Sometimes it’s nice to reminisce about the happy holidays we have had with loved ones in the past. And other times it’s funny to look back at the ones that didn’t go quite to plan! Here are two of the funniest travel stories, the first about a camping holiday that wasn’t the wonderful wilderness ideal it should have been. The second story is a crazy high-speed travel mis-adventure on planes, trains and automobiles that sounds like it’s right out of a film script!  1. A Very English Camping Trip to Scotland

Nicola’s Story

“It was 20 years ago when my eldest child was two and I was pregnant with my youngest. We were going to Scotland in late September for a family wedding and thought we would make a holiday of it. So, we packed our tent into the back of my husband’s work van and excitedly set out on a road trip.

When we got up to Scotland, it was FREEZING. We were the only tent on the campsite, perhaps because no one else was mad enough to be camping out when it was so cold. After the first night, the park owners must have felt sorry for us and offered one of their static caravans for free, but foolishly we were too proud to accept and kept warm each evening by drinking Bloody Marys in the clubhouse with plenty of tabasco. We also had dinner in there - and strangely, every single meal, regardless of what it was, came with a strawberry on the plate. Haggis and chips - with strawberry. Fish and chips – with strawberry. We wondered if it was some sort of a secret code for 'bloody stupid southerners’!

Anyway, as it was so cold my husband decided to light our little camping stove burner, one evening. Unfortunately, the burner immediately sprung a leak and set fire to the tent door! He dived outside with the burner, taking out the tent door and burning off his eyebrows and eyelashes in the process. Thankfully, our toddler was safely fast asleep at the back of the tent and oblivious throughout the drama.... That night, we slept shivering with a towel safety-pinned to where the tent door had been.

In the morning we decided enough was enough and packed up to drive home. Unfortunately, our van had also packed up (it was a very old ex BT van and was bright yellow so looked a lot like the dodgy Del Boy vehicle from Only Fool’s and Horses but with 4 wheels). We then had the indignity of being towed out of the campsite by the AA, with all the locals watching. I'm sure they must still talk about 'that stupid young couple from London’ even now.”

2. A High-Speed Travel Mis-Adventure IN THE STATES

LUCY’S STORY

It is 1986, I’m 20 and studying at a prestigious university in Virginia, USA. My best chum, Louise, from boarding school has come for a visit and has been staying with me in my digs for a few weeks over the summer.

The Car

On the morning of her departure, I borrowed a car to drive her to the train station. The car was a huge old jalopy, The Blue Whale, and it belonged to a bartender called Mark, who I worked with at the local bar. A musician in his prime, I rather fancied Mark, so borrowing his car was all at once a flirty step towards a date and a terribly exciting opportunity to be in charge of a vehicle.

On the morning of her adventure home, we overslept because we had been at the bar all night long spending the last of Louise’s dollars. We stumbled from our slumber, me still dressed in the t-shirt and pair of old boxers I had slept in, and I drove Louise sleepily, as it was still early, to the train station.

The Train

I pulled the car as close to the platform as I could, angled across the access road and left the engine idling as I ran, barefoot, to help Louise onto the train with her gigantic suitcase. There are steps up to an American train, a lot of them and Louise was really struggling, but between us, we managed to find a way to half shove, half lift the case on to the train just as it lurched to leave the station. I was just about to jump back off the train and on to the platform when a loud voice drawled “Ma’am… you cayant leave a movin’ ve-hicle!” and the back of my shirt was held firmly as I tried to make my dash to freedom.

Picture now, Louise and I watching from the window of the now-closed door as Mark’s car swiftly disappeared from sight. This was back in the dark ages. We didn't have mobile phones. Slightly shocked, we just looked at each other, laughing nervously.

“Tickets!” shouted the officious guard. Louise scrambled to find hers and I looked a bit peeved. “Where’s your ticket?” gruffed the guard. “I clearly don’t have one.” I said. “Well!” he said, hands on his hips, doing a very bad British accent, “You clearly need one.”

So Louise and I are now remonstrating with this jobsworth guard, Louise offering her credit card (“Do I look as if I take credit cards?”) and me begging him to let me off the train and it is perfectly clear that he is not going to budge. Then it dawns on me, that Mark’s car is still idling in the station and someone needs to go and park it, switch the engine off and take the keys out of the ignition! I ask the guard what we can do, and he just shrugs.

A lovely man overhearing this fracas sidles up to me and asks what is going on. I explain, tears welling in my eyes and he hands me a twenty. The guard raises his eyebrows, his hand shoots out. “It’s not for the train.” Clarifies the man, “She needs to get back to Charlottesville.” I hadn’t even considered that at this point. I am speeding away from the car and will, indeed, need to return. I take the man’s details and promise to repay him if he visits the bar and asks for me. He is vaguely amused by all of this and pats me, kindly.

The train is now approaching Culpepper. I am told by the guard that it doesn’t officially stop here but does a mail drop...

As we get close, I see no platform, just a dropdown to some large and rather sharp rocks along the edge of the tracks. I look at him as the train slows so the gigantic bag of mail can be scooped up by the hook at the platform and he gestures for me to leap. I’m too bewildered to shout back to him that it's not wise to jump from a moving vehicle, and…

I launch myself from the bottom step. Landing on the rocks, wincing, I watch as the train disappears from sight, Louise madly waving from the window. It is about now that I realise I’m not in Kansas anymore. In London, regular public transport is just a given and now I am standing alongside Route 15 wondering where the bus station is as I surely can’t hitchhike home in a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. Although it is only just dawn, the oppressive July heat and humidity begin to pick up and I begin my rather sweaty plod along the highway, stepping over carcasses of sad-looking dead things on this rubbish-strewn wasteland towards the centre of the rural village which is Culpepper and in the desperate hope of finding the Amtrak station. I also start to realise I am terribly hungover.

The Bus

I find the bus station and ask the kind lady behind the desk about the next bus to Charlottesville. She tells me to wait on the bench at the side of the building as the one bus that day leaves in about half an hour. The ONE bus that day.

I pay for my ticket and take the small amount of change to the cafe and buy myself a black coffee. I am sitting on the assigned bench drinking my coffee, nursing my self-inflicted headache and my poor battered feet and tutting at myself, worrying about Mark’s car, watching the world go by– including the arrival and swift departure of a large bus. A large BUS!

The lady from the office rushes out and shouts: “Hun! That’s your bus!” as it pulls out. She had mistakenly told me to sit on the wrong bench and so the driver had swept through and off again without me.

“Run!” she shouted and so I took off, coffee splashing, to chase the bus to the edge of the station forecourt. I watched in dismay as it eased gently into the traffic and slid further away from me into the heat haze coming off the highway. “I’m getting’ ma keys!” shouted my new friend, who obviously felt sorry for me and perhaps also a little guilty since it was partly her fault I missed it. We leapt into her large car and the chase began.

The bus was always just on the horizon of the next hill on the giant stretch of largely straight highway ahead of us. My driver was flooring her pedal to the metal, but to no avail and her car shook and groaned under the effort. Eventually, we saw a traffic light and we looked at each other hoping this might be it, but no… the bus pulled out again before we could reach it.

It was now becoming worryingly possible that we may not catch it. My friend was becoming a little twitchy. We had run out of things to say to each other and the adrenalin of our clever adventure was swiftly evaporating. She said a few things under her breath about the office being left unlocked, the cash register being vulnerable and her boss being furious. I was slightly closer to my destination, (maybe a few miles out of the 50 it would take to get home) but had no more money and my desire to hitchhike was not getting any stronger. Silence descended over the car, the sweat dripped down my back and began to pool on the pleather seats as we sat staring straight ahead at the bus on the horizon, effortlessly staying just too far from our grasp, in spite of us both willing it to slow down.

On the next downhill stint, possibly driven by her desperation to ditch her parasitic passenger, my chauffeur somehow, through sheer force of will, managed to gain on the bus. We pulled up next to it as it sped along and she waved through her open window for him to pull over.

The bus driver just looked vaguely surprised. We fell back again, and then on the next downhill, managed to gain once again and she gestured even more furiously. The driver now looked worried – perturbed even - and on the third foray, he finally pulled over.

We screeched to a halt behind him on the hard shoulder, gravel flying, and I leapt from the car and ran to the waiting bus – “Elvis bless you!” bellowed my driver to my rapidly departing back.

I stepped, sweaty, my bare feet filthy and slightly blood-splattered, victorious on to the bus. I thanked the stony-faced driver breathlessly and glanced down the central aisle hoping for a cheer, or at least a friendly wave. Instead, the gathered passengers were visibly seething. Clearly, they had no appreciation of the great chase that had ensued and were certainly not in the slightest bit pleased to see me. Deflated, I slunk into a seat and scrunched myself, heart still thumping, into the corner avoiding all eyes and just waiting for the next stop.

Meanwhile, the car, idling in Charlottesville had been moved from its road blocking, diagonal spot in the forecourt and the ignition keys taken into the office. It turned out the guard had radioed the station and advised them of my predicament, after all. I walked from the Amtrak station in Charlottesville to the train station passing a few chums on the way, all of whom waved - as if seeing me in that dishevelled state was perfectly normal.

After, I returned the car to Mark and we went on our date. Louise made her return to Blighty and the man who lent me the twenty never returned to claim it. I later visited Graceland with Mark and wrote a thank you card to the lady in the Amtrak office in Culpepper. It was a high-speed mis-adventure I will never forget! 

If you're looking for a new hobby, try Stargazing and discover the amazing celestial shows that are coming this year.