love to visit again. Next time, I would do things differently tho…

In a couple of days, I’m leaving for Botswana for 3 weeks. Three weeks of no internet. Which means I will miss my girlfriend, and she will miss me (I think). For that reason, we booked a trip together before I leave, so we can make sure we had our dose of each other.

We pick a date as close as possible to the trip, we go on TravelBird, and we book our trip. Not a dark cloud in the sky. We are over the moon when we find a nice city trip deal to Riga . Click, paid, booked.

And then shit hits the fan

TravelBird goes bankrupt. They stop completely. In the Netherlands (which also operates in Belgium), they have a commission that takes over the customers and makes sure everyone can go on their trip or get their money back.

I’m in the category that gets a guarantee for their departure. I’m happy with that. I still e-mailed the hotel that was booked for me to be sure. Or the hotel which should have been booked for me.

I explained the situation to them, and they confirmed the messages. TravelBird did go bankrupt and try to book for me. But the booking was refused because of non-payments by TravelBird. A decision of the hotel I can totally understand. They, too, have a business to run. And accepting bookings from non-payers can send them the same way TravelBird went.

Emailing back and forth

I emailed the commission, explaining they haven’t made the booking they guaranteed me. They send me a letter, signed by their CEO that I can show the hotel. I tell them it’s a bit ridiculous since everyone can make a letter like that.

“Yeah, but it has the signature of our boss!”

Fine, I’ll send it to the hotel. The receptionist’s reply was, “We can’t accept this letter as a form of payment as anyone can have written this letter. I couldn’t agree more.

A lot of e-mails go back and forth from me to the commission. I’m claiming I want to have my money back. They claim that’s not possible. I claim they make the booking that I will pay for myself and reclaim the money with them. They can’t guarantee it anymore and tell me I can get my money back if I want.

I’m flabbergasted by this change of decisions, and by then, it was only a day before departure. I wanted to visit Riga; the money-back thing came too late. I told them that.

Actually, I started my e-mail with: That’s the most friendly ‘Fuck You’ I’ve ever received.”

I don’t get mad easily, but don’t push my buttons by going back on your word.

I’m coming on my own terms

A day in advance, I emailed the hotel again to let them know I was coming and would pay for the room myself. I want to be sure I will arrive somewhere and have a room.

Of course, I only book the room. I will have to reclaim the money afterward, so the extra things like cocktails I booked on TravelBird aren’t in my package. The hotel asks for an extra 40 euros for it, but I’m still unsure if I will see that money back. So I skip it.

Upon arrival at the hotel, I notice it’s a nice hotel. Or at least, the reception is nice. In the room, I notice it’s a bit outdated. TravelBird lured me with the four-star hotel thingy but little did I know that didn’t have to mean anything.

The window of my room only has one-half of the curtains. Luckily we are on the top floor, and no one can look inside. But still.

The furniture is old, which isn’t a drama. But I expected more of all of it.

There are two beds for us. Two single beds. As you might know, I hate that stuff!

What’s your biggest hostel pet peeve? #travelquestion For me, it’s when they give you a bedroom for 2 persons, and it’s actually a room with two single beds put together. I hate sleeping in those beds! pic.twitter.com/uSoHK3Z2Yg — Fredography ? (@FredPaulussen) October 28, 2018

On the second day, after our long day visiting the beautiful city of Riga, we arrive back at the hotel to find our door is still open. Housekeeping left it open when cleaning the room. Or yeah, the door sucks. But they should know. Lucky for us, nothing is gone.

Except for our towels. Housekeeping did take the old ones with them. But never replaced them. So I needed to go downstairs to ask for towels at the overcrowded receptionist. He was there alone, helping three families check-in and bring my towels upstairs—poor him.

On the way back home, my RyanAir flight had the most turbulence I ever experienced. Which didn’t help to make me feel good either? But hey, that’s life—end of rant.

What was your worst travel experience so far? Let me know in the comments!

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Write a Good Travel Essay. Please.

Kathleen Boardman

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Editor’s Note: We know that many of you are looking for help writing travel experience essays for school or simply writing about a trip for your friends or family. To inspire you and help you write your next trip essay—whether it’s an essay about a trip with family or simply a way to remember your best trip ever (so far)—we enlisted the help of Professor Kathleen Boardman, whose decades of teaching have helped many college students learn the fine art of autobiography and life writing. Here’s advice on how to turn a simple “my best trip” essay into a story that will inspire others to explore the world.

Welcome home! Now that you’re back from your trip, you’d like to share it with others in a travel essay. You’re a good writer and a good editor of your work, but you’ve never tried travel writing before. As your potential reader, I have some advice and some requests for you as you write your travel experience essay.

Trip Essays: What to Avoid

Please don’t tell me everything about your trip. I don’t want to know your travel schedule or the names of all the castles or restaurants you visited. I don’t care about the plane trip that got you there (unless, of course, that trip is the story).

I have a friend who, when I return from a trip, never asks me, “How was your trip?” She knows that I would give her a long, rambling answer: “… and then … and then … and then.” So instead, she says, “Tell me about one thing that really stood out for you.” That’s what I’d like you to do in this travel essay you’re writing.

The Power of Compelling Scenes

One or two “snapshots” are enough—but make them great. Many good writers jump right into the middle of their account with a vivid written “snapshot” of an important scene. Then, having aroused their readers’ interest or curiosity, they fill in the story or background. I think this technique works great for travel writing; at least, I would rather enjoy a vivid snapshot than read through a day-to-day summary of somebody’s travel journal.

Write About a Trip Using Vivid Descriptions

Take your time. Tell a story. So what if you saw things that were “incredible,” did things that were “amazing,” observed actions that you thought “weird”? These words don’t mean anything to me unless you show me, in a story or a vivid description, the experience that made you want to use those adjectives.

I’d like to see the place, the people, or the journey through your eyes, not someone else’s. Please don’t rewrite someone else’s account of visiting the place. Please don’t try to imitate a travel guide or travelogue or someone’s blog or Facebook entry. You are not writing a real travel essay unless you are describing, as clearly and honestly as possible, yourself in the place you visited. What did you see, hear, taste, say? Don’t worry if your “take” on your experience doesn’t match what everyone else says about it. (I’ve already read what THEY have to say.)

The Importance of Self-Editing Your Trip Essay

Don’t give me your first draft to read. Instead, set it aside and then reread it. Reread it again. Where might I need more explanation? What parts of your account are likely to confuse me? (After all, I wasn’t there.) Where might you be wasting my time by repeating or rambling on about something you’ve already told me?

Make me feel, make me laugh, help me learn something. But don’t overdo it: Please don’t preach to me about broadening my horizons or understanding other cultures. Instead, let me in on your feelings, your change of heart and mind, even your fear and uncertainty, as you confronted something you’d never experienced before. If you can, surprise me with something I didn’t know or couldn’t have suspected.

You Can Do It: Turning Your Trip into a Great Travel Experience Essay

I hope you will take yourself seriously as a traveler and as a writer. Through what—and how—you write about just a small portion of your travel experience, show me that you are an interesting, thoughtful, observant person. I will come back to you, begging for more of your travel essays.

Take Notes in a Cute Journal

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Tell Us: What's Your Worst Travel Experience?

A bunch of Atlantic readers in this discussion group are exchanging their travel horror stories. (If you’d like to sharing your own, please send us a note: [email protected] .) A short anecdote from the group:

I caught bronchitis when I was in Germany for a business trip. Spent the plane ride home sitting next to a strange drunk man who kept talking at me. Intolerable Cruelty starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones was the in-flight movie. I wanted to die.

Another reader shares that sentiment:

I was stuck in the snowbound Omaha airport with a three year old, a chihuahua, and a small carryon bag, for TWO DAYS. That was the ninth circle of hell. I wanted to die.

This next reader nearly did, for real:

Peace Corps: On a bus in Guatemala. A group of three teens in MS-13 [ a notorious gang ] decide to rob our bus. Being the only American on the bus and having just gone to the bank, I took all the money I had hidden in my bra and put it in my pocket ready to be robbed. People would get shot if they tried to run, so I prepared to give everything and pulled my passport out of its hiding spot in my bag so I made sure they knew they were getting it. Then some dude decided to John Wayne and open fire on these robbers, which resulted in a firefight on a very crowded bus. I had actually been the next passenger to be robbed, so the perp standing next to me was actively shooting. I dove under the seat and stayed there until literally everyone else had gotten off the bus. Bonus trip: I got a lightly armored security escort back to the embassy.

This reader’s experience is much more relatable:

I travel for work, so I have A LOT of these stories. I have two that beat out all of the other minor upsets though:

1) I started a flight with a guy interrupting me while I was reading just so he could tell me that he “might grab my knee” because he’s “afraid of flying.” I replied, “the fuck you will.” Then he proceeded to vape for the entire flight. When I pointed out that it’s a federal crime to do that, he said he had really bad cravings. AND THEN, as he was deplaning, he hit his lady-friend square on her read end ... it was the cherry on top of a disturbing trip. 2) THE WORST was when I was flying from Chicago to Manchester last October. The man sitting next to me spread all over my seat, took off his shoes, AND unbuttoned his pants. And when I asked to get out to use the restroom, he suggested that I just “climb over my lap, baby.”

Another reader, Nick, also had a creepy encounter:

On a six-hour train ride in China, a man stared at me the entire fucking time. Like literally he didn’t move his eyes off me. I don’t know if that was worse than the time I was really sick on a transatlantic flight, but it was definitely the weirdest.

This next reader thinks back to Memorial Day weekend in the late ‘90s:

I’m living on Long Island and using what precious little vacation and holiday time I have to visit my LDR girlfriend in Rochester. I have my friend drop me off at JFK in the late afternoon with maybe an hour to spare before boarding (plenty of time, as this is pre-TSA). As I’m waiting, the delays start piling up on the info screen because of some freak storm over half of the country, though the local weather is fine. My flight gets delayed, of course. Over the next few hours, the delay gets pushed further and further back. Finally, it gets cancelled. But by then it’s way too late to call any of my friends to pick me up. So I can either spend the night in pre-renovated JFK, or take a two-hour train ride home so I can sleep in my own bed for a few hours before trying again in the morning. Both options suck, but I figure some sleep is better than none and head out to the train. Now we come to the actual bad part. I have to take a rail shuttle from the airport to the station, then take two different subway rides into Penn Station, where I can catch a LIRR train to take me home. The first ride is uneventful. On the second one, however, I’m joined by a couple of young women a few seats in front of me, a younger man who goes to the back, and another younger man who does not take a seat but quickly sets to trying to impress the two women. Also worth noting is that I’m the only person on board who isn’t black. The young hotshot starts sort-of-rapping about how tough and badass he is. The women seem unimpressed as far as I can tell, but really this whole time I’ve just been trying very hard to focus on the Robert Anton Wilson book I’m reading. Hotshot changes tactics and tries to impress them by provoking me into a fight. He gets in my face and taunts me for being in the wrong place or something, but I just shake my head and keep my eyes on my book. The train slows and starts to pull up to the next platform. He disappears behind me, and a few seconds later something hard hits me in the back of my head. At this point I’m exhausted, frustrated, and already very angry about the flight situation. I was running on fumes and adrenaline. So when I got hit, something in me just snapped. I remember folding the book and putting it down. Thoughts about my physical abilities versus his and the possibility that he may have a weapon immediately popped up. The angry animal part of my brain was in charge, though, so I disregarded them just as quickly. I stood up and turned around to face whatever this guy thought he was going to do to me. The doors are open and he is gone. At my feet is the small, depleted corn cob from a discarded KFC meal box. I wipe some bits of kernel from the back of my head and neck. The women and guy from the back all rush over to me to make sure I’m okay. After we’re all sure I’m fine, the guy says, “It’s too bad he ran off. I was going to hold him so you could kick his ass.”

Personal Narrative Essay: My Travel Experience

📌Category:	, , ,
📌Words:	1002
📌Pages:	4
📌Published:	28 April 2021

Travelling is an action in which the mind is enriched and which can ultimately change one's life. It all began from the business trips my dad used to take to Berlin, Germany. He used to tell us these fascinating stories and how the atmosphere of this beautiful city was unlike any other. We are a family who loves to travel, whenever we have off from school we usually travel. Some of the places that I have travelled to include the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, United States, etc. So when my dad told me that Berlin and Europe was different from all of my other travels I was fascinated. I wondered, what could make Europe so different? After that, I was extremely anxious to travel to Europe, especially Paris because I love fashion. Once summer of 2018 came around we took a trip to Europe. It was an exonerating experience. One that made me appreciate different cultures. This trip gave me a different perspective on life and its diverse cultures. It gave me the wonderful opportunity to experience different cultures, lifestyles, cities, and most importantly it made me appreciate the life my parents have provided for me.

My month long trip consisted of travelling to different cities such as London, Paris, and Berlin. The moment I landed in Paris, I already noticed a big difference in the culture, language, food,and style. I honestly fell in love with the city. As a fashion designer the fashion industry was the best; the boutiques were so unique with exquisite clothing pieces. My favorite was going to Champs Elysee and Galeries Lafayette where we shopped day and night. Oh and the architecture was even better; from the tall gold defined construction of the Palace de Versailles was eye shocking. It was a feeling and ambience unique to Europe. It was like seeing the art from the History books but in real life. Our next stop was London. This was much different as compared to Paris, it honestly was the most culture shocking for me. The accent was so different but I honestly loved it. It felt like I was living a royal lifestyle because of how respectful, kind, and downhearted the natives were. We were staying at the Waldorf Astoria of London which was probably one of the best hotels I have stayed in; the breakfast they offered was to die for from various pastries, cheese’s, and breads. The ambience was amazing; it felt like you were living through history with an acadian style architecture with gold finishes. Something I found fascinating was how the taxi cabs were like the cars you would see from the 1900s, the back beetle like cars, with the driving seat on the right side. The London eye and the Big Ben was breathtaking. The last stop to our trip was Berlin, the most relaxing of them all. We were able to explore the city without having to make it on time for some activity. The breakfast we had at the lounge was also amazing. The people were so kind there. However, the one thing i did notice was that people love to drink beer and smoke cigarettes there a lot, which is something I find appalling as I feel that consuming or smoking such cansmoking such can have negative effects on your health. We went on fairy rides that took you all throughout the city, which was relaxing. Overall, Berlin was a beautiful city and the most relaxing. Overall the culture and moral is much different from anywhere else in the world.

The lifestyle in Europe is if you just want to forget about all your problems and have no one rush you. Everything there was just so laid back and relaxing, like I mentioned before they didn’t rush you out of anywhere. I am also coming from a vacation aspect, if I lived there it would be a totally different lifestyle. Talking about living, my family and I were going to move to Berlin for a year because we loved it so much. I truly wanted to move there but my sister didn’t want to leave in the middle of high school so we decided to stay in America. In Berlin, it just felt safe, me and my sister were going on the train and just exploring all of Berlin by ourselves because our parents knew it was safe. If you want to live the city lifestyle with the European touch Berlin is the place to be. London had the luxury lifestyle everyone fantasizes about with houses shaped like castles and going to Harrods to shop and eat. The atmosphere in Paris specifically near the Eiffel Tower was everyone is just living in the moment and you would hear soothing French street music as you observe how the Eiffel Tower is nothing like the pictures.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without my parents. This trip made me realize how fortunate and grateful I am to have parents who want me to experience all different types of cultures. If it weren’t for my parents my trip to Europe would not have been possible. I wouldn’t be staying at such luxurious hotels and eating such exquisite food. I have never appreciated travelling as much as I did when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It made me reminisce of all the wonderful times we had as a family.

Going to Europe gave me a different perspective on life by making me realize how grateful I should be to have experienced such an amazing trip which I will remember for the rest of my life. It also made me realize that we should never take things for granted especially because there are many out there who aren’t fortunate enough to be able to experience such luxuries. So whenever we take such trips my family likes to donate to various organizations to help those in need. This trip was most definitely the most enriching especially because I was able to experience different cultures, food, languages, and cities. After this trip, I was even more intrigued in travelling than I was before. I want to continue travelling the rest of the world and explore more cultures. I definitely believe that travelling can change a person for good, it makes one appreciate all the amazing cultures, religions, and lands out there. A wise man once told me that people forget years and remember moments which will resonate with me for the rest of my life.

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English Compositions

Essay on Travel Experience [200, 500 Words] With PDF

Travelling plays an important role in our lives as it enriches our experience. In this lesson, you will learn to write essays in three different sets on the importance of libraries. It will help you in articulating your thoughts in the upcoming exams.

Essay on travel experience in 200 words, essay on travel experience in 500 words.

Feature image of Essay on Travel Experience

We travel to get away from the monotony of our daily lives. It’s a refreshing diversion from the monotony of everyday life. It allows our minds to relax and gives our inner child the opportunity to play. Some trip memories are nostalgic and melancholy, while others are daring and exhilarating. A trip to the graveyard, the poet’s corner in London, or one’s ancestral house, for example, is a voyage to nostalgia.

These travels allow them to relive memories and treasure golden memories from a bygone era. People who go on these journeys are frequently depressed and artistically inclined. Travelling instils a sense of adventure and encourages us to make the most of every opportunity. Some people prefer to travel in groups, whereas others prefer to travel alone.

Trips to amusement parks with massive roller coasters or a deeply wooded forest could be exciting. It’s important to remember that Columbus discovered America due to his travels. The journey becomes much more memorable when things don’t go as planned. For example, if a car tyre blows out on the highway and it begins to rain heavily, the trip will turn into an adventure, even though it was not intended to be such. A visit to a museum or a gothic structure, on the other hand, is sure to be exciting.

We travel to get a break from the mundane and robust lifestyle. It is a welcome change from the monotonous routine existence. It helps our minds rest and gives the inner child within us to have a good time.

Not all travelling experiences are adventurous and exciting, and some are nostalgic and melancholic. For instance, a trip to the cemetery or the poet’s corner in London or one’s ancestral home will be a nostalgia trip. Such trips help them re-live the moments and cherish the golden memories of bygone times. People who undertake such trips are often melancholic and have an artistic sensibility.

Travelling experiences bring enthusiasm and teach us to make the best of every moment. While some enjoy travelling in groups, some people love to travel solo. Adventurous trips could be to amusement parks with giant roller coasters or a deep, dense forest. One must not forget that travelling led Columbus to discover America. When things don’t go as planned, the trip becomes more memorable. For instance, if the car tyre gets punctured on the highway and starts raining heavily, the trip, even if not intended to be adventurous, shall become one. A trip to a museum or gothic architecture shall be thrilling.

Last Christmas, my trip to Goa with my friends was an enriching one. The golden sun-soaked beaches offered a refuge from the humdrum city life of Kolkata. The cool breeze, the rising and setting sun, and the chilly wind all transported me to heaven. It was paradisal and divine. The cuisine was exquisite. The Portuguese culture and the museums offer various historical insights.

Although it was the peak season and most crowded places, people were civilised and cultured. The melodious music was in the air in every nook and corner, and the happy vibes were contagious. I danced, sang, played and had a great time. I tried sky diving, and it was a thrilling experience.

Besides fun and frolic, I found the independent spirit of people commendable. We spent three days in North Goa and two days in South Goa. We stayed at a guest house as most hotels were expensive and very occupied. We booked scooters to travel far and near. We also went on the cruise for the casino night.

My favourite spot was Thalassa, where we enjoyed the spectacular belly dance performance by males and females. We spent Christmas at Curlies witnessing the waxing moon at midnight. The lap of nature enriches one travelling experience and soothes their soul. The chirping of birds, the sound of the waterfall, the waves of a beach or the snow-covered mountain uplifts the traveller’s spirit.

One must not restrict oneself to a specific type of travelling experience. Life, after all, is a long journey that offers us different durations of vacations to make us laugh and learn at the same time. As Francis Bacon puts it, “Travel in the younger sort is a part of education, in the elder, a part of the experience.”

Hopefully, after going through this lesson, you have a holistic idea of the importance of travelling in our lives. I have tried to cover every aspect of a traveller’s experience within limited words. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through the comment section below. To read more such essays on many important topics, keep browsing our website.

Join us on Telegram to get the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you, see you again soon.

The Sole Speaks

10 of My Worst Travel Experiences

Living through a pandemic as a single woman with strained familial relationships has demanded a lot of strength. The last few days, I have been reminding myself of all the terrible times I have had to face by myself in the past. These experiences, though horrid, did make me a stronger being and in times like these I draw strength from knowing that this badass Manisha who handled these 10 of my worst travel experiences in unknown lands, resides within me. I can summon her when need arises.

I have listed 10 of my worst travel experiences below, not to discourage you from traveling, but to remind everyone who needs to hear this that this too shall pass. When we are not left with any other choice, we have to be stronger than we know ourselves to be.

Often times, in such situations people say ‘It’s for the best’, so I have added that to give readers an idea how I view those experiences now.

1. Forgot my phone in a Toilet Booth at Chennai Airport

I was returning from my first international trip (Sri Lanka, 2015) and was severely sleep-deprived. I was waiting for my connecting flight at the airport and decided to take a nap for a few hours. I woke up past the beginning of boarding time and rushed to the toilet only to discover my periods had started. It was around 5 am, everything was quiet and empty but my mind was racing.

I rushed out as soon as I could and immediately heard, ‘This is final call for Ms. Manisha Singh’. Needless to say, I ran out and was rushed to the plane. This was happening 20 minutes before the departure time. Almost like a trigger, the moment I sat down, I realised I didn’t have my phone on me. I had forgotten it in the toilet booth.

I informed the staff to check if someone could fetch it for me. The airport was fairly empty, I believed my phone would still be where I left it. The staff told me they will inform the ground duty and get it sent to my destination.

At my transit airport (Hyderabad), not one person from the airline crew (Spicejet) knew what I was talking about and seemed fairly indifferent to the whole thing. But a person from another airline (Indigo) was very helpful, called the ground duty staff, called my phone which was ringing then. He told me the procedures at the airport that prepared me to handle the situation at Mumbai airport.

What did I do to fix the situation: I spent a few hours at Mumbai airport only to realise the crew hadn’t spoken to anyone or done anything about it. I sought help from other airport staff and no phone had been submitted to the lost and found. Later, someone started disconnecting the call on my phone, and a few hours later, it was turned off.

I wrote to the airlines later, but it didn’t amount to anything.

Lessons learnt: My contacts are now synced with google and so are my photos.

I don’t trust what the airlines staff (I believe they are as clueless as anyone else)

Most of my travels are now via Indigo airlines

Was it for the best: Nope, I could have used the phone for a few month months. There was nothing good that came out of it.

A young woman in yellow t shirt and blue pants sitting in an old Sri Lankan temple

2. Stranded without a Hostel at 11 pm in Argentina

I was hitchhiking in Argentina. It was summers which meant sun set fairly late. My last ride dropped me near the bus stand and from there I had about 5 km to walk to the nearest landmark. Along the way, I stopped at a hostel to see if I was headed in the right direction. I had the address but my offline maps couldn’t exactly find the hostel. A guy at the hostel was headed in that direction and offered to drop me. I didn’t see any harm so I waited the 15 minutes he was going to take to pack up. around 9:30 he dropped me at the beginning of the street. I thanked him and started walking uphill. All the houses/hotels had gate locks so I couldn’t walk into a property to seek directions. I walked all the way up, couldn’t find the hostel, I stopped at a patch which was pitch dark, too afraid, I walked down believing I missed it along the way. Nothing. So, I walked back up all the way including the patch with no lights. Nothing again, there were no houses there either, just wilderness. Too afraid and tired (I had my backpack and daypack on me), I turned around, also tried a different smaller lane along, tried buzzing a house who cut the call after telling me they didn’t know where my hostel was. I reached back at the beginning of this road for the third time. It was well past 11 pm, I was afraid, along the way some dogs had started barking at me, one caught on to my trousers, and I just wanted to get away from the whole thing.

What did I do to fix the situation: I saw a couple in distance reaching for their car, I rushed to seek help. They didn’t know anything about my hostel but seeing me distressed they just took me under their wings. After a failed attempt at reaching the owners of the hostel, they called another friend of theirs and dropped me there. Needless to say, I was and am extremely grateful to them.

Lessons learnt: I swore to never reach a new place that late in the evening. At times I didn’t have a choice with the bus schedules but for those situations, I was better prepared.

I also switched to a different app (maps.me) that had much better offline data than google maps. This helped me with directions in new places.

Was it for the best: Yes, It’s because I didn’t find the hostel that next day I called the lady who had given me a ride to the town. She had invited me to her farm which turned out to be one of favourite memories from the trip. It’s exactly what I romanticised doing on my travels, cherry picking, making jams, sitting on the green grass with dogs.

A young woman in blue t-shirt standing on a ladder picking cherries

3. A government Bus left with my luggage on board

I was headed from Hampi to Gokarna on an overnight government bus which was packed. At around 6 am the bus took a halt at a bus stand. I checked with the conductor regarding how long would it stay and I was told 10 minutes. So, I quickly ran out to use the washroom. I got back 5 minutes later, got on the bus and see my bag was missing and wait, there were other people sitting in my seat. I was confused, I asked the men on my seat regarding my bag and it was then that I understood that this was not the bus I was traveling in. That bus had left.

What did I do to fix the situation:

Panic-stricken me got out, approached the two policemen nearby who were extremely helpful. They made some calls, spoke to others, and first got me on a bus, traveled on the bus for a bit then explained to me that the conductor and driver will help me further. And, like they had some along the way, this bus overtook my original bus and they both stopped for me to be able to board the bus.

My bag was where I had left it, intact.

Lessons learnt: I travel with a fanny pack now so I always have my most important things on me like cash, ID proofs, phone, etc. (This is not something I would do in a country where robberies are common though)

Was it for the best: Ummm, I don’t know. It was just an adventure. I didn’t lose anything so that’s good.

A near empty street in the small town of Gokarna

4. Denied boarding my flight to Cuba

I was all prepared for my month-long trip to Cuba which means I had my currency changed to Euros, spoke to a guest house in Havana, read everything I could on how to travel there, and even had a travel friend I was going to meet up with on day 1. Cuba has no wifi and I don’t take local Sim cards so I was preparing for a month of no internet.

I had met a traveler traveling on an Indian passport who flew to Cuba from Cancun (Mexico) a few weeks ago. He was issued a tourist card based on his Valid US Visa on the Indian passport. my situation was the same but I still wanted to be certain so I went to the airlines’ office on the west coast (3 days before my flight) where I was informed that there’s going to be no issue getting the tourist card in Cancun. So, I took their work, flew to Cancun from where I was going to fly out to Cuba in less than 40 hours. I went to the airlines’ office to get a tourist card to avoid last-minute hassle and of course, it’s never easy on an Indian passport. The man behind the counter looked at the list and told me that he couldn’t issue Indian passport holders a tourist card. Rules had changed recently and the only way for me to travel to Cuba was to get a Visa. Getting a visa meant going to Mexico City, waiting for 5 days, and submitting a gazillion documents, none of it I was ready to do anymore. I was tired of trying to go to Cuba and being misinformed (I had a similar experience in Colombia but my fights weren’t booked then).

What did I do to fix the situation: I dropped my plans of going to Cuba, got my flight rescheduled (which costs nearly as much as booking a new flight), and decided to go back to Colombia from Mexico city after 2 months. This time I decided to spend in Belize and Guatemala. Countries I hadn’t been to and had chosen not to visit the only coz I was quickly running out of money.

Lessons learnt: Don’t trust the staff of airline companies unless you have things on paper. I also learned that there are no wrong answers in travel, I would have enjoyed going to Cuba but I also greatly enjoyed my time in Belize and Guatemala and met some incredible people along the journey.

Emotionally, I wasn’t affected in the least bit but I lost money that I was low on already.

Was it for the best: Yes, I instead got to go to Belize and Guatemala, two stunning countries, I hiked an active volcano something that I wanted to do since the very beginning of my trip. I’m sure Cuba would have been good too but that’s the thing, there are no wrong answers in travel.

A girl looking at a mountain in distance with a cloud bed underneath. Rising sun in front.

5. Denied entry into Guatemala at the border

I was going to live on a boat for a few days, excitedly I took the bus from Belize to Guatemala border. Guatemala was also going to be last new country on the year-long adventure in South America. I exited Belize, paid my exit fee of $20, changed leftover currency to Guatemalan quetzal, and walked towards to the Guatemala border.

The short queue had me at the counter quickly, but only to be told that I couldn’t enter. India apparently was a type 3 country and on this passport a valid US visa made no difference to the entry into Guatemala. But I had done my research, I had read on the website, other people’s experiences and everywhere the information was same, Indian passport holders with a valid US Visa could enter Guatemala Visa-free. I tried convincing him to see the website, speak to a senior, or another colleague but nothing worked. So, I walked out, sat on the pavement and realized I was truly in ‘no man’s land’. I did not have a local SIM card from either Belize or Guatemala, there was no wifi, I didn’t know anyone in either of the countries except my host in Belize and my to-be host in Guatemala but I anyway couldn’t reach anyone.

What did I do to fix the situation: I asked an official where was the nearest Guatemalan embassy and was told in the town I had crossed while coming to the border. I sprung into action, walked back to the border, requested the person who had purchased my currency if he would give it back (he did), spoke. spoke to the officials at Belize border and requested them to let me in, took a shared cab to the town and landed at the Guatemalan embassy.

After a good waiting period, a gentleman came out and explained that I was indeed right, I don’t need a Visa for Guatemala with my Valid US Visa. The staff was very kind but I was afraid if I was turned a second time I wouldn’t have money to reach here and the office would probably be closed. I requested them to give me some official document that I can show at the border. The man obliged and gave me a piece of white paper with his signature and something scribbled in Spanish. They also called the border to clear things.

I hitchhiked my way back, exited the border (I had earlier requested them. to not charge me an exit fee again, they did not), joined the international queue at the Guatemalan border and my passport was stamped by. the same man without a word. It was at that moment I realized that none of it was about the rules, he was seeking a bribe.

Lessons learnt: On an Indian passport, be prepared for anything.

Was it for the best: It didn’t change much except that I lost some money but the time I had in plenty anyway. I didn’t get to stay on the boat but I took a different route that allowed me to go to a waterfall (Semic Champey) that was stunning.

6. Being stalked by a stranger in Colombia

Colombia clearly didn’t vibe with me. I had taken a bus that dropped me around the second-hand market lane, the only stop near my hostel. I started walking the few blocks to my hostel and noticed many shops were closed (It was weekly off). Since experiencing another worst travel experience (mentioned later in the post), I had gotten into the habit of watching my back often (literally). I cut a corner and a few feet later, turned around and my eyes met a man’s directly. And I instantly knew it was trouble. I was in a fairly busy block but after this, there was a near isolated section before I reached a central area. I stopped a little further at a stall and wasted time buying something, by this time the man had reached me and of course, didn’t go ahead. Instead, he went to the right and stood by a wall. I had nowhere to go, he was waiting for me to leave and he wasn’t being coy about it. All the shops in the building were closed, so I couldn’t go anywhere.

What did I do to fix the situation: I did what I had to, confronted him, in my broken Spanish but he didn’t flinch. He looked at me with his blank eyes. and then I saw some bikes coming towards me with police men. I started jumping in the middle of the road and spread my arms to stop one. The officer, didn’t bother checking this guy who casually walked away when I started yelling in Spanish that he’s been following me. I didn’t let the officer leave though and made him accompany me to the center from where I walked to the hostel by myself.

It had angered me not because I was in a vulnerable position, I had nothing on me then. I had already lost my phone and camera. I was angry because I had lost my valuables in that very city and someone wanted to rob me again!! I didn’t want another Colombian to rob even a pencil from me again.

Lessons learnt: No matter how rude it feels to turn around and look strangers in the eye, continue to do so.

Was it for the best: Nope, just made me more angry towards the country.

7. Discovering the last currency note gone on a Bus in Guatemala

I was on a chicken bus headed for the highway. From the highway I had to take a few more buses to reach Mexico border. It was my last day in Guatemala and I was headed back to Mexico. As the conductor approached, I dug into my wallet to get my last currency note, a 100 quetzals (~USD 13). I scrambled through my wallet but it was not there, I checked my backup wallet, not there, I checked my daypack pocket where I put away coins, not there. The conductor was standing looking at me probably wondering when will I stop with the act.

I asked him, ‘cuanto cuesta?’ (how much), I scrambled through my wallet and I had the exact change for ticket price so at least I was not going to be asked to leave midway which was also middle of a fairly empty route.

I knew the currency was gone, I had put it in my wallet only 2 days while preparing for a volcano hike. I had very cautiously spent money so I didn’t have to withdraw cash before leaving. Withdrawing cash drew a fee of around 50 quetzals. I felt saddened thinking who could have taken it, could it have been one of the locals when I left my backpack in the tent and went to see the sunrise? Could it be my hosts from last evening? Could it be the guy I shared a bus ride with? All options saddened me.

What did I do to fix the situation: Once on the highway I decided to hitchhike the 130 odd kilometers to Mexico border. I had Mexican currency left to get me through there before I could find a cash machine.

But hitchhiking in Guatemala is a bad idea. Nobody stopped for quite some time and eventually the car that did stop had 4 men inside. I was wondering how to decline the ride when a guy popped out and said ‘we’ll give you a ride but we’d like to discuss bible with you’. It turned out to be one of the most educating car rides on my trip. It was not just because we discussed the bible but we also spoke about each other’s lives and it was in this ride that I found words for my quest. ‘Don’t seek happiness, it’s temporary. Seek peace, it’s permanent. I truly believe in this and live by it.

Lessons learnt: No leaving cash behind, ever.

Was it for the best: Yes, that ride I hitched is a very important event in my life.

8. Finding myself on a Snow Hike Without Crampons

I was in Nepal during late 2018, the trekking season had just ended so I had given up on hiking the Annapurna base camp that year. I especially gave up the idea when I met a guy on my second day in Pokhara who entered the dormitory with such strong stench, he looked battered quite literally, and sought a soap from me. After his shower when we could talk, I learned he had just returned from the Annapurna circuit. That was a no for me.

In my second hostel stay, a few days later, I met another couple who had just returned from the Annapurna base camp and looked like they had returned from a stroll around the lake. They encouraged me to go for it if I wanted to. I met a few other people who said the same.

A few days later, I was hiking the Annapurna base camp by myself.

Towards the end of day 2 I did meet two super nice guys who continue to be my really good friends. I tagged along with and we continued hiking together. On day3, it started raining midway so we cut short our walking hours, it snowed afterwards. On day 4, we saw snow here and there but it kept getting thicker. It was evident I was not prepared for the weather but I was told I could rent crampons in the next village. So I marched on (mostly with the help of my friends) and before I knew it, I was beyond the point of return by myself. I would have needed help to cross certain difficult points.

There were no crampons at the next camp, which meant, I could stay back at this place and wait for my friends to return next day so I could hike back with them or I could continue pushing forward. I was so close to the top, I decided to continue walking plus I felt a lot more comfortable being with my friends than being holes up in a room alone.

The terrain kept getting worse (except the last stretch), we got caught in a blizzard that hampered the visibility but we reached with no injuries. On my way back, I couldn’t wait to leave the snow so we hiked until late evening to a base location with no snow.

What did I do to fix the situation: I took advice from the locals and put the largest pair of socks I had in my backpack and wore it over my hiking shoes. This is supposed to be better than crampons and I did find it extremely useful.

Lessons learnt: Nothing in the mighty Himalayas should be taken lightly.

Was it for the best: I didn’t die, so it’s okay.

A girl with a bamboo stick against snow clad Himalayan mountains

9. Being Stalked in India

I am not being precise in the heading because unfortunately, it has happened more than once. I don’t wish to undermine the issue but in my personal experience, a lot of times it’s harmless.

The two times when I felt trapped and threatened was –

I was walking the ghats of Varanasi (the steps near the holy river Ganga), I paused to get something from my bag when I noticed a man walk past me slowly and looking at me then looking back at me and a few steps later he stopped too. I didn’t think much of it but a few meters ahead noticed he was walking behind me (I was walking very slowly so it was unusual that we had the same distance between us as earlier). I stopped on purpose this time, and unashamed as he was of following me, he stopped too but a few steps ahead of me. This continued one more time. The third time I sat overlooking the Ganga though. I was afraid even sitting there because I had to turn around take some 50 odd steps, cross a few dark corners to reach my guest house. It wasn’t far once I climbed those steps but I am a slow climber and I feared being cornered along the way. One option was to go back and take a longer route that was busier. I sat there evaluating my options when I noticed two tourists walking up the steps. I quickly got up and went past them but continued walking in front of them. Once on top, I ran to my guest house. I had turned around from the steps to assess the situation, he was still sitting on the ghat but was not looking at the Ganga, instead, he had turned around and was looking at me.
The scariest experience I had of someone following me has unfortunately been in one of my favorite destinations – Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu . I was walking in a quiet lane, looking at old buildings. I was working on a project back then that required me to assess properties as potential hostels. So, I would often walk into buildings, speak to the caretakers and inquire about the owners. On such a visit, I was walking around the property but I could barely communicate with the caretaker. I continued checking out the nursery and see if I could gather any details on the availability of the property. Soon the caretaker called me to explain her son was here and he could answer my questions. As soon as I met him, I was afraid. his pupils were dilated and he looked deadpan at me. He said nothing, just stared at me. He was another friend on a bike, I tried to look at him and talk but the caretaker’s son would just not look away. I wanted to run away but I pretended to be all calm and just waited for them to leave. I left soon afterward, at the next property I met a dog who stuck around while I was walking in the vicinity. I took a turn at a road that connects to the lake which is generally busy but this stretch was empty, another turn and I saw the man with dead eyes again. He was standing on the side of the road and continued staring at me. I was scared, really scared. I didn’t know what to do so, I had to pretend to be composed. I pretended like the dog was mine and took an about-turn because I knew I could seek help quicker on that road. But the moment I cut the corner, I rushed and entered the first building, a guest house run by the church. I ran in, make small talk with some guests I saw. When I turned around (I was at an elevation), I saw the man walking on the road I had taken. He had started following me. As a reflection, I ducked and continued sitting on the floor, hidden from the road for some time. The problem with this was, I didn’t know which way he went. There were three roads I could take from there and all of them were fairly isolated.

What did I do to fix the situation: I stayed hidden for a 20-30 minutes and then chose a path that took me to a busier section quickest and I ran through this stretch.

Lessons learnt: Always have a taxi driver’s number handy, in case you need a pick up from such situations.

Was it for the best: Absolutely not. Nobody needs such an experience in life.

Sunrise over ganga with the silhouette of a man

10. Being Mugged at Knifepoint in Colombia

This hopefully remains one of my worst travel experiences because worse than this would be too much to handle. I was hiking back from this very popular tourist destination named – Montseratte in the capital city of Bogota. I was accompanied by my local host (a young woman), and it was about 4:30 pm (which means broad daylight). In fact, the reason we were rushing back was so we could make it back to her house while there was still daylight left. 10 minutes from the trail end (which joins a fairly busy road), three masked men jumped from behind a bulging boulder. In no time there was a man in front of me holding a machete to my throat and a man behind me. On my left, I saw another man with a machete chasing my host who was screaming and running backward.

They took my entire daypack (which had my camera, phone, passport, and both my debit cards, among other things that I had carefully picked 6 months ago for this trip of a lifetime). They also took my host’s sling bag which had her iPhone and her identity card.

What did I do to fix the situation: There were many things I had to fix in this situation starting from getting a new passport but the most difficult task was to access my money. The Indian banks I had accounts with had no presence in Latin America, they would not mail me the card either. It was a complicated task and a stressful 2 weeks.

After the robbery, I was left with less than $30 that was in my main backpack. I didn’t know how long I had to go on the $30 so I stopped taking dinner. I would cook lunch with just onion, tomato, garlic, and spaghetti.

I knew it was going to be an arduous few weeks, so the first thing I did was to find an alternate stay arrangement. I didn’t want my hosts to take the brunt of my situation. I knocked on hostel doors in the tourist town to find volunteer work. After nearly losing hope, and breaking down in tears in the middle of a street, I did find reception work in a backpackers hostel.

Two months later, I left Colombia for Mexico with a new passport, new US Visa, money transferred to my travel card, no camera, no phone (so no way to see the time or take pictures), but a great deal of determination to continue traveling.

Lessons learnt: I still struggle with this. I haven’t been able to make sense of that experience at all. Why did it happen, why did it happen to me, and what did I learn from it? I was already being as safe as I could. A few things that I experienced after the incident were:

The incident, unfortunately, made me slightly indifferent towards the poor, the addicts, the whole glaring economic disparity esp. in Colombia.
It reinforced the idea to never let the guard down. I was trying to book my exit tickets a day before the incident and had accidentally put my backup card in my daypack after that.
I learned that locals don’t always know best. I was recommended that place by both my previous hosts and none knew of the situation there.

Experiencing and fixing a situation like that by myself definitely prepared me for everything. Like Cheryl Strayed would say, I felt like a total “hardass motherfucking Amazonian queen”.

Was it for the best: NO. I was never able to buy a camera again (I had bought it when I had a job), now I’m always somehow in survival mode. Trauma from that experience haunted me for months and it permanently changed my interaction with strangers.

I hope sharing these 10 worst travel experiences of mine which required me to go back to those unpleasant moments, helps someone find their strength back.

10 thoughts on “10 of My Worst Travel Experiences”

all seems to be a spooky/ thrilling scenes from a movie, more power to you 🙂

Yes, quite dramatic when I look back but we all have it in us to endure what seems unimaginable. And i’m sure many people are experiencing that right now with Covid.

Hmmm… well covid is a more of like a organised catastrophe , like we know its coming yet we let it come

From leadership point of view and large group behaviour but on an individual level, that’s not everyone’s truth. I got a really bad case of Covid last September while following everything I was supposed to (Staying home, going out once a week to get groceries, mask, sanitize, etc.)

Hmmm i get it 🙂 hope you are well now

yes, I am. I was a long hauler so my symptoms (esp. social anxiety and loss of smell) persisted for months.

Yea , many of my friends experienced the same .

Bad incidents somehow do ruin your travel experience, I’m glad you found ways to get out of these although I’m sure it must not have been easy.

Yes, for sure. We are only human, many of these incidents hurt how I interact with strangers and the trust I put in them. But except the robbery in Colombia, every other incident led to only short-term discomfort.

Well said, Manisha

How to Write a Travelogue: 8 Tips To Write Better Travel Stories

As I wrote in a previous article , a travelogue is a truthful account of an individual’s experiences traveling, usually told in the past tense and in the first person. In that article, I focused on how travelogues compared to modern travel books. In this article, I will offer tips on how to write a captivating travelogue. You will learn how to avoid writing a traditional (and boring) “Dear Diary” travelogue and craft a modern and compelling travel story.

What does a travelogue contain?

A travelogue contains vivid descriptions of the place you’re traveling in, descriptions of the subjective experiences of visiting a place (your thoughts, blunders, fears), informed commentary about a place (its history and culture), and accounts of your interactions with local people. Above all, a travelogue must tell a story.

A travelogue is not academic writing, so you need not make a formal argument and present evidence—keep formal language at bay. A travelogue is not a write-up for a tourism board or a marketing agency, so don’t try to “sell” the destination to your readers. A travelogue is not a guidebook or a blog post, so you need not be helpful, list “the top 10 best restaurants,” or offer practical travel tips or suggestions.

Rather, a travelogue is a creative narrative of your experiences traveling.

Tell one specific story

Traditionally, travelogues were mundane accounts of what a person saw, did, and ate while traveling. But try to avoid giving a “Dear Diary” account of your travels. You will bore your readers if you write a step-by-step report of what you did, ate, and saw.

Instead, a travelogue will be more effective if it focuses on one interesting story from your travels. A destination is not a story. Neither is simply traveling from point A to point B.

Now that you’ve returned from your travels and want to write an essay or an article about your trip, review your notes and reflect on your experiences. Does a particular story stand out? Is there an experience that you can’t stop telling people about? Did you have a haunting, transformative, or enlightening experience? Did something bad or unexpected happen? If so, it might be a good candidate to write about.

Be descriptive

Now that you have your travel story in mind, think about the setting.

Details and descriptions are essential in travel writing. They will make your writing and story more vivid. What sounds, scents, tastes, and textures did you experience?

Give your readers a sense of what it is like to be there. Transport your reader to that specific time and place.

Be forthcoming

A travelogue is special because it gives us a glimpse of a foreign place, but it does so through the lens of the writer. We want to know your specific take on things.

We are all human. We all think, have opinions, and get scared. What did you feel? Did your experience stir up old memories? Were you frightened? Did you embarrass yourself? Was there a misunderstanding? What did you learn?

Be honest with your own flaws, biases, and assumptions. Give your reader subjective and emotional insight.

Be engaging

We travel (and read travel stories) to engage with and learn about other cultures. And our best travel stories almost always involve interactions with local people you’ve met.

So, while it is good that your reader gets a glimpse into the subjective world of the author, we will want to hear other voices in your story too.

What conversations did you have with the locals? Did anyone tell you something interesting, alarming, or enlightening? Who did you meet? Who were they? What did they look like? Did they have a particular manner of speaking? A distinctive feature?

Be informed

The point of a travelogue is to entertain, but sometimes it is good to inform. Sprinkle relevant information into your story.

Is there historical or cultural details that will help your reader understand why something is so? Did a local person reveal something interesting about the politics or history of a place?

How do you start a travelogue?

If a travelogue is a narrative account of your travels, then consider starting the travelogue with an inciting incident. Begin your travel story with something that will draw your reader in. Highlight a problem, conflict, struggle, or tension that will propel your story along.

As Seth Kugel says, the best travels stories are when things go wrong.

For example, you can begin your travelogue by stating your quest or mission, and then complicating that with an obstacle that gets in the way. Or, you can start with an intrigue, curious statement, declaration, or observation. You can start in media res , and then fill in the story later.

The trick is to hook your reader.

How do you end a travelogue?

Like any story, a memorable travelogue will offer a resolution. Consider ending your story with a transformation or a resolution, a return to the beginning, a moral, a message, or a revelation.

You want to give your reader a sense of closure, that the specific story has ended.

Tips to write a better travelogue

Tell a specific story
Describe the outer world using vivid descriptions
Reveal the inner world (your thoughts, mistakes, missteps, blunders, excitements, etc.)
Provide informed commentary (historical, political, cultural, etc.)
Talk to locals and describe your interactions with them
Use a conversational tone and avoid fancy/big words, marketing jargon, and guidebook speak
Begin with an intrigue, something going wrong, or a compelling or captivating moment
End with a resolution, a moral, a message, or a revelation

Do you have any other tips on how to write a better travelogue?

Last Updated on 29 November 2020 by Travel Writing World

Travel Writing World

With an emphasis on travel books and long-form travel literature, host Jeremy Bassetti talks with the world’s most inspiring travel writers about their work and about the business and craft of travel writing in this award-winning podcast and website. In addition to the podcast, the site also features travel writer profiles, book reviews, and articles.

Travel: Personal Experience

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

One of my passions is travelling. Travel involves visiting new places and meeting new people and having varied experiences. I come originally from Romania and have travelled to UK and US. I remember the quote by Samuel Johnson: “All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it”. I have had the luck of visiting better countries and I believe my travel experiences have taught me a lot about human life and helped me expand the way I see things.

When I first travelled within Romania, it opened my eyes to how other people live. I saw how people lived happily even though they did not have much money or luxuries. It taught me that to be happy, money is not the only thing. I must have an attitude to be happy with what I have. It also taught me to accept people from different races and colors. When I travelled abroad, I saw new cultures and different lifestyles.

It was very exciting and adventurous. I learnt to enjoy these new experiences, to become part of these varied cultures by taking their food, wearing their dresses, etc. This has created in me the awareness that people all over the world are basically the same but they are different in the cultures – have different ways of talking, singing, enjoying, dancing, writing, building, dressing and conducting business. I have acquired a more global perspective of the world we live in. My knowledge has thus expanded because of my travel.

Self-confidence is another quality that I developed as a result of travelling. Whenever I travel, I had to be responsible for my own luggage, tickets and documents. I had to be careful in taking flights and cabs. When I was in my home country, I used to be shy to talk to new people. But during my travels, I learnt to talk to strangers and ask for help whenever I needed it. This gave me the confidence that I can make new friends. Also, new places sometimes had new customs that I had to adapt to.

Travel is the time I use to read and listen to music. This also gives me the time to reflect deeply on my life’s goals and where I am right now. It is an ideal opportunity to break free from a routine lifestyle. I feel very much relaxed during my travel and enjoy seeing new scenes and landscapes. It gives me time to discover more about myself. For example, when I was in Los Angeles, I saw a rock music performance at a club where everyone danced. I had not danced earlier at clubs. But when I joined the fun, I was surprised to realize that I enjoyed the experience a lot.

Travel also gives me a sense of being free and independent. It makes my mind open to new experiences all the time. Even during a flight, I get to taste new food, hear a new language, see new ways of dressing and listen to new kinds of music. This is very exciting and I thoroughly enjoy my life during these moments.

Through my travels, I have made many new international friends. Conversing with them has helped me understand their cultures better and I also have opportunities of improving my English which is now very important when travelling in UK and US. Moreover, as I intend to study in United States, it is good to improve my language skills before I begin my studies. Travelling to the United States has also helped me absorb their local culture and understand the value of hard work.

Above all, whenever I return to Romania after my travels, it helps me appreciate my home country a lot. I value Romanian culture and the warm way in which people relate to each other. I can appreciate it all the more when I travel abroad. Thus, my passion for travel while giving me fun, dreams and confidence, has also educated me, helped me embrace new cultures and new communication skills, adopt a more global perspective, improve my English and given me lots of good friends and wonderful memories. It has made me a richer person internally.

The Documentary “The Lost World of Communism”
Romanian Families: Comparison to Canadian Ones
Romanian Education Strategies and Management
Life and Its Experiences. Personal Perception.
Knowledge Through the Pain of Trial-and-Error
Describing a Person Who Influenced You: Personal Experience.
Roman Catholic Church: Congregational Worship Experiences
An Aesthetic Experience of Nature
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, September 28). Travel: Personal Experience. https://ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/

"Travel: Personal Experience." IvyPanda , 28 Sept. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Travel: Personal Experience'. 28 September.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Travel: Personal Experience." September 28, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/.

1. IvyPanda . "Travel: Personal Experience." September 28, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Travel: Personal Experience." September 28, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/.

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My ten worst travel experiences

After my feel good top ten travel moments of 2013 post and my ten amazing experiences while travelling the world , I thought I would head over to the dark side of travel for this Flashback Friday and go through some of my worst travel experiences.

Travel is not always fun, in fact sometimes it’s bloody horrible. It’s easy to focus on the good because, thankfully, mostly travel is awesome. There are some experiences I never want to live again though. My tag line for this site states that I will share the good, the bad and the ugly of travel – here is the ugly! Here are my top ten worst travel experiences in chronological order…

1. Fainting on my flight to Europe on my second international trip

I have posted about this one before, so you can read the whole story . Basically, I started to feel sick just before I flew to Europe and became very sick on my third and final flight from Singapore to London. I actually ended up fainting!

The crew were horrible to me. I was told I was lucky to be given water and that it was my own fault for drinking too much – even though I hadn’t had any alcohol. I was also criticised for travelling alone. On arrival at Heathrow airport, I was actually taken off the plane in a wheel chair by paramedics!

It was all very dramatic and not a recommended way to start a holiday, particularly my first backpacking trip alone at 21.

2. Getting gassed in Quito, Ecuador

I have no idea exactly what happened, but it was not good!

In bad travel experience #2, we were walking around Quito, checking out a market when suddenly we were coughing. Everyone around us was coughing too and starting to pass out on the ground!

We thankfully reacted quickly and started running as fast as we could. Once we left the area, we were ok and stopped coughing.

3. Being sexually assaulted in Turkey

I loved Turkey, but I struggled being a solo female traveller in Turkey.

Men were constantly trying to pick me up. I covered up – despite being very hot, I wore ankle length skirts or trousers, and t shirts that covered me up. I wore the fake wedding band, did everything I could basically, but it was relentless. I would end up back at my room upset as I felt I had to start being very rude to everyone who tried to talk to me, as no matter how innocent their conversation started, it always lead to them asking me to come to their home. I do not recommend young females travel to Turkey alone – the only place I have been where I would say that.

Anyway, on my final day in Istanbul, I went for a long walk to an airline office. It was all on main busy roads, and I would have thought I was perfectly safe. On the way back, I soon realised that someone was following me. I dodged around and thought I had lost him. Then, when I was walking behind a bus that was parked at the side of the road – blocking the cars going past from seeing me, he appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me around my waist and between my legs, rubbing my girl bits.

I screamed and yelled as loud as I could, and he thankfully jumped back and started screaming at me. He actually looked shocked. Do some men really think women want to be treated this way? I ran onto the road and when I reached the median strip, I broke down on the ground and cried for quite awhile in the middle of a main road.

It was lucky I was flying out that night anyway, as I couldn’t stay in Turkey a second longer after that. The whole incident still makes me want to cry today. I have rarely told anyone this story, as I hate thinking about it. It is without a doubt my worst travel experience.

4. Visiting the Egyptian Pyramids

My Flashback Friday post on why I hated my visit to the Egyptian Pyramids is actually one of my most popular posts. Basically, there were so many touts hassling us in Egypt and at the Giza Pyramids, that it was impossible to enjoy them. My whole three days in Egypt were horrible and this is definitely one of my worst travel experiences.

5. Mexico/US border dramas

I had some dramas crossing from Mexico to the US by land in 2006. It started when the Mexican Army tried to take us away from a bus we were travelling in, saying that we had to leave the country immediately. It didn’t improve from there!

We made our way immediately to a US border crossing , only to have them not allow us to get an exit stamp from Mexico, not believe us that Australians don’t need a visa and to give us the third degree.

It was all made worse by the fact that we had to travel back over the next day to get our Mexican exit stamp and repeat the whole drama again .

This is just a summary. It was a stressful 24 hours and a bad travel experience that I never wish to repeat. You can read the whole drama in the links above!

6. My travelling companion having a sudden seizure on a Grand Canyon tour.

I was riding along on a bus, when bam, my then boyfriend had a seizure. He had never had one before, and I had never seen one before. It was very scary.

The tour guide rung 911 and soon there were paramedics and police there. We ended up spending a night in hospital and changing our plans to remain in the US while he had tests. We had 7 months of our trip still to go and we nearly had to cancel it all. Thankfully, he ended up being ok and we continued our trip. It was a horrible couple of days though.

7. Nearly being robbed in Sofia

I was walking along the main road in Sofia when I heard a zipper sound… I started to turn around and there was someone’s hand in my backpack!!

I looked around and I realised I had been surrounded by young women, and my travelling companion was a few steps ahead of me. I screamed at the girl, and she pulled her hand out. The group then encircled her and they slowly walked away, while I screamed out to my friend and at the girls.

I tried to check if they had taken anything while my friend tried to get to the girl who had had her hand in the bag to see if she had something. My bag was full and it was hard to tell. My friend couldn’t get to the girl thanks to the circle surrounding her. He told me later that one of them had stood in front of him, so he had to walk around her and that is how they separated us.

While this was going on, an old local woman was screaming at us in Bulgarian. It seemed like she was telling us to leave them alone. Everyone else just watched or walked on. I’m not sure what was worse, someone trying to rob me or all the people that were complicit in it. It seemed like the old woman was part of it too. I would have thought it someone tried to rob you, they would at least run off! Even if she had taken something valuable, I’m not sure I would have been able to get it back.

Luckily the zips on my bag were loud and not that easy to open so I had been on to her straight away. My bag had also just been stuffed full with bakery products on top, so she hadn’t been able to get to my wallet at the bottom. When we got back to our hostel, we saw a sign on the wall that said to be weary of groups of well dressed, young women and described exactly what had happened to us!

We had loved our time in Bulgaria, so it was a shame it had to end on such a sour note with one of my worst travel experiences. In saying that, I think things like this from time to time can be good reminders to be on our guard. I have always been aware since then to not let people get in between me and other people I am travelling with like that again.

8. Being in Bangkok during a Thai military coup

Waking up in the morning to hear the news that the country I was in had just had a military coup is a very strange experience. It is hard not to think of violence when hearing the words “military coup”, and it was quite scary. It turned out to not be that big a deal, but we did not know that at the time. In fact, we knew very little as all the news stations were turned off. Many people have told me they are jealous that I was there for such a big occasion, but I wonder if they would have been if it had turned out to not be peaceful. It was definitely a bad travel experience.

9. Being kicked off a chicken bus in Guatemala

I had loved loved loved Guatemala on my numerous trips there until our last one.

It felt like everyone was trying to rip us off constantly and it was very trying. The final straw was the last day we were in the country on our way to the Mexico border. Yet again, the chicken bus guy tried to overcharge us and yet again we had to argue to try to pay the right fare. In the end, he refused to lower the price and we refused to pay, so they stopped the bus until we hopped off! It was all quite dramatic and a little bit upsetting that no one stood up for us.

We ended up getting on the next bus that came through and having to pay the fare again. Needless to say, we were happy when we made it into Mexico!

10. KL accommodation mix up

This was the most recent bad travel experience. Some of you will remember that we flew Bangkok – KL – Manila last year and I accidentally booked our night round KL airport for the wrong night – so we turned up and not only did we not have a room but the hotel was fully booked and we had a hard time finding somewhere else that wasn’t booked.

This may not seem like a huge deal but after a long day with a baby and a two year old, driving round in a taxi in the dark to yet another hotel that was full was hugely stressful. It was not one of my finest moments as a travel planner and not one I am likely to forget any time soon. I check any booking x 1000 now (compared to the x 100 I did before this happened!). It was right up there with the other silly mistake I have made – when I booked two seats on a pricey plane trip from French Guiana to Brazil – both in my name instead of one in J’s name!

There you have it – my top ten worst travel experiences. They were all bad and a couple were downright terrifying, but really, given just how much I have travelled, there is really not that much that has gone terribly wrong. I have done a fair bit of travel as a solo young female too. Perhaps something to consider if you are someone who is a bit scared to get out there and see the world 🙂

You can also read some other travel bloggers worst travel experiences .

What was your worst travel experience?

Want to learn more?

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Home — Essay Samples — Geography & Travel — Tourism — Travel: Personal Experience

Travel: Personal Experience

Categories: Personal Growth and Development Tourism

About this sample

Words: 519 |

Published: Jan 29, 2024

Words: 519 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Personal growth through travel, cultural understanding and empathy, the formation of lasting memories.

Larson, R., & Verma, S. (1999). How children and adolescents spend time across the world: Work, play, and developmental opportunities. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 701-736.
Alkire, S., & Santos, M. E. (2014). Measuring Acute Poverty in the Developing World: Robustness and Scope of the Multidimensional Poverty Index. World Development, 59, 251-274.
The World Bank. (2021). Poverty. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty

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Bad Trips: Wonderful Essays about Awful Travel Experiences

Vacations are sacred, especially in America, where we work longer hours than our counterparts in Europe and still aren’t legally entitled to a single paid day off . But what we often forget — that is, until we’re getting stung by a jellyfish or stranded at an airport — is that they’re also rarely the ideal escapes we build them up to be. In an essay about Disney World for last weekend’s New York Times magazine, John Jeremiah Sullivan reminds us. Since others’ holidays of misery make us feel better about our own failure to plan a summer vacation, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite tales of awful travel experiences, by authors including David Sedaris, Sloane Crosley, David Foster Wallace, and more.

John Jeremiah Sullivan on Disney World

Blood, ungodly heat, and a whole lot of marijuana turn up in Sullivan’s cleverly titled “You Blow My Mind. Hey Mickey!” The essay follows the author, his wife, their daughter, and another family on a roadtrip to Disney World. Complicated by bad weather, the other father’s pack-of-joints-a-day weed habit, and Sullivan’s ambivalence about the “Happiest Place on Earth,” the trip becomes a way of talking about the mega-theme park’s unsettling history. Did you know, for instance, that “Disney World is a giant mound, one of the greatest ever constructed in North America”? The park tourists know is actually about 15 feet off the ground, built on top of an intricate system of tunnels built to conceal off-duty characters and other not-so-magical sites. Then there’s the dark, weird origins of Epcot. Sullivan’s essay isn’t a straight-up condemnation of Disney, but it will definitely make you think twice before making plans to get back on that tram.

Sullivan photo by Harry Taylor

David Sedaris on Amtrak’s bar cars

David Sedaris has made a career on dramatizing his most embarrassing moments, in stories so conducive to uncontrollable laughter that we’ve had to stop reading them in public. But “Guy Walks into a Bar Car,” a piece Sedaris wrote for The New Yorker a few years ago, is more sad than funny. The essays follows our author on a train trip home from Chicago to New York, as he mourns the end of a six-year relationship and strikes up a brief friendship with a drunk who he’s drawn to because he finds “ruined-looking men” attractive. We meet the characters on the bar car — the guy who won’t stop telling terrible jokes, the woman in the “decorative sweatshirt” — and watch Sedaris hole up in a women’s restroom, high on pills and pot and alcohol. Not only is it a terrible moment in the writer’s life (pre-fame), but the piece also evolves into a meditation on aging, relationships, and diminishing opportunities for happiness.

Sloane Crosley on Lisbon

There are two great travel essays in Sloane Crosley’s wonderful second book, How Did You Get This Number . In “Le Paris!,” she explains why she and Paris have never gotten along. We’re partial to “Show Me on the Doll” (excerpted here ), though, which finds Crosley alone in Lisbon. The solo trip is supposed to be an empowering celebration of her 30th birthday, but she spends much of it hiding in her hotel room, getting lost, and wanting to go home. She finally does meet some locals on her final night in town — and it turns out they’re hipster carnies!

David Foster Wallace on cruises

In the world of neurotic travel writing, no essay is as widely cited or celebrated as David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” originally titled “Shipping Out: On the (nearly) lethal comforts of a luxury cruise” when it appeared in Harpers in 1996. We fear that going into too much detail will ruin it for those of you who haven’t yet read the piece, so let’s leave it at this: Wallace, in all his hyper-footnoted glory, simply cannot submit to the totalitarian regime of pleasure that rules the American cruise industry.

Umberto Eco on America

Years before anyone had ever heard of Second Life, the postmodernist Italian philosopher Umberto Eco wrote a long essay called “Travels in Hyperreality,” chronicling America’s bizarre fascination with simulated reality. Eco takes on everything from holograms to wax museums to William Randolph Hearst’s California castle, with its loud and cartoonish mix of genuine art and gaudy reproduction. Our favorite part will always be his exploration of the Madonna Inn , a hotel in San Luis Obispo whose themed guest rooms represent everything from a caveman’s quarters to a Hawaiian tiki-themed chamber. “The Madonna Inn is the poor man’s Hearst Castle,” Eco writes, “it has no artistic or philosophical pretensions, it appeals to the savage taste for the amazing, the overstuffed, and the absolutely sumptuous at low price.” You can read the essay, which appears in a collection of the same name, at Google Books .

Gary Indiana on Branson

Writer/filmmaker/photographer Gary Hoisington may have adopted as his pseudonym the name of a Midwestern city, but rest assured he has little love for Middle America. The title of “Town of the Living Dead,” a Village Voice piece that appears in his collection, Let It Bleed: Essays 1985-1995 , pretty much sums up Indian’s thoughts on Missouri’s own country-music mecca. From theme parks to the Osmond Brothers, Indiana points out that Branson represents the ultimate in reactionary nostalgia, whose visitors are “profoundly out of whack with the trajectory of American popular culture, which, for all its inanity, is generally libertarian, multicultural, and secular.” Or, to put it less gently, he describes the city as “the tightest little cultural sphincter you are likely to find in the United States.”

Rachel Shukert on Europe

A freshly graduated (and flat broke) Rachel Shukert uses an unstamped passport and a trip overseas as a bit player in a theater production to wander around Europe in search of, well… she isn’t quite sure. There’s love, intoxication, and other forms of embarrassment in Everything Is Going to Be Great , but (luckily for those who aren’t big on 20-something navel-gazing) Shukert makes it all funny. Bonus: The book doubles as an irreverent travel guide, featuring everything from “Foreskin FAQs” to a brief guide to the Dutch obsession with Phil Collins.

Ian Frazier on getting sick while traveling

In a piece for Outside magazine, New Yorker writer Ian Frazier tackles the ultimate vacation bummer: getting sick while we’re traveling — and why it seems to happen so often. “A Kielbasa Too Far” combines anecdotes from Frazier’s own life with a substantial history of diarrhea (which the author has the delicacy not to name) in travel literature of the past, some tips (“Alcohol, in strengths you drink, does not purify anything”), and a conversation with a doctor who notes the prevalence of travel-related psychosis. It’s enough to make you want to stay home. Almost.

Illustration by David Hughes at Outside

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, bad college essays: 10 mistakes you must avoid.

College Essays

Just as there are noteworthy examples of excellent college essays that admissions offices like to publish, so are there cringe-worthy examples of terrible college essays that end up being described by anonymous admissions officers on Reddit discussion boards.

While I won't guarantee that your essay will end up in the first category, I will say that you follow my advice in this article, your essay most assuredly won't end up in the second. How do you avoid writing a bad admissions essay? Read on to find out what makes an essay bad and to learn which college essay topics to avoid. I'll also explain how to recognize bad college essays—and what to do to if you end up creating one by accident.

What Makes Bad College Essays Bad

What exactly happens to turn a college essay terrible? Just as great personal statements combine an unexpected topic with superb execution, flawed personal statements compound problematic subject matter with poor execution.

Problems With the Topic

The primary way to screw up a college essay is to flub what the essay is about or how you've decided to discuss a particular experience. Badly chosen essay content can easily create an essay that is off-putting in one of a number of ways I'll discuss in the next section.

The essay is the place to let the admissions office of your target college get to know your personality, character, and the talents and skills that aren't on your transcript. So if you start with a terrible topic, not only will you end up with a bad essay, but you risk ruining the good impression that the rest of your application makes.

Some bad topics show admissions officers that you don't have a good sense of judgment or maturity , which is a problem since they are building a class of college students who have to be able to handle independent life on campus.

Other bad topics suggest that you are a boring person , or someone who doesn't process your experience in a colorful or lively way, which is a problem since colleges want to create a dynamic and engaged cohort of students.

Still other bad topics indicate that you're unaware of or disconnected from the outside world and focused only on yourself , which is a problem since part of the point of college is to engage with new people and new ideas, and admissions officers are looking for people who can do that.

Problems With the Execution

Sometimes, even if the experiences you discuss could be the foundation of a great personal statement, the way you've structured and put together your essay sends up warning flags. This is because the admissions essay is also a place to show the admissions team the maturity and clarity of your writing style.

One way to get this part wrong is to exhibit very faulty writing mechanics , like unclear syntax or incorrectly used punctuation. This is a problem since college-ready writing is one of the things that's expected from a high school graduate.

Another way to mess this up is to ignore prompt instructions either for creative or careless reasons. This can show admissions officers that you're either someone who simply blows off directions and instructions or someone who can't understand how to follow them . Neither is a good thing, since they are looking for people who are open to receiving new information from professors and not just deciding they know everything already.

College Essay Topics To Avoid

Want to know why you're often advised to write about something mundane and everyday for your college essay? That's because the more out-there your topic, the more likely it is to stumble into one of these trouble categories.

Too Personal

The problem with the overly personal essay topic is that revealing something very private can show that you don't really understand boundaries . And knowing where appropriate boundaries are will be key for living on your own with a bunch of people not related to you.

Unfortunately, stumbling into the TMI zone of essay topics is more common than you think. One quick test for checking your privacy-breaking level: if it's not something you'd tell a friendly stranger sitting next to you on the plane, maybe don't tell it to the admissions office.

Describing losing your virginity, or anything about your sex life really. This doesn't mean you can't write about your sexual orientation—just leave out the actual physical act.
Writing in too much detail about your illness, disability, any other bodily functions. Detailed meaningful discussion of what this physical condition has meant to you and your life is a great thing to write about. But stay away from body horror and graphic descriptions that are simply there for gratuitous shock value.
Waxing poetic about your love for your significant other. Your relationship is adorable to the people currently involved in it, but those who don't know you aren't invested in this aspect of your life.
Confessing to odd and unusual desires of the sexual or illegal variety. Your obsession with cultivating cacti is wonderful topic, while your obsession with researching explosives is a terrible one.

Too Revealing of Bad Judgment

Generally speaking, leave past illegal or immoral actions out of your essay . It's simply a bad idea to give admissions officers ammunition to dislike you.

Some exceptions might be if you did something in a very, very different mindset from the one you're in now (in the midst of escaping from danger, under severe coercion, or when you were very young, for example). Or if your essay is about explaining how you've turned over a new leaf and you have the transcript to back you up.

Writing about committing crime as something fun or exciting. Unless it's on your permanent record, and you'd like a chance to explain how you've learned your lesson and changed, don't put this in your essay.
Describing drug use or the experience of being drunk or high. Even if you're in a state where some recreational drugs are legal, you're a high school student. Your only exposure to mind-altering substances should be caffeine.
Making up fictional stories about yourself as though they are true. You're unlikely to be a good enough fantasist to pull this off, and there's no reason to roll the dice on being discovered to be a liar.
Detailing your personality flaws. Unless you have a great story of coping with one of these, leave deal-breakers like pathological narcissism out of your personal statement.

Too Overconfident

While it's great to have faith in your abilities, no one likes a relentless show-off. No matter how magnificent your accomplishments, if you decide to focus your essay on them, it's better to describe a setback or a moment of doubt rather that simply praising yourself to the skies.

Bragging and making yourself the flawless hero of your essay. This goes double if you're writing about not particularly exciting achievements like scoring the winning goal or getting the lead in the play.
Having no awareness of the actual scope of your accomplishments. It's lovely that you take time to help others, but volunteer-tutoring a couple of hours a week doesn't make you a saintly figure.

Too Clichéd or Boring

Remember your reader. In this case, you're trying to make yourself memorable to an admissions officer who has been reading thousands of other essays . If your essay makes the mistake of being boring or trite, it just won't register in that person's mind as anything worth paying attention to.

Transcribing your resume into sentence form or writing about the main activity on your transcript. The application already includes your resume, or a detailed list of your various activities. Unless the prompt specifically asks you to write about your main activity, the essay needs to be about a facet of your interests and personality that doesn't come through the other parts of the application.
Writing about sports. Every athlete tries to write this essay. Unless you have a completely off-the-wall story or unusual achievement, leave this overdone topic be.
Being moved by your community service trip to a third-world country. Were you were impressed at how happy the people seemed despite being poor? Did you learn a valuable lesson about how privileged you are? Unfortunately, so has every other teenager who traveled on one of these trips. Writing about this tends to simultaneously make you sound unempathetic, clueless about the world, way over-privileged, and condescending. Unless you have a highly specific, totally unusual story to tell, don't do it.
Reacting with sadness to a sad, but very common experience. Unfortunately, many of the hard, formative events in your life are fairly universal. So, if you're going to write about death or divorce, make sure to focus on how you dealt with this event, so the essay is something only you could possibly have written. Only detailed, idiosyncratic description can save this topic.
Going meta. Don't write about the fact that you're writing the essay as we speak, and now the reader is reading it, and look, the essay is right here in the reader's hand. It's a technique that seems clever, but has already been done many times in many different ways.
Offering your ideas on how to fix the world. This is especially true if your solution is an easy fix, if only everyone would just listen to you. Trust me, there's just no way you are being realistically appreciative of the level of complexity inherent in the problem you're describing.
Starting with a famous quotation. There usually is no need to shore up your own words by bringing in someone else's. Of course, if you are writing about a particular phrase that you've adopted as a life motto, feel free to include it. But even then, having it be the first line in your essay feels like you're handing the keys over to that author and asking them to drive.
Using an everyday object as a metaphor for your life/personality. "Shoes. They are like this, and like that, and people love them for all of these reasons. And guess what? They are just like me."

Too Off-Topic

Unlike the essays you've been writing in school where the idea is to analyze something outside of yourself, the main subject of your college essay should be you, your background, your makeup, and your future . Writing about someone or something else might well make a great essay, but not for this context.

Paying tribute to someone very important to you. Everyone would love to meet your grandma, but this isn't the time to focus on her amazing coming of age story. If you do want to talk about a person who is important to your life, dwell on the ways you've been impacted by them, and how you will incorporate this impact into your future.
Documenting how well other people do things, say things, are active, while you remain passive and inactive in the essay. Being in the orbit of someone else's important lab work, or complex stage production, or meaningful political activism is a fantastic learning moment. But if you decide to write about, your essay should be about your learning and how you've been influenced, not about the other person's achievements.
Concentrating on a work of art that deeply moved you. Watch out for the pitfall of writing an analytical essay about that work, and not at all about your reaction to it or how you've been affected since. Check out our explanation of how to answer Topic D of the ApplyTexas application to get some advice on writing about someone else's work while making sure your essay still points back at you.

(Image: Pieter Christoffel Wonder [Public domain] , via Wikimedia Commons)

Want to write the perfect college application essay? We can help. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will help you craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step. At the end, you'll have a unique essay to proudly submit to colleges. Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now:

Too Offensive

With this potential mistake, you run the risk of showing a lack of self-awareness or the ability to be open to new ideas . Remember, no reader wants to be lectured at. If that's what your essay does, you are demonstrating an inability to communicate successfully with others.

Also, remember that no college is eager to admit someone who is too close-minded to benefit from being taught by others. A long, one-sided essay about a hot-button issue will suggest that you are exactly that.

Ranting at length about political, religious, or other contentious topics. You simply don't know where the admissions officer who reads your essay stands on any of these issues. It's better to avoid upsetting or angering that person.
Writing a one-sided diatribe about guns, abortion, the death penalty, immigration, or anything else in the news. Even if you can marshal facts in your argument, this essay is simply the wrong place to take a narrow, unempathetic side in an ongoing debate.
Mentioning anything negative about the school you're applying to. Again, your reader is someone who works there and presumably is proud of the place. This is not the time to question the admissions officer's opinions or life choices.

College Essay Execution Problems To Avoid

Bad college essays aren't only caused by bad topics. Sometimes, even if you're writing about an interesting, relevant topic, you can still seem immature or unready for college life because of the way you present that topic—the way you actually write your personal statement. Check to make sure you haven't made any of the common mistakes on this list.

Tone-Deafness

Admissions officers are looking for resourcefulness, the ability to be resilient, and an active and optimistic approach to life —these are all qualities that create a thriving college student. Essays that don't show these qualities are usually suffering from tone-deafness.

Being whiny or complaining about problems in your life. Is the essay about everyone doing things to/against you? About things happening to you, rather than you doing anything about them? That perspective is a definite turn-off.
Trying and failing to use humor. You may be very funny in real life, but it's hard to be successfully funny in this context, especially when writing for a reader who doesn't know you. If you do want to use humor, I'd recommend the simplest and most straightforward version: being self-deprecating and low-key.
Talking down to the reader, or alternately being self-aggrandizing. No one enjoys being condescended to. In this case, much of the function of your essay is to charm and make yourself likable, which is unlikely to happen if you adopt this tone.
Being pessimistic, cynical, and generally depressive. You are applying to college because you are looking forward to a future of learning, achievement, and self-actualization. This is not the time to bust out your existential ennui and your jaded, been-there-done-that attitude toward life.

(Image: Eduard Munch [Public Domain] , via Wikimedia Commons)

Lack of Personality

One good question to ask yourself is: could anyone else have written this essay ? If the answer is yes, then you aren't doing a good job of representing your unique perspective on the world. It's very important to demonstrate your ability to be a detailed observer of the world, since that will be one of your main jobs as a college student.

Avoiding any emotions, and appearing robot-like and cold in the essay. Unlike essays that you've been writing for class, this essay is meant to be a showcase of your authorial voice and personality. It may seem strange to shift gears after learning how to take yourself out of your writing, but this is the place where you have to put as much as yourself in as possible.
Skipping over description and specific details in favor of writing only in vague generalities. Does your narrative feel like a newspaper horoscope, which could apply to every other person who was there that day? Then you're doing it wrong and need to refocus on your reaction, feelings, understanding, and transformation.

Off-Kilter Style

There's some room for creativity here, yes, but a college essay isn't a free-for-all postmodern art class . True, there are prompts that specifically call for your most out-of-left-field submission, or allow you to submit a portfolio or some other work sample instead of a traditional essay. But on a standard application, it's better to stick to traditional prose, split into paragraphs, further split into sentences.

Submitting anything other than just the materials asked for on your application. Don't send food to the admissions office, don't write your essay on clothing or shoes, don't create a YouTube channel about your undying commitment to the school. I know there are a lot of urban legends about "that one time this crazy thing worked," but they are either not true or about something that will not work a second time.
Writing your essay in verse, in the form of a play, in bullet points, as an acrostic, or any other non-prose form. Unless you really have a way with poetry or playwriting, and you are very confident that you can meet the demands of the prompt and explain yourself well in this form, don't discard prose simply for the sake of being different.
Using as many "fancy" words as possible and getting very far away from sounding like yourself. Admissions officers are unanimous in wanting to hear your not fully formed teenage voice in your essay. This means that you should write at the top of your vocabulary range and syntax complexity, but don't trade every word up for a thesaurus synonym. Your essay will suffer for it.

Failure to Proofread

Most people have a hard time checking over their own work. This is why you have to make sure that someone else proofreads your writing . This is the one place where you can, should—and really must—get someone who knows all about grammar, punctuation and has a good eye for detail to take a red pencil to your final draft.

Otherwise, you look like you either don't know the basic rules or writing (in which case, are you really ready for college work?) or don't care enough to present yourself well (in which case, why would the admissions people care about admitting you?).

Typos, grammatical mistakes, punctuation flubs, weird font/paragraph spacing issues. It's true that these are often unintentional mistakes. But caring about getting it right is a way to demonstrate your work ethic and dedication to the task at hand.
Going over the word limit. Part of showing your brilliance is being able to work within arbitrary rules and limitations. Going over the word count points to a lack of self-control, which is not a very attractive feature in a college applicant.
Repeating the same word(s) or sentence structure over and over again. This makes your prose monotonous and hard to read.

Bad College Essay Examples—And How to Fix Them

The beauty of writing is that you get to rewrite. So if you think of your essay as a draft waiting to be revised into a better version rather than as a precious jewel that can't bear being touched, you'll be in far better shape to correct the issues that always crop up!

Now let's take a look at some actual college essay drafts to see where the writer is going wrong and how the issue could be fixed.

Essay #1: The "I Am Writing This Essay as We Speak" Meta-Narrative

Was your childhood home destroyed by a landspout tornado? Yeah, neither was mine. I know that intro might have given the impression that this college essay will be about withstanding disasters, but the truth is that it isn't about that at all.

In my junior year, I always had in mind an image of myself finishing the college essay months before the deadline. But as the weeks dragged on and the deadline drew near, it soon became clear that at the rate things are going I would probably have to make new plans for my October, November and December.

Falling into my personal wormhole, I sat down with my mom to talk about colleges. "Maybe you should write about Star Trek ," she suggested, "you know how you've always been obsessed with Captain Picard, calling him your dream mentor. Unique hobbies make good topics, right? You'll sound creative!" I played with the thought in my mind, tapping my imaginary communicator pin and whispering "Computer. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And then an Essay." Nothing happened. Instead, I sat quietly in my room wrote the old-fashioned way. Days later I emerged from my room disheveled, but to my dismay, this college essay made me sound like just a guy who can't get over the fact that he'll never take the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. So, I tossed my essay away without even getting to disintegrate it with a phaser set on stun.

I fell into a state of panic. My college essay. My image of myself in senior year. Almost out of nowhere, Robert Jameson Smith offered his words of advice. Perfect! He suggested students begin their college essay by listing their achievements and letting their essay materialize from there. My heart lifted, I took his advice and listed three of my greatest achievements - mastering my backgammon strategy, being a part of TREE in my sophomore year, and performing "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" from The Pirates of Penzance in public. And sure enough, I felt inspiration hit me and began to type away furiously into the keyboard about my experience in TREE, or Trees Require Engaged Environmentalists. I reflected on the current state of deforestation, and described the dichotomy of it being both understandable why farmers cut down forests for farmland, and how dangerous this is to our planet. Finally, I added my personal epiphany to the end of my college essay as the cherry on the vanilla sundae, as the overused saying goes.

After 3 weeks of figuring myself out, I have converted myself into a piece of writing. As far as achievements go, this was definitely an amazing one. The ability to transform a human being into 603 words surely deserves a gold medal. Yet in this essay, I was still being nagged by a voice that couldn't be ignored. Eventually, I submitted to that yelling inner voice and decided that this was not the right essay either.

In the middle of a hike through Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, I realized that the college essay was nothing more than an embodiment of my character. The two essays I have written were not right because they have failed to become more than just words on recycled paper. The subject failed to come alive. Certainly my keen interest in Star Trek and my enthusiasm for TREE are a great part of who I am, but there were other qualities essential in my character that did not come across in the essays.

With this realization, I turned around as quickly as I could without crashing into a tree.

What Essay #1 Does Well

Here are all things that are working on all cylinders for this personal statement as is.

Killer First Sentence

Was your childhood home destroyed by a landspout tornado? Yeah, neither was mine.

A strange fact. There are different kinds of tornadoes? What is a "landspout tornado" anyway?
A late-night-deep-thoughts hypothetical. What would it be like to be a kid whose house was destroyed in this unusual way?
Direct engagement with the reader. Instead of asking "what would it be like to have a tornado destroy a house" it asks "was your house ever destroyed."

Gentle, Self-Deprecating Humor That Lands Well

I played with the thought in my mind, tapping my imaginary communicator pin and whispering "Computer. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And then an Essay." Nothing happened. Instead, I sat quietly in my room wrote the old-fashioned way. Days later I emerged from my room disheveled, but to my dismay, this college essay made me sound like just a guy who can't get over the fact that he'll never take the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. So, I tossed my essay away without even getting to disintegrate it with a phaser set on stun.

The author has his cake and eats it too here: both making fun of himself for being super into the Star Trek mythos, but also showing himself being committed enough to try whispering a command to the Enterprise computer alone in his room. You know, just in case.

A Solid Point That Is Made Paragraph by Paragraph

The meat of the essay is that the two versions of himself that the author thought about portraying each fails in some way to describe the real him. Neither an essay focusing on his off-beat interests, nor an essay devoted to his serious activism could capture everything about a well-rounded person in 600 words.

(Image: fir0002 via Wikimedia Commons .)

Where Essay #1 Needs Revision

Rewriting these flawed parts will make the essay shine.

Spending Way Too Long on the Metanarrative

I know that intro might have given the impression that this college essay will be about withstanding disasters, but the truth is that it isn't about that at all.

Look at how long and draggy these paragraphs are, especially after that zippy opening. Is it at all interesting to read about how someone else found the process of writing hard? Not really, because this is a very common experience.

In the rewrite, I'd advise condensing all of this to maybe a sentence to get to the meat of the actual essay .

Letting Other People Do All the Doing

I sat down with my mom to talk about colleges. "Maybe you should write about Star Trek ," she suggested, "you know how you've always been obsessed with Captain Picard, calling him your dream mentor. Unique hobbies make good topics, right? You'll sound creative!"

Almost out of nowhere, Robert Jameson Smith offered his words of advice. Perfect! He suggested students begin their college essay by listing their achievements and letting their essay materialize from there.

Twice in the essay, the author lets someone else tell him what to do. Not only that, but it sounds like both of the "incomplete" essays were dictated by the thoughts of other people and had little to do with his own ideas, experiences, or initiative.

In the rewrite, it would be better to recast both the Star Trek and the TREE versions of the essay as the author's own thoughts rather than someone else's suggestions . This way, the point of the essay—taking apart the idea that a college essay could summarize life experience—is earned by the author's two failed attempts to write that other kind of essay.

Leaving the Insight and Meaning Out of His Experiences

Both the Star Trek fandom and the TREE activism were obviously important life experiences for this author—important enough to be potential college essay topic candidates. But there is no description of what the author did with either one, nor any explanation of why these were so meaningful to his life.

It's fine to say that none of your achievements individually define you, but in order for that to work, you have to really sell the achievements themselves.

In the rewrite, it would be good to explore what he learned about himself and the world by pursuing these interests . How did they change him or seen him into the person he is today?

Not Adding New Shades and Facets of Himself Into the Mix

So, I tossed my essay away without even getting to disintegrate it with a phaser set on stun.

Yet in this essay, I was still being nagged by a voice that couldn't be ignored. Eventually, I submitted to that yelling inner voice and decided that this was not the right essay either.

In both of these passages, there is the perfect opportunity to point out what exactly these failed versions of the essay didn't capture about the author . In the next essay draft, I would suggest subtly making a point about his other qualities.

For example, after the Star Trek paragraph, he could talk about other culture he likes to consume, especially if he can discuss art forms he is interested in that would not be expected from someone who loves Star Trek .

Or, after the TREE paragraph, the author could explain why this second essay was no better at capturing him than the first. What was missing? Why is the self in the essay shouting—is it because this version paints him as an overly aggressive activist?

Essay #2: The "I Once Saw Poor People" Service Trip Essay

Unlike other teenagers, I'm not concerned about money, or partying, or what others think of me. Unlike other eighteen year-olds, I think about my future, and haven't become totally materialistic and acquisitive. My whole outlook on life changed after I realized that my life was just being handed to me on a silver spoon, and yet there were those in the world who didn't have enough food to eat or place to live. I realized that the one thing that this world needed more than anything was compassion; compassion for those less fortunate than us.

During the summer of 2006, I went on a community service trip to rural Peru to help build an elementary school for kids there. I expected harsh conditions, but what I encountered was far worse. It was one thing to watch commercials asking for donations to help the unfortunate people in less developed countries, yet it was a whole different story to actually live it. Even after all this time, I can still hear babies crying from hunger; I can still see the filthy rags that they wore; I can still smell the stench of misery and hopelessness. But my most vivid memory was the moment I first got to the farming town. The conditions of it hit me by surprise; it looked much worse in real life than compared to the what our group leader had told us. Poverty to me and everyone else I knew was a foreign concept that people hear about on the news or see in documentaries. But this abject poverty was their life, their reality. And for the brief ten days I was there, it would be mine too. As all of this realization came at once, I felt overwhelmed by the weight of what was to come. Would I be able to live in the same conditions as these people? Would I catch a disease that no longer existed in the first world, or maybe die from drinking contaminated water? As these questions rolled around my already dazed mind, I heard a soft voice asking me in Spanish, "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" I looked down to see a small boy, around nine years of age, who looked starved, and cold, wearing tattered clothing, comforting me. These people who have so little were able to forget their own needs, and put those much more fortunate ahead of themselves. It was at that moment that I saw how selfish I had been. How many people suffered like this in the world, while I went about life concerned about nothing at all?

Thinking back on the trip, maybe I made a difference, maybe not. But I gained something much more important. I gained the desire to make the world a better place for others. It was in a small, poverty-stricken village in Peru that I finally realized that there was more to life than just being alive.

What Essay #2 Does Well

Let's first point out what this draft has going for it.

Clear Chronology

This is an essay that tries to explain a shift in perspective. There are different ways to structure this overarching idea, but a chronological approach that starts with an earlier opinion, describes a mind changing event, and ends with the transformed point of view is an easy and clear way to lay this potentially complex subject out.

(Image: User:Lite via Wikimedia Commons)

Where Essay #2 Needs Revision

Now let's see what needs to be changed in order for this essay to pass muster.

Condescending, Obnoxious Tone

This is a very broad generalization, which doesn't tend to be the best way to formulate an argument—or to start an essay. It just makes this author sound dismissive of a huge swath of the population.

In the rewrite, this author would be way better off just concentrate on what she want to say about herself, not pass judgment on "other teenagers," most of whom she doesn't know and will never meet.

I realized that the one thing that this world needed more than anything was compassion; compassion for those less fortunate than us.

Coming from someone who hasn't earned her place in the world through anything but the luck of being born, the word "compassion" sounds really condescending. Calling others "less fortunate" when you're a senior in high school has a dehumanizing quality to it.

These people who have so little were able to forget their own needs, and put those much more fortunate in front of themselves.

Again, this comes across as very patronizing. Not only that, but to this little boy the author was clearly not looking all that "fortunate"—instead, she looked pathetic enough to need comforting.

In the next draft, a better hook could be making the essay about the many different kinds of shifting perspectives the author encountered on that trip . A more meaningful essay would compare and contrast the points of view of the TV commercials, to what the group leader said, to the author's own expectations, and finally to this child's point of view.

Vague, Unobservant Description

Phrases like "cries of the small children from not having enough to eat" and "dirt stained rags" seem like descriptions, but they're really closer to incurious and completely hackneyed generalizations. Why were the kids were crying? How many kids? All the kids? One specific really loud kid?

The same goes for "filthy rags," which is both an incredibly insensitive way to talk about the clothing of these villagers, and again shows a total lack of interest in their life. Why were their clothes dirty? Were they workers or farmers so their clothes showing marks of labor? Did they have Sunday clothes? Traditional clothes they would put on for special occasions? Did they make their own clothes? That would be a good reason to keep wearing clothing even if it had "stains" on it.

The rewrite should either make this section more specific and less reliant on cliches, or should discard it altogether .

The conditions of it hit me by surprise; it looked much worse in real life than compared to the what our group leader had told us. Poverty to me and everyone else I knew was a foreign concept that people hear about on the news or see in documentaries. But this abject poverty was their life, their reality.

If this is the "most vivid memory," then I would expect to read all the details that have been seared into the author's brain. What did their leader tell them? What was different in real life? What was the light like? What did the houses/roads/grass/fields/trees/animals/cars look like? What time of day was it? Did they get there by bus, train, or plane? Was there an airport/train station/bus terminal? A city center? Shops? A marketplace?

There are any number of details to include here when doing another drafting pass.

Lack of Insight or Maturity

But this abject poverty was their life, their reality. And for the brief ten days I was there, it would be mine too. As all of this realization came at once, I felt overwhelmed by the weight of what was to come. Would I be able to live in the same conditions as these people? Would I catch a disease that no longer existed in the first world, or maybe die from drinking contaminated water?

Without a framing device explaining that this initial panic was an overreaction, this section just makes the author sound whiny, entitled, melodramatic, and immature . After all, this isn't a a solo wilderness trek—the author is there with a paid guided program. Just how much mortality is typically associated with these very standard college-application-boosting service trips?

In a rewrite, I would suggest including more perspective on the author's outsized and overprivileged response here. This would fit well with a new focus on the different points of view on this village the author encountered.

Unearned, Clichéd "Deep Thoughts"

But I gained something much more important. I gained the desire to make the world a better place for others. It was in a small, poverty-stricken village in Peru that I finally realized that there was more to life than just being alive.

Is it really believable that this is what the author learned? There is maybe some evidence to suggest that the author was shaken somewhat out of a comfortable, materialistic existence. But what does "there is more to life than just being alive" even really mean? This conclusion is rather vague, and seems mostly a non sequitur.

In a rewrite, the essay should be completely reoriented to discuss how differently others see us than we see ourselves, pivoting on the experience of being pitied by someone who you thought was pitiable. Then, the new version can end by on a note of being better able to understand different points of view and other people's perspectives .

The Bottom Line

Bad college essays have problems either with their topics or their execution.
The essay is how admissions officers learn about your personality, point of view, and maturity level, so getting the topic right is a key factor in letting them see you as an aware, self-directed, open-minded applicant who is going to thrive in an environment of independence.
The essay is also how admissions officers learn that you are writing at a ready-for-college level, so screwing up the execution shows that you either don't know how to write, or don't care enough to do it well.
The main ways college essay topics go wrong is bad taste, bad judgment, and lack of self-awareness.
The main ways college essays fail in their execution have to do with ignoring format, syntax, and genre expectations.

What's Next?

Want to read some excellent college essays now that you've seen some examples of flawed one? Take a look through our roundup of college essay examples published by colleges and then get help with brainstorming your perfect college essay topic .

Need some guidance on other parts of the application process? Check out our detailed, step-by-step guide to college applications for advice.

Are you considering taking the SAT or ACT again before you submit your application? Read about our famous test prep guides for hints and strategies for a better score.

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download them for free now:

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Describe a Travel Experience You Have Had: IELTS Speaking (2 Cue Cards With Example Answers)

Your examiner might ask you to describe a travel experience you have had in part two of your IELTS Speaking test.

What You Can Talk About

This is one of the easier part-two questions because you just need to remember an experience and tell the story.

You can then describe your trip. Here are some things you could focus on describing:

Use a Good Word Group

In part two, it’s important to use interesting vocabulary. One easy way to do this is to remember a few word groups .

A word group is a collection of words and phrases that describe a certain feature of a place you visited, an experience you had, or an activity you did.

This ‘traditional event’ word group would include interesting words like: ‘customs, ancient, ancestral traditions, cultural heritage, passed down through the generations…’ and more.

You could then use these ‘traditional event’ words in many different part-two questions, such as:

Below, you’ll see an example answer using an ‘exciting activity’ word group. Or you can l earn more about how to use word groups here .

Use Apps to Memorize Faster

One perfect app for memorizing word groups is Anki App . This app uses spaced repetition to make sure you really remember the words and phrases well.

Some other good apps for IELTS Speaking are the Complete IELTS Full Skills app , Elsa app , and Cake app .

Prepare Your Story Well

Also, the more you practice preparing and telling stories, the better you become at using past tenses (primarily past simple, past continuous, and past perfect).

Travel Experience Cue Card

You should say:

Chiang Mai is a peaceful city in the north of Thailand. It’s filled with beautiful temples and surrounded by mountains and dense jungle. I traveled there with a good friend of mine, and also two other girls we had met in Thailand. One day, we all went to an adventure park in the jungle and I went zip-lining for the first time. I loved the sensation of flying between two huge trees above the jungle. It was a really heart-thumping experience. Totally out of this world . Adrenaline was pumping through me. I can still remember it really well.

(Word Group Used: ‘Exciting Activity’)

Thrilling, Exhilarating, Adventure, Mind-blowing, Heart-thumping, Action-packed, Thrill-seeker, A rip-roaring adventure, Hair-raisin, Breathtaking, Out of this world, I couldn’t wait to begin, I didn’t want it to end, I was on the edge of my seat, Gave me a real buzz, I was buzzing with excitement, Adrenaline was pumping through me, I was thrilled to bits, My heart was beating out of my chest, I was bored out of my mind, A big yawn-fest, It was about as exciting as watching paint dry, As dull as dishwater.

Now It’s Your Turn

Prepare to answer this question yourself.

Next, set a timer for one minute and ask yourself aloud to describe a travel experience you have had.

Each time you do this, you’ll become better prepared for part two of your IELTS Speaking test.

In part two or your IELTS Speaking test, your examiner might ask you to describe…

In part two of your IELTS Speaking test, you might need to talk about your…

You might get a cue card about time management in part two of your IELTS…

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✍️Essay on Travelling: Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

Updated on
May 10, 2024

Did you know the tourism industry accounted for $2 Trillion in 2022? Every year, people travel around the world to take a break from their busy routines. This in turn helps them to come back more rejuvenated and more focused. But do you know the importance of travelling and how it helps one mentally and physically? Well, don’t worry as we have got you covered. Here we will give you details on an essay on travelling, which you can use at school, college and other academic levels.

Table of Contents

1 Importance of Travelling
2 Essay on Travelling in 100 words
3 Essay on Travelling in 200 words
4 Essay on Travelling in 300 words
5 Short Essay on Travelling

Importance of Travelling

Travelling is a vital facet of personal development and cultural enrichment. Travelling broadens one’s horizons, and fosters tolerance and understanding of diverse cultures. On the positive side of travelling is that it allows one to break free from their routine, and travel and stimulates creativity and problem-solving skills.

One should make sure they travel at least once a year. By doing so, it will act as a motivation for self-discovery, building confidence and allowing one to navigate several unfamiliar territories. Moreover, it creates long-lasting memories as well as bonds with friends or other people.

Travelling to new places and exploring nature’s wonders, historical landmarks, or vibrant cities imbues us with valuable experiences. It also promotes lifelong learning as well as appreciation for the beauty and diversity of our world. All in all, travelling to new places acts as an investment in both personal development and in terms of creating connections with new people.

Essay on Travelling in 100 words

People love to travel around the world for leisure while there are people who travel for educational purposes. At the same time, some people travel for work-related reasons. All those people who love to travel for educational purposes get the opportunity to their classroom learning into practical use as well.

On the other hand, some people travel only for pleasure and to get a break from their busy schedules. We can extend our horizons by experiencing the location’s food, culture, architecture, and other characteristics. Experiences from real life are always more valuable. We can learn about a different culture, language, way of life, and population by visiting a city in a foreign country. It is occasionally the best teacher for learning about the outside world.

Also Read: Essay on Abortion in English in 650 Words

Essay on Travelling in 200 words

Travelling is a captivating and enriching experience that broadens horizons, fosters personal growth, and connects individuals with diverse cultures and landscapes. It is a journey of discovery, both of the world and oneself.

One of the most profound aspects of travelling is the opportunity to explore new cultures. Immersing oneself in different traditions, cuisines, and languages opens one’s mind to the rich tapestry of humanity. It fosters tolerance, empathy, and a deeper understanding of global interconnectedness.

Moreover, travel provides a break from daily routine and offers a chance to escape the demands of daily life. It allows individuals to recharge, relax, and rejuvenate. Whether it’s lounging on a pristine beach, hiking in majestic mountains, or exploring bustling urban centres, travel offers diverse experiences for every taste and preference.

Furthermore, travelling encourages personal growth. It challenges individuals to step out of their comfort zones, adapt to unfamiliar environments, and solve problems on the go. It promotes self-confidence, independence, and resilience.

At last, travelling is not just a leisure activity; it is a transformative journey that enriches the mind, nourishes the soul, and leaves lasting memories. It is an essential part of the human experience, reminding us that the world is vast, diverse, and waiting to be explored. So, pack your bags and embark on the adventure of a lifetime. Your next great discovery may be just around the corner.

Also Read: Essay on Women’s Day in 200 and 500 words

Essay on Travelling in 300 words

Travelling is a transformative experience that opens up a world of possibilities and enriches our lives in countless ways. Whether it’s a weekend getaway to a nearby town or an adventure across continents, the act of travelling transcends mere movement; it’s a journey of self-discovery and exploration.

One of the best aspects of travelling is the exposure to diverse cultures. When we venture beyond our familiar surroundings, we encounter people with different traditions, languages, and perspectives. This exposure fosters empathy and a deeper understanding of the global community. It allows us to break down stereotypes and prejudices, promoting a more interconnected and peaceful world.

Travelling also provides an opportunity for personal growth. It challenges us to step out of our comfort zones and adapt to new situations. Whether it’s navigating through a bustling market in Marrakech or communicating with locals in Tokyo, these experiences build resilience and self-confidence. We also learn problem-solving skills, become more adaptable, and develop a greater sense of independence.

Furthermore, travel offers a chance to connect with nature. Travelling is a gateway to history and art. Visiting ancient ruins, museums, and historical sites immerses us in the rich tapestry of human civilization. It deepens our appreciation for the accomplishments and struggles of those who came before us, fostering a sense of heritage and a connection to our shared past.

In conclusion, travelling is not just about going from one place to another; it’s a journey of self-discovery, cultural immersion, personal growth, and appreciation for the world we inhabit. It broadens our horizons, challenges our assumptions, and enriches our lives in ways that few other experiences can. So, whether you’re exploring a distant land or simply taking a road trip to a neighbouring town, embrace the opportunity to travel and let it transform you.

Also Read: How to Write an Essay in English?

Short Essay on Travelling

Here is a sample of a short essay on travelling:

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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Turkish People, Culture, History, and Places inTurkey

My Bad Hotel Experience : The Story

When on the road, you expect something to go wrong and so far our road trip had been perfect. However our arrival into the resort of Yalikavak turned out to be the day when I would have to start assessing my expectations and what I was prepared to put up with. I had a bad hotel experience that has made me doubt the hotel industry.

Even though, the day turned out well in the end, it also left me with a dilemma as to my responsibilities as a travel blogger. There were a number of questions that I ended up asking myself.

Should I be naming those who in my opinion bring a bad name to the travel business?
Do my readers want to know the places that I suggest avoiding?
If I name and shame those who deliver poor standards, am I leaving myself wide open?

My Bad Hotel Experience

It all began when we arrived in the resort of Yalikavak. This is a beautiful coastal resort that has left its mark on me. I imagine eccentric artists and writers to flock there for inspirations. I also understand why many ex-pat s have left the UK to experience life there. What I did not like was our choice of hotel. Those who have read previous posts of mine will remember that we decided to pre-book our hotel since we found out that dropping in unannounced can be three times more expensive.

As it was a girly holiday without the hubbies, we had decided to treat ourselves and pre-book a hotel that was four star, sauna, and gym, laid on buffet breakfasts, mini bar and all the mod cons. We already knew that the swimming pool would be out of use, as typically this is out of season that we are traveling in.

While walking around the resort, we had found the hotel and even though our bags were still in the car, we decided to check it out before booking in. My friend obviously had a sixth sense and I am glad she suggested it. We went into reception and the rest of the conversations are as follows.

Me – Hi, we have a pre-booked reservation for two rooms and will be checking in later. Can we just have a look around first?

Receptionist – yes.

(We proceed to the bar and sit down. No staff there but we figure they will be along shortly. Ten minutes later, we are still sat there with no drinks so I go back to reception)

Me – Hi, Can I have one cola and one Efes beer please?

Receptionist – yes

(I head back to the bar,wait ten minutes . At this stage, my tongue resembles a flip flop as it is so dry. However, a can of beer and a dirty glass are soon placed in front of me. Warning bells are starting to ring as the bar man looks like he shouldn’t be out of school, yet alone serving beer. So I head back to reception)

Me – Hi. Can you tell me how many rooms are booked in at the moment?

Receptionist – two

Me – ok, is that our two rooms?

Me – is the sauna open?

Receptionist – no

Me – ok, is the gym open?

R eceptionist – no

(At this stage, you will realise that conservation was not one of his strong points)

Me –Will there be a buffet breakfast in the morning?

Receptionist – no, set breakfast.

(I have seen a set breakfast in Turkey before and they consist of a slice of tomato, cucumber, three olives and a fried egg)

Me – can we see our rooms?

We follow him up the stairs, and as we turn the corner I see a girl running out of one of the rooms. She has a shaved head and a nasty laugh that makes me wonder is she is an extra from Prisoner cell block H. I walk into the room, and the first thing I check is the sheets. They are all crumpled, and the pillowcases dirty. Now, if I want to lie in someone else’s sweat, I will go home and jump in bed with hubby. I certainly will not pay for it.

So that was the fastest check in and checkout in the history of hotels. It turned out though to be a blessing in disguise, as thanks to our decision to walk around and find another hotel, we met some great people and I shall tell you about them in the next post.

Will I disclose the name of this hotel? I have debated this and I feel that since the hotel agreed not to charge our credit cards, that it would be unfair to name them.

For those readers that are saying, you get what you pay for, remember this was a hotel that I was prepared to pay 40 euros a night for. It was also advertised as having a gym, sauna and all mod cons. I expected to be able to use them and it is a foregone conclusion that I would want to sleep on clean sheets. This experience also leaves me with the questions I mentioned above as to my responsibilities as a travel blogger.

Readers, do you feel I should be naming and shaming this hotel, even those I was not charged
If you are a travel blogger, do you disclose the bad times on your blog as well as the good ones?

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Worst holiday travel experiences.

by Sarah Brooks

Sarah Brooks

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Travel is stressful and the holidays are even more stressful. Take a deep breath as you read these holiday travel nightmares!

I’ve never once traveled over the holidays, and these stories reassure me that I’ve made the right decision time and time again.

Stuck in an elevator

Two Christmases ago, my family and I were in visiting relatives in L.A. We stayed at a tiny hotel and suddenly all four of us came down with the stomach flu. Our room was seriously like 400 square feet. You can imagine the mess and how disgusting it was for 48 hours. Well, once we were slowly starting to feel better, we went down to the pool to try and eat something, and the kids (ages 1 and 5) wanted to go swimming. The two boys and I got in the elevator to go get our swim suits. Well, on the way up, the elevator stopped. Let me remind you that we were all on the tail end of the stomach flu. And yes, we were stuck in the elevator, on Christmas Day, for over an hour — me and two little kids. The elevator repair man got lost, then couldn’t come because it was a holiday. Finally, the fire department came and broke us out of the elevator. Luckily, none of us had to puke until we got out of the cramped quarters. Best. Christmas. Ever. — Michele

Click here to check out Michele’s travel blog >>

Broken-down car in a blizzard.

It was Christmas Eve and my best friend’s brother (who I barely knew) was driving me home from college, since I didn’t have a car. It was an eight-hour drive, and we were in a blizzard. While driving down the freeway, his pickup suddenly broke down! We were in the middle of nowhere, still four hours from home. No mechanic was open on Christmas Eve and no one could come pick us up because the snowstorm was too dangerous. After waiting in frigid temperatures for a cab, we ended up sharing a room (because we were poor college students) in a seedy motel on the highway and ate gas-station Cheetos and beef jerky for dinner on Christmas Eve. — Christina

Kids on a plane

Five years ago my wife and I took our 3 kids (ages 7, 4, and 1 at the time) to visit my sister who lives in Sydney, Australia, for Christmas. Since they didn’t sleep much, we spent 16 hours on the plane keeping them entertained — a lot of walking the aisles, watching movies and playing games. The worst part was our 1-year-old, who was inconsolable at times. Things we let her do included eating patties of butter by themselves and kicking the chair in front of her because we were too exhausted to stop her. It was the plane ride from hell, and I never felt like more of a failure as parent in my life! —Kyle

How to travel with a toddler >>

Stuck in traffic for hours.

One of my most frustrating travel experiences came on a Thanksgiving trip from Santa Barbara to Victorville, California. Traffic was heavy, but moving, until we were just about three miles from Victorville. Then it stopped — for hours. We were trapped in a line of cars that barely moved. There were no roads to either side, nothing but desert. We could have turned around but the only other route would have involved circling back and a 90-mile drive. Since we were only a couple of miles from our destination, we figured this mess was bound to clear up at some point. It finally did — three and a half hours later. Turns out it was a four-way stop that was backing everything up. Because, in spite of the massive housing boom Victorville was experiencing, the city fathers hadn’t seen fit to install a traffic light. — Barry

Kicked out of a cab

Arriving into Chicago O’Hare on Christmas evening with my two very young kids, I needed a taxi. When I gave the taxi driver the address, which was only 15 minutes away, he kicked us out of his cab. Too short a fare to make it worth his while, apparently. Keep in mind this was a taxi driver in the taxi line at the terminal arrivals. And he was able to get away with this! Grinch! — Carol

More on holiday travel

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Essay On Travel

500 words essay on travel.

Travelling is an amazing way to learn a lot of things in life. A lot of people around the world travel every year to many places. Moreover, it is important to travel to humans. Some travel to learn more while some travel to take a break from their life. No matter the reason, travelling opens a big door for us to explore the world beyond our imagination and indulge in many things. Therefore, through this Essay on Travel, we will go through everything that makes travelling great.

Why Do We Travel?

There are a lot of reasons to travel. Some people travel for fun while some do it for education purposes. Similarly, others have business reasons to travel. In order to travel, one must first get an idea of their financial situation and then proceed.

Understanding your own reality helps people make good travel decisions. If people gave enough opportunities to travel, they set out on the journey. People going on educational tours get a first-hand experience of everything they’ve read in the text.

Similarly, people who travel for fun get to experience and indulge in refreshing things which may serve as a stress reducer in their lives. The culture, architecture, cuisine and more of the place can open our mind to new things.

The Benefits of Travelling

There are numerous benefits to travelling if we think about it. The first one being, we get to meet new people. When you meet new people, you get the opportunity to make new friends. It may be a fellow traveller or the local you asked for directions.

Moreover, new age technology has made it easier to keep in touch with them. Thus, it offers not only a great way to understand human nature but also explore new places with those friends to make your trip easy.

Similar to this benefit, travelling makes it easier to understand people. You will learn how other people eat, speak, live and more. When you get out of your comfort zone, you will become more sensitive towards other cultures and the people.

Another important factor which we learn when we travel is learning new skills. When you go to hilly areas, you will most likely trek and thus, trekking will be a new skill added to your list.

Similarly, scuba diving or more can also be learned while travelling. A very important thing which travelling teaches us is to enjoy nature. It helps us appreciate the true beauty of the earth .

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Travel

All in all, it is no less than a blessing to be able to travel. Many people are not privileged enough to do that. Those who do get the chance, it brings excitement in their lives and teaches them new things. No matter how a travelling experience may go, whether good or bad, it will definitely help you learn.

FAQ on Essay on Travel

Question 1: Why is it advantageous to travel?

Answer 1: Real experiences always have better value. When we travel to a city, in a different country, it allows us to learn about a new culture, new language, new lifestyle, and new peoples. Sometimes, it is the best teacher to understand the world.

Question 2: Why is travelling essential?

Answer 2: Travelling is an incredibly vital part of life. It is the best way to break your monotonous routine and experience life in different ways. Moreover, it is also a good remedy for stress, anxiety and depression.

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Essay on My Best Travel Experience

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Best Travel Experience in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Best Travel Experience

Introduction.

My best travel experience was when I visited Disneyland in Paris. It was a trip that combined adventure, excitement, and learning in the most enjoyable way.

The Journey

Our journey began with a flight from home to Paris. The excitement of flying and the anticipation of the adventure ahead made the journey thrilling.

Disneyland was a dream come true. I met my favorite characters, enjoyed thrilling rides, and watched amazing shows. The magical atmosphere made me feel like I was part of a fairy tale.

This trip was my best travel experience. It was a perfect blend of fun, adventure, and learning.

250 Words Essay on My Best Travel Experience

Traveling is a fantastic way to broaden one’s perspectives, experience new cultures, and create lasting memories. Among all my travels, my journey to the Swiss Alps remains the most unforgettable.

The Excitement of the Journey

The excitement began as soon as I boarded the plane. The anticipation of exploring the Alpine landscapes, filled with snow-capped peaks and serene valleys, was overwhelming. Yet, the journey was merely the prelude to the symphony of experiences that awaited.

The Alpine Wonderland

Upon arrival, I was greeted by the majestic sight of the Alps, their peaks piercing the azure sky. The quaint Swiss chalets, nestled amidst lush greenery, added a touch of enchantment to the landscape. The air was crisp and clean, a refreshing change from the urban hustle I was accustomed to.

Experiencing the Culture

The local culture was a delightful blend of tradition and modernity. The Swiss people, with their warm hospitality and charming customs, made the experience even more memorable. Sampling local cuisine, especially the fondue and Swiss chocolate, was a gastronomic adventure in itself.

In retrospect, my trip to the Swiss Alps was not just a travel experience, but a journey of self-discovery. It taught me the importance of stepping out of my comfort zone and embracing new experiences. This trip remains my best travel experience, a testament to the transformative power of travel.

500 Words Essay on My Best Travel Experience

The allure of travel.

Traveling is an integral part of human life, offering a window to the world’s diverse cultures, landscapes, and experiences. It broadens our horizons, enriches our knowledge, and nurtures our spirit of adventure. Among the numerous journeys I’ve embarked on, one stands out as my best travel experience – a trip to the serene and picturesque landscapes of Iceland.

Journey to the Land of Fire and Ice

Embracing the icelandic culture.

Upon arrival, I was welcomed by the warm-hearted locals who were eager to share their culture and traditions. The country’s capital, Reykjavík, was a blend of modernity and tradition, with its vibrant art scene, historic sites, and cutting-edge design. I was particularly intrigued by the Icelandic language, a North Germanic language that has remained relatively unchanged for centuries.

Exploring the Natural Wonders

The highlight of the trip was exploring Iceland’s natural wonders. The Golden Circle, a popular tourist route, offered a spectacular view of the geysers, waterfalls, and the historic Þingvellir National Park. The awe-inspiring sight of the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, painted across the night sky was an experience that words fail to encapsulate. The Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, with its floating icebergs, was another unforgettable spectacle.

The Blue Lagoon Experience

Reflections on the journey.

The Iceland expedition was not just a geographical journey but also a journey of self-discovery and personal growth. It was an opportunity to disconnect from the digital world and reconnect with nature. The trip instilled in me a deep appreciation for the planet’s beauty and fragility, reinforcing the importance of sustainable travel and conservation efforts.

In conclusion, my journey to Iceland was an enriching and transformative travel experience. It was a perfect blend of cultural immersion, natural exploration, and personal introspection. The memories of the trip serve as a constant reminder of the world’s vastness and diversity, inspiring me to continue my quest for knowledge and adventure.

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

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Table of Contents

10 of My Worst Travel Experiences

1. Forgot my phone in a Toilet Booth at Chennai Airport

2. Stranded without a Hostel at 11 pm in Argentina

3. A government Bus left with my luggage on board

4. Denied boarding my flight to Cuba

5. Denied entry into Guatemala at the border

6. Being stalked by a stranger in Colombia

7. Discovering the last currency note gone on a Bus in Guatemala

8. Finding myself on a Snow Hike Without Crampons

9. Being Stalked in India

10. Being Mugged at Knifepoint in Colombia

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How to Write a Travelogue: 8 Tips To Write Better Travel Stories

What does a travelogue contain?

Tell one specific story

Be descriptive

Be forthcoming

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Travel: Personal Experience

My ten worst travel experiences

1. Fainting on my flight to Europe on my second international trip

2. Getting gassed in Quito, Ecuador

3. Being sexually assaulted in Turkey

4. Visiting the Egyptian Pyramids

5. Mexico/US border dramas

6. My travelling companion having a sudden seizure on a Grand Canyon tour.

7. Nearly being robbed in Sofia

8. Being in Bangkok during a Thai military coup

9. Being kicked off a chicken bus in Guatemala

10. KL accommodation mix up

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