Many travel bloggers choose to only highlight the positive aspects of their adventures. I mean, we’re also to blame for that; we deliberately choose to feature our most fun and treasured moments on our blog and Instagram feed. But the reality is that travel gets messy, and with kids, even more so! While 2019 was filled with some of the greatest moments of our lives, there were also times where we were left wondering if we were doing the right thing. So, to complement our previous post on our favorite experiences of 2019, here are some moments we pretty much wish hadn’t happened!
5. Miscellaneous Lost, Stolen, and Broken Items
Honestly, 2019 was a bit of a rough year for us in terms of losing and breaking our stuff! Aside from breaking a bunch of tripods (seriously I don’t know how we go through so many), we broke our GoPro in Aruba, broke one of our laptops in Ireland, and lost one of our phones in Dubai.
This year we also had our first (and only) case of theft, during our monthlong stay in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We rented a house for a month, and decided to have a cleaner come help us out once a week since it was so affordable there and it would give us more time to get work done while the kids were at school. On one of those cleaning days, our landlord was coming to collect the rent payment that we had withdrawn in cash. I had left the payment in the bedroom dresser drawer, not thinking that someone would rummage through to find it. But when the landlord showed up, some of the money (about $300) was mysteriously missing. We, along with the cleaner, were the only ones that had been in the house that day, and the money was out of reach of the kids, so we could only deduce that the cleaner had taken some of the money, thinking we wouldn’t notice. We asked her about it and she denied it, so we will never know the absolute truth of the situation. While it was sad to have this happen, I can only assume that someone needed that money more than we did.
4. Drone Crash in Costa Rica
Prior to our time in Costa Rica, I had the honor of being able to fly our drone in some pretty spectacular places! From the snowy mountains of Colorado, to the beaches of Maui, the spectacular cityscapes in Singapore, and more, I felt like I had the hang of piloting and capturing video in a variety of environments. This brings us to the lush jungles of Costa Rica. We were working on a collaboration with The Springs Resort in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, and the scenery there was simply incredible. We were exploring some natural thermal pools at the base of the resort, with a view of the jungle and a meandering river. Jess and the kids hopped into the thermal pool, and I hid somewhere in the bushes to record a pull-away shot that would reveal the beautiful background around them. My plan was to back up along the river and pull up and out of the trees and into the open sky.
Well, I definitely failed at that! As I was pulling the drone back, I didn’t have line of sight with the drone so I couldn’t tell if I was moving back at the right angle. Jess noticed that if I kept moving it back, I’d be flying it into something, so I heard her say and then start to yell, “tree… tree… TREE! TREE!” By the time I understood what she was saying, it was too late! I backed the drone directly into a palm tree on the river bank at a high speed about 60 feet in the air. I moved from the bushes at that exact time and knew the drone just had no chance as soon as it hit the tree. It fell straight down into the rocks below, and knew it was done when I heard the harsh sound of hard plastic on rock. When I went to the crash site, the camera had fully detached from the drone, the battery had popped off somewhere, the drone body was cracked, and the propellers were broken.
It was a sad, sad day knowing that it was a completely avoidable accident, and since then I’ve still been reluctant to take risky shots with the replacement drone that we got. RIP Mavic, you served us well!
3. Three Weeks of Rain in Italy
Jess and I last visited Italy in 2011 over Christmas, and it was simply magical. We spent a few days in Venice, Florence, and Rome, and we loved the experience so much that we vowed to return one day. That’s why we decided to wrap up our adventures in Europe by spending 3 weeks in Italy. We spent the bulk of the time in Florence, a city that initially charmed us with its rich history in art and culture, and delicious Italian food! However, for the vast majority of our stay there, we had constant rain that made it difficult to enjoy the Fall weather. The rains also caused flooding across all of Italy, damaging a lot of natural landscapes and city infrastructures (like the city of Venice). That, combined with a low supply of indoors children’s activities in Florence, made us sad that we felt like we didn’t enjoy and take advantage of the city to its fullest.
2. Leaving our Camera in a Taxi in Berlin
We arrived to Berlin in early October, and were excited to collaborate with the Grand Hyatt Berlin. Aside from shooting the beautiful suite and hotel grounds, we sought to explore the city on a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour. We went all over the downtown area, checked out the Oktoberfest festivities at Alexanderplatz, and had a generally fun, rewarding, and educational day. We took a Taxi back to our hotel, and about 3 minutes later, we realized our camera was missing. We racked our brain to remember the last time we had it, and came to the conclusion that we left it in the taxi that brought us back to the hotel. We, being the crazy and chaotic travelers that we sometimes are, failed to get any identifying information for the taxi we were on. The next 12 hours felt like a blur, as we went through a rollercoaster of emotions as we called taxi companies, police stations, and lost and found sites across the city.
Normally, losing a piece of our equipment wouldn’t feel as catastrophic as this did. The reason we panicked so much is that all of the content that we had shot for the hotel was on our camera and we hadn’t moved it to our laptops yet. We were so scared that we’d have to cancel the collaboration and pay for the suite we were staying at, which would have cost us thousands of dollars. In addition, we’d have to purchase another camera, since we had another collaboration coming up in about a week. We went to bed feeling defeated, and the next day I woke up determined to go buy another camera and re-shoot all of the content we had taken the previous days. We called our hotel concierge before I left, and thankfully, the driver had RETURNED our camera overnight! We pretty much cried happy tears and were felt so blessed to have avoided a heartbreaking setback.
1. Getting Stuck Trying to Leave Peru
Our time in Peru was absolutely spectacular. Except when it was time to leave! After almost two weeks in the Sacred Valley of the Inca, we had an evening flight from Cusco to Lima, then an overnight flight from Lima to Dallas, and a morning flight from Dallas to Reno. We made it to the Cusco airport with plenty of time to spare, but got a bit nervous when our flight was delayed, making it a possibility that we would miss our connection in Lima.
As we made it to Lima, we hustled out of the plane, and were relieved to find that our Lima flight had also been delayed, which meant that we didn’t have to run to our gate. We boarded our flight at around 11pm, and the kids drifted off to sleep before we even left the gate. We even fell asleep for a bit, but when we woke up, we realized we still hadn’t left Lima! Our flight was apparently having engine issues, and since it was late at night, they had to call in the main technicians to come check it out. Basically, after three hours of unsuccessful troubleshooting, the flight crew notified us that the flight was now cancelled, and we would all have to be rebooked to different flights. It was 2AM, by the way. On Father’s Day, to top it off! The next 3 hours were pretty much chaos, as the airlines struggled to adequately accommodate every passenger. We had to gather our bags, pass through immigration again, then wait at the ticket counter to get rebooked. Thankfully, the airlines gave us a complimentary night at the Holiday Inn across from the airport, so when we finally arrived to our room at 5AM, we swiftly went straight to sleep to try again for the same flight the next day.
Normally, we’d be pretty flexible when we get cancelled flights, but this was a special occasion. We were traveling to Reno, Nevada for a road trip collaboration with Travel Nevada, so we were nervous about not making it there. Thankfully, we had planned to arrive one day earlier, so when we finally arrived, we didn’t end up getting that rest day, but hit the ground running with the road trip, which ended up being an incredible time that we were glad to have traveled out for.
The Silver Lining
Yes, we had some bad moments in 2019. We lost stuff, broke stuff, had cancelled flights, and got sick on the road. But those moments pale in comparison to our highlights of the year. Despite these setbacks, 2019 was our most rewarding year ever, and if we knew that these bad moments would happen every year that we decide to keep traveling, we would continue to do so. Every. Single. Time. Why? Because the culture, experiences, sights, sounds, and time spent together is worth it.
