Travelers Share The Scariest Things That Have Happened To Them Overseas

Ashley Hunte
An airplane flying through the sky at sunset, as seen from the inside.
Unsplash | Leonardo Yip

Any time you get the chance to travel abroad, you're bound for some amazing experiences and memorable moments. But that doesn't necessarily mean that every part of your trip will go well.

Reddit user planesss asked users, "what are some of the creepiest/scariest experiences you've had abroad?" If anything, the majority of these stories will remind us to be cautious when in a foreign country.

"Met a guy in Munich on the street who had lived in the same house as I did... in Cincinnati... 40 years ago..."

A quaint house surrounded by mature trees that are beginning to change with the seasons.
Unsplash | Phil Hearing

Via BarryAllen85

What are the odds that you'd meet a previous owner of your own home... in a completely different country?

"1992 I was walking up the stairs to the ticket booths in the Warsaw, Poland central train station."

A simple Philips' head screwdriver on a wooden surface.
Unsplash | Steve Johnson

"All of a sudden this dude is falling down the stairs coming to rest a few stairs above where I was standing. Dude had a long screw driver sticking out of his abdomen." - Via albs68w

"I had a pack of wild dogs chase me from my bus stop to my hotel at 3 am in Kosovo."

A pack of dogs walking along a tropical beach.
Unsplash | Jannes Jacobs

"I also had a old woman yell at me in Russian about not making my bed right on the train and then watched over my shoulder til it was to her satisfaction when I was on my way back to Bucharest from Moldova." - Via Phil567

"I was traveling in Nicaragua several years ago when I got lost and ended up having to take a taxi at 9:30pm back to my hostel."

A lit yellow taxi sign on top of a car.
Unsplash | Waldemar Brandt

"When the taxi pulled up to the curb, the taxi driver locked the taxi doors and told me that I had misunderstood the fare. He claimed I owed him $100 USD which was several times more than we had agreed upon. I tried to pry the doors open from the inside but was completely trapped."

"Thankfully, he let me out of the taxi after taking all the money I had on me."

A yellow taxi parked on the side of the road in a city.
Unsplash | Maxime Doré

"The hostel workers told me I was incredibly lucky. A few days earlier, a taxi driver had kidnapped another young female, assaulted her, then dumped her barely conscious body in a field outside town thinking that she was dead. A few local schoolchildren found her on their way to school in the morning." - Via [deleted]

"Got pickpocketed by a group of 3 on a Paris metro."

A metro sign for the public transport in Paris.
Unsplash | Sebastien Gabriel

I'm paranoid of losing my wallet, so I'm always checking myself. When I realized it was missing, I made a bigger scene than the pickpockets were making (they shoved me into their friend and were trying to convince people I knocked him down)."

"I stopped the train from leaving the station."

A metro stop within the Parisian transit system.
Unsplash | Matthee

"One of the other passengers left to get got conductor and security. I guess that didn't sit well with the pickpockets, so they gave me back my wallet and took off running." - Via TheBurkalator

"A friend and I were waiting for a night train in Naples and after someone tried to steal our bags decided to go everywhere together."

A narrow alleyway in Naples, Italy.
Unsplash | Théo Roland

"It was a good thing because a man who had been whistling at us for an hour tried to follow us into the bathroom." - Via krthomso

"Was on a flight once going into Orlando that hit some unexpected turbulence. This was no ordinary turbulence."

An airplane in the midst of its descent from the sky.
Unsplash | John McArthur

"We went from 0 to 100 in an instant. People literally flew out of their seats, luggage fell from the overhead bins, people screamed like they were going to die."

"There were several sudden drops in elevation strong enough that people's arms flew up in the air and my butt came out of the seat."

An airplane flying through the sky at sunset.
Unsplash | Leio McLaren

"I've flown quite a bit and sometimes it gets bumpy. This was the first time I seriously thought something bad was going to happen." - Via athrix

"In India our bus rounded a corner in the mountains and another bus was on the other side of the curve."

The inside of a mostly empty bus.
Unsplash | Majestic Lukas

"Both busses skid to a stop about 1 foot from one another. Both drivers started laughing and poking fun at each other. We saw a bus from the '80s that fell down the mountain about 15 minutes later. Hella intense." - Via Anal_Mouse

"We went on a family trip to Croatia and on our way to the Beach we pulled over to the side of a road for a pee break."

Birds flying over the water at a beach.
Unsplash | frank mckenna

"So we opened the car door and like always our dog jumps out first. He ran into the field right next to the Street. Then suddenly my mother starts screaming the name of our dog, because 10meters away from our car was sign that said: Stay Away, old minefield. Thankfully nothing happened." - Via mephistosoos

"A cult behind several murders in China tried to recruit me for some reason."

The yellow stars atop a red backdrop that make up the Chinese flag.
Unsplash | Alejandro Luengo

Via KommandCBZhi

The user gave a bit more information, identifying the cult as "东方闪电/Eastern Lightning. It is a Chinese apocalypse cult that teaches Jesus was reincarnated in the form of a Chinese woman."

"I was traveling by van through the mountains in the Philippines with a friend that is a really big guy."

A bus driving through a city in the Philippines.
Unsplash | Gerald Escamos

"We came up on a checkpoint with soldiers searching cars. The guys we’re all wearing mismatched clothes and did not have any insignias on their uniforms or trucks."

"They searched all of our bags and we’re asking questions of the driver in Tagalog, which we did not speak."

A bus driving quickly through a more urban area.
Unsplash | Egor Litvinov

"We heard them say American and we we’re the only two Americans on the bus. They talked for a little while and finally waved us through."

"Later we told the story to another American and he said we had gone through a Guerrilla controlled area where Americans had been kidnapped for ransom lately."

A dimly lit street in the middle of night.
Unsplash | Christian Lue

"They all agreed they did not take us because of the size of my friend. I think we got really lucky that day." - Via MitchCMan

"My buddy and I were flying into Malaysia from Vietnam on the day that MH370 went missing."

The red stripes and blue rectangle with a star and moon that make the Malaysian flag.
Unsplash | mkjr_

"We were at the gate watching the whole thing unfold about it going missing. It was playing on virtually all the TV's in the airport."

"We were flying Malaysia Airlines."

An airplane preparing for takeoff at an airport.
Unsplash | Bao Menglong

"The tickets were expensive (for a backpacker's budget) and they weren't offering any refunds. Told ourselves that maybe they'd be extra cautious now so we're actually more safe. Definitely puckered up for 2 hours until we touched down." - Via [deleted]

"I got mugged in Bogota."

The skyline of Bogota, capital city of Colombia.
Unsplash | Social Income

"My friend and I took a wrong turn on our way to a museum, and were looking at a map to try to find the way (hot tip: try not to look as much like tourists as we did)."

"All of a sudden I was against a wall with a knife at my throat."

A person undoing the buckle on a brown leather wallet.
Unsplash | Emil Kalibradov

"They took everything we had on us, but for some reason one of them went through my wallet and gave me back all my credit cards, ID, and passport. Good guy mugger?" - suurkate

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