Tell Us Your Travel Horror Stories!

Halloween is creeping up on us again, which means it’s time for our annual descent into horror! Your horror travel stories, that is. We’re inviting you to dust off your best—er, worst—tales of travel woe.

You know the ones: The time you found yourself camped out at the airport for two days instead of stretched out on a tropical beach. The dream cruise dashed by a one-two punch of bad weather and norovirus. The so-called luxury resort that, upon arrival, you discovered should call itself a last resort. We’ll publish a selection of these terrible travel tales in time for Halloween.

Me, I’m debating between the time I got thrown up on by a hung-over stranger (his sprint for the bathroom was fast, but not fast enough) while having breakfast with a friend at a cafe in Barcelona, and the trip to Wales when I checked into a hotel without realizing that it had a 10 p.m. curfew for guests but also hosted a heavy metal club that ran until 2 a.m.

This is your chance to vent, warn, or share those “I can laugh about it … now” stories with other SmarterTravel.com readers. Submit your horror stories of 250 words or less through this online submission form by October 17 (you’ll be briefly redirected to another site). We’ll be collecting stories and publishing the best in a feature publishing October 30. And remember, we’re looking for fact, not fiction, so please stick to your best true terrible travel tales.

Thanks! We can’t wait to start reading, and sharing, your stories.