How do you deal with uncertainty?
What’s the worst that could happen?
That is what I tend to tell myself — and other people — when something unexpected happens.
Most situations are fixable. There is usually a solution, and there is very rarely any benefit in panicking.
I’ve learned a lot of problem-solving and quick-thinking skills from working in A&E for 14 years, where even the most urgent situations rarely get me particularly hot under the collar.
That is, unless I lose something.
Then all bets are off.
Travel is basically organised uncertainty
Travel comes with uncertainty whether you plan for it or not.
A lot of the trips I’ve taken have involved booking the bare bones beforehand and working out the rest as I go.
Flights. First hotel. Maybe a rough route.
Everything else can usually be figured out.
We live in a world where almost everything is connected, information is in your pocket and there is normally another option if Plan A collapses.
A good example was Copenhagen, when my partner’s card was swallowed by an ATM and, for him, the trip was immediately ruined.
Except it wasn’t.
I had enough money for us both, I had a spare card if needed, and his bank provided a new digital card for Apple Pay the same day.
Problem solved.
And that is basically how most travel disasters go.
The Amsterdam purse disaster
On day two of a 27-day European road trip, I either lost my purse or had it stolen in Amsterdam.
Inside it was all my money and my driving licence.
Not ideal.
The cash was gone, but I had a prepaid travel card which could be recovered. I rang the provider and they arranged a Western Union transfer, which I could collect locally.
They initially wanted to give me thousands in cash, but eventually sorted a replacement travel card from one of their branches.
The new card could not be topped up from outside the Netherlands, but it was money and it kept the trip moving.
I also had to contact the DVLA and get them to fax over a copy of my driving licence.
Yes. Fax.
I really am that old.
Problem solved.
Sleeping in the car because hotels were expensive
On that same trip, we had not booked accommodation in advance.
We were two recent graduates without jobs, travelling around Europe and discovering quite quickly that city hotels were expensive.
So we slept in the car or used the tent we had bought.
Was it comfortable?
Not especially.
Did it work?
Yes.
And that was enough.
Travelling before Google Translate was permanently in your pocket
We also could not speak the languages of most of the countries we visited.
This was before Google Translate was freely available on your phone, and we were still using internet cafés to book things.
That caused the occasional problem.
Germany was particularly entertaining because we could not understand anyone and they could not understand us.
At one park-and-ride, we tried to ask a man how to get onto the train.
His response was:
“The parking is open 24.”
Helpful.
The French blokes and the barefoot escape
We also got ourselves into a slightly more concerning situation with some French men who plied us with alcohol and then took us back to their house.
My friend sensed that something was wrong and we left very quickly.
Without our shoes, might I add.
Again, not ideal.
But we got out, we were safe, and the story lives on.
Six weeks in Africa. No luggage.
On the way to Nairobi, connecting flight delays meant I was rerouted through Ethiopia.
I knew as soon as I got onto the connecting flight that my luggage was never going to make it.
I had run to make the connection.
My suitcase, unfortunately, did not have legs.
Day one of six weeks in Africa and I had no luggage.
They found it and said it would arrive the following day.
Great.
Except my group were getting into a van and driving across Kenya before crossing into Tanzania.
So the solution was to pay a taxi driver $250 to collect my luggage from the airport and drive it across the country to me the next day.
When it finally arrived, my sleeping bag was missing.
Again: less than ideal.
But Intrepid rented me one.
Problem solved.
The problems I actually hate
Most of my later trips have been relatively uneventful.
There have been cancellations, delays and changes of plan, but nothing particularly dramatic.
The thing I struggle with far more is when my stomach starts playing up and I am halfway up a mountain, in a jungle with no electricity, on a boat, on a plane or anywhere else where access to a toilet is questionable.
Honestly, I would take a cancelled flight over that any day.
So what is the point of all this?
Travel will go wrong occasionally.
Cards get swallowed.
Luggage disappears.
Hotels are too expensive.
Flights get delayed.
You lose things.
Plans change.
Sometimes you end up barefoot in France.
But most of the time there is a workaround.
You just need to stay calm long enough to find it.
🧳 UNPACKED
Biggest lesson: Most travel problems are inconvenient rather than catastrophic.
Best travel skill: Problem-solving.
Worst thing to lose: Your purse. Closely followed by your luggage.
Most useful habit: Always have a backup way to access money.
Would I still travel without planning everything? Absolutely.
📦 PACK HERE
Want more of the chaotic travel side?
Sri Lanka: The Trip That Ruined Normal Holidays for Me
Because sometimes the best travel stories are the ones that were never supposed to happen.
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