Tourfolio

I wanted to try out a humorous new series in which Tourfolio authors or guest posters can share their best worst travel story. It seems that most travelers have a better chance at winning the state lottery than reaching their destination without a hiccup or two along the way. Maybe you left an item in your carry on that wasn’t meant for public viewing but searched through by a TSA agent? Or maybe did you have to deal with an absolutely drunk airline passenger in the seat next to you? I’ll start this travel horror story series off with a trip I made in April 2009 to Revelstoke, BC Canada.

Flickr.com (Photo taken by Jason Tester)

The sun was barely breaking the horizon as my coworker and I arrived at Bradley International Airport’s United Airlines terminal. We checked-in rather quickly considering the flight was at 6:22am and made it through the security checkpoint only after a few minutes. Within about five minutes of getting comfortable near the boarding gate we were told by an airline agent that our flight to Chicago O’Hare International Airport would be delayed. Wonderful. We only gave ourselves a little over an hour to make our connecting flight to Calgary International Airport. This wasn’t a good start and was just about to get worse. The agent got back on the microphone and let us know that our flight would be delayed for at least four hours because an airline part needed to be shipped from Boston Logan International Airport. I couldn’t stop wondering how one of the first flights out of Hartford, CT would require a part that needed to be shipped in. Wouldn’t they have hopefully known the day before? Ridiculous.

Instead of jumping in line with other passengers I thought it would be better to call United Airlines. They quickly informed me that the only other available flight to Calgary would be an afternoon flight on Delta Airlines into Dallas/Fort Worth, TX. This involved us leaving our current terminal which brought us to a possible frightening airport security horror story at the security gate. A guy in a hooded sweater walked up behind the on duty TSA agent and in a muffled voice says, “Give me all your money!. The slightly overweight guard jumped out of his seat and was ready to lay a beat down on the security threat. To our happiness he quickly realized the person was a co-worker but made me double-think why the TSA agents would make such jokes at security check points (in front of passengers nonetheless!).

We reached our newly assigned boarding gate in which we threw on our iPod earbuds to pass the time causing my coworker to laugh as the first song on his shuffled playlist was “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter.

I found it a bit entertaining that we were going on vacation that involved skiing and snow but ended up in Dallas, TX. The greatest part was that my ski boots were my carry on luggage which really wouldn’t help much on a warm Dallas afternoon. We walked around the airport for a bit and ended up at our boarding gate to Calgary Canada. A few local Canadians sitting nearby struck up a conversation with us after they realized we were going heli-skiing. They warned us right away about our five hour drive we had to do once we landed in Calgary so we could reach Revelstoke, BC Canada. Steep Cliffs. Caribou. Falling Rocks. Psycholumberjacks. We couldn’t wait!

We somehow managed to arrive in Calgary around 11:25am local time even though we were a bit sore and tired from traveling all day with only a five hour drive standing in our way. Hertz car rental agency didn’t have the car I reserved but let us upgrade to a pickup truck for the same price. I probably owe Hertz my life considering that that an economy car cannot handle logging roads like a pickup truck. We loaded up the pickup truck with our gear and headed over to the local gas station to pick up something legal to keep us awake. Red Bull! I still think it would have been easier to get all jacked up on the substance used by truck drivers and fighter pilots to stay awake.

We drove through places with interesting names like Dead Man’s Flats outside of Calgary. Navigated through Banff National Park, Yoho National Park and Glacier National Park at night which was a bit funny considering I thought I needed a pass to enter the park. I gave up after walking around a ranger station at the entrance Banff National Park for a few minutes. I learned that if you are just driving through you do not need a park pass. We also made it through Roger’s Pass and Kicking Horse Canyon with some major sleep deprivation to reach Revelstoke, BC Canada.

About 3000 miles on planes, a little over 250 miles by car, sitting in airports for almost 9 hours, traveling for 25 hours straight when it should have only taken about 10 hours. Priceless.

Do you have a best worst travel story that you want to share? If so please head to the Contact page and send us your story!