Traveling is one of the most exciting things we can do in this world. Why wouldn’t we want to see as much as we possibly can of this fascinating planet? But if you’re a fan of true crime documentaries, films like Taken or shows like The Serpent, you might be a bit fearful of traveling abroad. Going to another country can be the most exhilarating experience of your life that you talk about for years to come (despite your friends begging you to stop mentioning how you studied abroad during college), but it can also turn into a harrowing experience you wish to never repeat.
Below, we’ve gathered a list of some of the creepiest and most frightening experiences traveling abroad that Reddit users have recently shared online. We don’t mean to scare you with these tales because, let’s be honest, we don’t actually need to leave our home countries to encounter dangerous individuals. And the vast majority of the time, traveling creates wonderful memories. But these stories might just serve as a healthy reminder to be smart and cautious when traveling, and always be aware of your surroundings. Be sure to upvote the stories you’d like all of your fellow pandas to read, and then if you’re interested in checking out a Bored Panda article detailing more lighthearted travel stories next, you can find that right here.
#1
A friend of mine went on a trip to Thaïland, staying at a relatively inexpensive hostel. In the middle of the night, my friend was violently woken up by hotel staff and moved to a different floor.
Turns out the hotel was gassing the rooms on that floor to deal with a bed bug issue. The hotel accidentally gave guests rooms on the floor they were gassing, and didn’t notice until they killed a couple.
Image credits: Bakuninophile
#2
I was traveling in Nicaragua several years ago when I got lost and ended up having to take a taxi at 9:30pm back to my hostel. When the taxi pulled up to the curb, the taxi driver locked the taxi doors and told me that I had misunderstood the fare. He claimed I owed him $100 USD which was several times more than we had agreed upon. I tried to pry the doors open from the inside but was completely trapped. Thankfully, he let me out of the taxi after taking all the money I had on me.
The hostel workers told me I was incredibly lucky. A few days earlier, a taxi driver had kidnapped another young female, assaulted her, then dumped her barely conscious body in a field outside town thinking that she was dead. A few local schoolchildren found her on their way to school in the morning.
Image credits: anon
#3
On a train in Athens traveling alone, a group of men tried to push me off the train with them at a stop. Three women started yelling at them and pulled me back. It happened to fast I didn’t know until the one that spoke English explained they were trying to take me. They made sure I made it back to the hostel and told me not to wear what I was wearing ( shorts and a tank) while alone.
Image credits: Rhothlord
#4
In India our bus rounded a corner in the mountains and another bus was on the other side of the curve. Both busses skid to a stop about 1 foot from one another. Both drivers started laughing and poking fun at each other. We saw a bus from the ’80s that fell down the mountain about 15 minutes later. Hella intense.
Image credits: Anl_Mouse
#5
I was traveling by van through the mountains in the Philippines with a friend that is a really big guy. We came up on a checkpoint with soldiers searching cars. The guys we’re all wearing mismatched clothes and did not have any insignias on their uniforms or trucks. They searched all of our bags and we’re asking questions of the driver in Tagalog, which we did not speak. We heard them say American and we we’re the only two Americans on the bus. They talked for a little while and finally waved us through. Later we told the story to another American and he said we had gone through a Guerrilla controlled area where Americans had been kidnapped for ransom lately. They all agreed they did not take us because of the size of my friend. I think we got really lucky that day.
Image credits: MitchCMan
#6
I had a pack of wild dogs chase me from my bus stop to my hotel at 3 am in Kosovo. I also had a old woman yell at me in Russian about not making my bed right on the train and then watched over my shoulder til it was to her satisfaction when I was on my way back to Bucharest from Moldova
Image credits: Phil567
#7
It was my first time visiting New York City. My aunt and uncle who both work in FiDi (Financial District) took the whole week off to show me and my family around Manhattan. It was a beautiful Tuesday morning and we just had our photos taken around Wall Street when the first plane crashed into the WTC
Image credits: budgetjohncho
#8
A good friend of mine in Zimbabwe was grabbed at gunpoint and forced into a van, thankfully they only took her to an ATM and made her drain her account then they left her somewhere outside town. Could’ve been so much worse
Image credits: plantman01
#9
My buddy and I were flying into Malaysia from Vietnam on the day that MH370 went missing. We were at the gate watching the whole thing unfold about it going missing. It was playing on virtually all the TV’s in the airport. We were flying Malaysia Airlines. The tickets were expensive (for a backpacker’s budget) and they weren’t offering any refunds. Told ourselves that maybe they’d be extra cautious now so we’re actually more safe. Definitely puckered up for 2 hours until we touched down.
Image credits: anon
#10
I was in a bar in Athens in 1985 when someone left an explosive device there. Of the 50 plus people injured, I was luckily not one of them. My ears rang for a couple of days and I spilled my beer but that was it.
Image credits: tnbadboy1965
#11
Was on a flight once going into Orlando that hit some unexpected turbulence. This was no ordinary turbulence. We went from 0 to 100 in an instant. People literally flew out of their seats, luggage fell from the overhead bins, people screamed like they were going to die. There were several sudden drops in elevation strong enough that people’s arms flew up in the air and my butt came out of the seat. I’ve flown quite a bit and sometimes it gets bumpy. This was the first time I seriously thought something bad was going to happen.
Image credits: athrix
#12
Friend of a friend went to Jamaica with her parents and sister when she was about 12. They came back to their hotel room one day to find a guy in there trying to rob them. He stabbed the girl’s dad (he lived) and escaped. They had to go through family therapy after that.
Image credits: anon
#13
We went on a family trip to Croatia and on our way to the beach we pulled over to the side of a road for a pee break. So we opened the car door and like always our dog jumps out first. He ran into the field right next to the Street. Then suddenly my mother starts screaming the name of our dog because 10 meters away from our car was a sign that said: Stay Away, an old minefield. Thankfully nothing happened
Image credits: mephistosoos
#14
Got pickpocketed by a group of 3 on a Paris metro. I’m paranoid of losing my wallet, so I’m always checking myself. When I realized it was missing, I made a bigger scene than the pickpockets were making (they shoved me into their friend and were trying to convince people I knocked him down). I stopped the train from leaving the station. One of the other passengers left to get got conductor and security. I guess that didn’t sit well with the pickpockets, so they gave me back my wallet and took off running.
Edit: This event still freaks my wife out.
Image credits: TheBurkalator
#15
1992 I was walking up the stairs to the ticket booths in the Warsaw, Poland central train station. All of a sudden this dude is falling down the stairs coming to rest a few stairs above where I was standing. Dude had a long screw driver sticking out of his abdomen.
Image credits: albs68w
#16
I was working at the Sochi Olympics and saw a pack of stray dogs chase and take down one of our teams translators before people scared them away. That was an eye opener.
Image credits: oldmanchewy
#17
The first time I ever visited the London Bridge was the day the terrorist attack happened where they drove a van through the crowd.
Image credits: din7
#18
A friend and I were waiting for a night train in Naples and after someone tried to steal our bags decided to go everywhere together. It was a good thing because a man who had been whistling at us for an hour tried to follow us into the bathroom.
Image credits: krthomso
#19
A cult behind several murders in China tried to recruit me for some reason.
Image credits: KommandCBZhi
#20
When I was a kid, my dad used to lead groups of college kids to Central and South America to build houses. One year he decided that we should ride the chicken but from Guatemala City to Mexico City. Long trip.
We got to the border and a soldier with a hell of a big machine gun got on the bus and looked around. Saw that we had about 15 college girls on the bus, and then went and talked to someone on the phone. About two minutes later, a bunch of guys with machine guns got on the bus and informed us that all the males had to get off the bus and line up in front of it.
I remember that we did it, but there was a hell of a lot of tension in the air as we did.
Soldiers crammed into the bus. We waited.
Finally, they got off the bus and we got back on and away we went. It was a whole lot of nothing, really, but I remember my dad, the leader of the group, looking very pale and sweating bullets.
Edit 1: this was in the late 80s. We’d heard lots of tales of bad stuff.
Edit 2: chicken BUS. We didn’t ride the chicken, we rode the chicken bus.
Edit 3: okay, they might not have been machine guns. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. They still were large caliber guns, I was 12 and I was unarmed. I’m sure if it had gone differently and I’d have been shot to death, it would have given me great comfort to know that my death was caused by a semi-automatic.
Image credits: edgarpickle
#21
I was working in a poor community in a small village in Romania (helping to build a small extension to a school), at around dusk I decided to go for a short walk to the local shop for some water when a car drove past me. They suddenly broke and reversed down the road and stopped beside me, telling me to get into their car as they want to show me their cool things (radios, cars, knives) they kept slowly curb-crawling me and demanding I got in the car until I got back to my group whereby they sped off. For the next couple of days the same car (I believe) kept driving past and stopping outside where we were staying (for 30 minute intervals several times a day) and I was staying a good hour away from the village.
Creepy as all hell and I still believe it could have gone badly.
Image credits: ManCrisp
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