In the interest of being horrified further and therefore entertained, I decided to ask our BuzzFeed Community to tell us the wildest, weirdest, and/or worst things they've seen while traveling — and they did not disappoint. Here are some of their most engaging answers:
1. "The woman across the aisle got up to go to the bathroom, had a heart attack, and died. Her friend was my seat-mate and was inconsolable the whole flight, especially after they took her body to the back and announced she was fine."
"We had an unexpected landing in DC to escort all of them off the plane."
—Anonymous
2. "Flying from Miami to Chicago. We were on the runway, ready to take off. A woman in economy stood up to get something out of the overhead bin. Flight Attendants were yelling multiple times for her to take her seat! She didn't comply, and we took off."
"We all watched as this woman held onto the seats on each side of the aisle like Superman. Finally, she couldn't hold on anymore, and she fell to the aisle floor with a thud. What a doof…"
3. “After a pretty turbulent flight and a bouncy landing, they came over the speaker and congratulated the guy who landed the plane for completing his final landing to become a Captain.”
4. "The airline staff left a seat and seatbelt covered in vomit. It spanned three seats, and all three people, one of whom was my mother, had to move."
"My mom was the one who let the stewardess know, as she had accidentally touched the vomit whilst buckling her seatbelt. It was disgusting and unprofessional, and I was nauseated for the rest of the flight. Oh, and they only wiped the seat down with an already dirty rag despite vomit being a biohazard."
5. "Flying home via Denver on a business trip, my plane took off as normal (smallest Boeing jet size in service, pretty sure it was older than me, age 38). We got up to about 20,000 feet while climbing, and suddenly, a very loud WOOSHing noise came over the whole cabin. I got a sudden euphoric feeling, and the plane quickly descended."
"Our flight attendant hardly blinked an eye! I could not believe it. The captain came over the intercom saying there was an unexpected loss of cabin pressure and we would be making an emergency landing back in Denver.
We flew for at least 30 minutes at about 5,000 feet — the longest 30 minutes of my life. I still can’t understand why the oxygen masks didn’t deploy…I got light-headed when it initially happened.
While back at the airport waiting for news, I was seriously considering taking a train or car rental to get home. They found us another plane to use, and I noticed not everyone got back on that plane!
The flight attendant gave free drinks on the second flight."
6. A positive story: "I’ve been all over the world and have seen many things but something that will always stick in my mind was a late-night trip to the beach in Mexico. We went to see if we could see baby turtles hatching. Instead, we found a female laying her eggs way too close to the waves due to all the rubbish on the beach."
"We waited for her to finish laying, then we picked her up (not easy as she was big!) and moved her so she could finish her laying cycle. Then with the help of the conservationist we were with, we moved all the eggs further up the beach and buried them just as the turtle would have done. We finished in time to watch the female slowly return to the waves.
To know that what we did at two in the morning in the pitch dark (with only red lights to not disturb the turtles) might have helped dozens of baby turtles hatch more safely just feels incredible. I learned so much about turtles that night and now I give a lot of time toward their protection."
7. “Two hours into an eight hour flight to Ireland, the man sitting next to me suddenly started babbling about how hot it was on the plane (it was freezing) and took off his shirt. A flight attendant came up to him and asked him to put it back on and the man said, ‘I bought the f—ing ticket, didn’t I?’”
“The flight attendant was clearly rattled and she walked away. Nobody else came up to him and the shirt stayed off for the rest of the flight.”
—Anonymous
8. “The absolute wildest experience I’ve had on an airline is being seated next to a man who walked on the plane ‘over-served.’ He was so drunk and absolutely reeked of alcohol. He wouldn’t stop talking, so I made some small talk with him. I asked him what he did for a living, and he told me he was an airplane pilot for the airline we were on.”
9. "I flew a redeye from JFK to Heathrow in 2018... I was in a row with two strangers, one a young woman in the middle seat whose friends were sitting in the rows ahead of us. We took off, they began serving drinks, and I fell asleep. Somewhere over the Atlantic, I woke up because the guy sitting across the aisle from me was yelling."
''He was yelling, 'That is not your seat! Go back to your seat! That is not your seat!' I looked around and one of the party of young women was sat perfectly upon a polite young British gentleman as if he were a chair, and she was refusing to move.
A flight attendant finally arrived and convinced the (apparently very drunk) young woman to go back to her actual seat two rows ahead of me. There, she promptly began vomiting on the floor.
Somehow, the party of women requested and were granted a move to the back of the plane together. I caught the eye of the man in my row who was at the window and suggested we both move our bags from the floor to the now empty seat between us in case the vomit traveled. The polite young British man who was sat upon was offered free frequent flyer miles for his trouble."
—Anonymous
Universal Pictures
10. "I once was on a full plane stuck in a middle seat adjacent to a passenger picking his nose (throughout the flight) and wiping a surprising number of boogers on the upholstered armrest between us."
11. "On a flight from SFO to Orlando, we were on our final approach, and I noticed we began ascending again. You could see storms in the area, so I assumed they were navigating around weather or avoiding wind shear on the final approach. Then the captain came on and announced there was a mechanical problem with the aircraft…silence on the plane."
"He then explained that the flaps were not functioning, air traffic control cleared the airspace, and he was going to do a 'no flaps landing.' He explained it would be noticeably faster.
Then he assured us all would be fine because he practiced this all the time on the simulator, which we all instantly translated to, 'HE HAS NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE IN REAL LIFE WITH ACTUAL LIVES AT STAKE.' It was the most silent cabin I have ever witnessed on final approach."
—Anonymous
Zeljkosantrac / Getty Images
12. "The first time I flew on an airplane by myself was at 10 years old. I flew from LAX to JFK to spend a few weeks with a pen pal of mine. I boarded before others with the help of a flight attendant and wore a badge indicating I was traveling alone . People soon started boarding the plane. Everyone was oddly quiet and I couldn’t figure out why the plane was absent of noise."
"My row was close to the front and empty until the very end. When people started sitting down, I realized they were talking with their hands.
Somehow, I ended up on a flight that a very large group of the Deaf community had booked. I was the only passenger on the plane who was not Deaf. A flight attendant moved me to first class before takeoff so I could talk to her and her coworkers throughout the duration of the flight.
I had a great time being spoiled by the flight attendants on that quiet flight. I was somewhat disappointed that I was moved because I told my parents I could have learned sign language had I not been!"
—Anonymous
Atlantic-kid / Getty Images
13. "One time I sat down in my assigned seat in the middle row and the other two seats on each side of me were already taken. As soon as I sat down, the man at the window seat next to me shouted out, 'Last person that sits down in the row has to buy drinks for everyone else in the row during the flight!' He meant me."
"I quietly said, 'Sorry, but I don't drink alcohol.' This same man said, 'You are a grown-up. You need to act like one. You were the last one to sit down in our row, so you are buying!' Again, he was very loud and obviously already drunk. I said again, 'I don't drink. You are welcome to drink all you want, but I am not buying you anything.'
Then he got really mean, shouting at me about being cheap and a 'stupid broad.' I am a female in my 20s, and this was an older guy in his 50s or 60s. He was starting to scare me. This was a packed plane with nowhere for me to move to and it was already taxiing. No airline attendant was in sight, and the other man seated next to me on the aisle side started in on the discussion and told me, 'You need to buy him some drinks and just go along with it.'"
Thamkc / Getty Images
"Now the one thing I am not going to do is spend my hard-earned money on a drunk I have never seen in my life who's insulting me. I just sat back, closed my eyes, and ignored him. He continued to complain loudly to everyone on board... cussing and calling me names. He was twice my size."
"The more I completely ignored him, the louder and louder he got, and the airline attendant finally took notice. She told the man she would give him one free drink if he would calm down and stop shouting. He never did.
Two hours later, we started to land, and I thought, surely they've called ahead about this man to the terminal. Nope.
He was still shouting while we were all getting off the plane, and started to follow me. He was following me and yelling. Finally, I saw a security guy at the airport and went up to him to tell him what was going on.
I ran out of the airport while he was talking to the guy, who was still screaming about free drinks, and how I owed him some free drinks. I have no idea if he got arrested, but I was shocked that no one in authority acted like his behavior was that unusual. The next week was the 9/11 Twin Towers attack, and airports got better security after that."
—Anonymous
Jasmin Merdan / Getty Images
14. "I was traveling to a different country and the customs agent reviewing my passport kept trailing off and looking over at the neighboring desk, where a group of people were talking to the other customs agent. After about a minute, the group dispersed as several armed customs agents arrested one member of the group and escorted her away. Apparently, she had a forged passport."
—Anonymous
Ivan Halkin / Getty Images
15. "I was traveling through the Middle East, and I knew I would encounter my share of interesting cultural differences. I was prepared for everyone to take their shoes off during the flight to make themselves more comfortable. Not my cup of tea, but I can respect it. However, I was NOT prepared to be woken up by the delicate scratching of my elbow on my rest, only to look back and find long, yellowed toenails from a foot that was sharing my armrest."
—Anonymous
Lindseyleeanna / Getty Images/iStockphoto
16. Another positive story: "My roommate and I were taking a quick weekend trip by train across Italy, leaving from the Florence station. After we boarded, I realized we had forgotten to purchase tickets from the little kiosk between the trains. No sooner had I hopped off to grab the tickets, the doors closed behind me."
"The other passengers tried in vain to get the doors open, but to no avail. My purse, phone, bags, and non-Italian speaking roommate left the last train out of Florence for seven hours, as the workers went on strike immediately thereafter.
About an hour of panicking later, trying to work with local police in my broken Italian and not having anyone else's international burner cell phone numbers, my roommate showed back up at the train station with all of our bags in tow.
A woman who had been on the train with her took her to her stop, then drove her back to the station with our belongings, neither one speaking the other's language. We slept in the grass at the station for the next six hours, then got on the train and made our way."
—Anonymous
Balkanscat / Getty Images
17. "In late November 1982, my husband was driving through the Midwest on I-80. The highway was snowy and incredibly icy. Suddenly, strange apparitions began flying past his car on the highway. They were large boats."
"It was as if he found himself in the middle of a yachting race, but on land. Super weird to say the least! The transport vehicle carrying them had lost control and turned over, releasing its load of vessels onto the freeway. It was a once-in-a-lifetime sight to see."
—Anonymous
Aziz Shamuratov / Getty Images
18. "My company had spent a group work and play trip in Cabo San Lucas. As we were flying back home. I was seated next to a woman who was shaking the whole trip and leaning forward and backward constantly. I recognized it as a drug withdrawal."
"At a certain point, I said, 'Whatever you need to do to calm down, just do it.' She pulled out a compact and sniffed something, then relaxed the rest of the flight home. Wild."
—Anonymous
19. "While walking around Prague on New Year's Eve, I saw a guy sitting on the sidewalk, obviously very intoxicated, with a couple other intoxicated people fussing over him a bit (as best they could). It looked like he had a suction cup stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes."
"As I got closer, I could see that it was actually the base of a wine glass that I assume he had attempted to stomp on. The stem of the wine glass was stuck in the bottom of his shoe, and likely up into his foot. I didn't stick around long enough to find out."
20. And finally: "Flying back from Las Vegas with a coworker who'd had too much to drink at the airport bar, I watched as he interacted with his seatmate and bought her drinks. After plying her with alcohol, I overheard him ask her if she would like a foot massage. She agreed and took off her shoes while he began massaging her feet. At some point I heard him say, 'Can I suck on your toes?'"
"I couldn't believe what he was asking and looked back in dismay as she agreed.
Then I watched this man put her foot in his mouth , all during a daytime flight with people all around. They proceeded to get way too drunk during the rest of the flight, and as we were landing, she started crying that she actually had a boyfriend and that this was a mistake, then vomited in the aisleway during our landing."
If you read this far and have a totally wild travel story of your own to share, feel free to tell all about it in the comments — I always love reading more juicy stories. Or, if you prefer, you can check out this anonymous Google Form . Your story could be shared in an upcoming BuzzFeed article!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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