Garry Knight/Flickr At Travelzoo, our Deal Experts have crisscrossed the globe many times over, collecting expert travel tips for our members. But no one is born a travel expert—we were all newbies boarding our first flight at some point. Sometimes, our knowledge was earned the hard way, through booking mistakes, cultural misunderstandings, and lost-in-translation moments. To show that rookie travel mistakes can happen to the best of us, we’ve asked expert travelers to share their most embarrassing misadventures. They prove that with the right attitude, travel mishaps can be good learning experiences (and good stories) that don’t have to dampen your fun. IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME. Antonio Castagna/Flickr On my first trip to Athens, Greece, I was lost on the streets close to my hotel. My friend and I had the hotel business card with the address, but it was all in Greek. We had only walked about 20-30 minutes from our hotel but could not figure out the street signs, of course written in Greek letters. We waved down six cab drivers and showed them the hotel card, but they all waved their hand no and kept going. We finally ran into a police officer who spoke English. He told us the taxi drivers didn’t pick us up since we were only one block from our hotel, so it wasn’t worth their time! We had literally been walking in circles! NADEEN WHITE, ATLANTA, WRITER AT WWW.THESOPHISTICATEDLIFE.COM ACCIDENTAL THREATS. Sam Howzit/Flickr When I first moved to Costa Rica, I practiced my Spanish with a local bartender. I was doing well until I said “Quiero pegarte,” which I thought meant “I want to pay you.” The bartender narrowed his eyes and glared at me. I had no idea what I said wrong. I later found out that I should have said “Quiero pagarte,” because “Quiero pegarte” means “I want to punch you”! JAMES KAISER, AUSTIN, AUTHOR OF COSTA RICA: THE COMPLETE GUIDE YOU PLAY WHAT?! Cellopics/Flickr My wife, Zeneba, and I are both classical musicians. On our first foray into Italy, our Italian language skills were barely better than those of Tarzan. We found that a common question asked of us was “Che lavoro fai?” — “What do you do for a living?” Following Zeneba’s tips, I answered in rudimentary Italian that I play the cello in an orchestra: “Io gioco cello in una orchestra sinfonica.” I don’t know how many times we said this to people—a lot. But finally, one innkeeper couple laughed and took us into their confidence: “Don’t say this like that anymore.” They then explained what I had really been saying. The word “giocare” means “to play,” but it’s in the sense of playing a game, not an instrument. A harmless mistake, and one most Italians understood in the context. However, that wasn’t the worst of it. When I said “cello” (short for “violoncello”) it sounded like _ucello_, little bird. So I was sort of saying, “I play with a little bird.” That’s _still_ not the embarrassing part, though. _Ucello_, it turns out, is also a common slang word for testicles. So, what it sounded like I was saying in response to “What work do you do?” was “Oh, I play with my…” Well, you get the idea. I do remember that some people seemed a little too impressed with what I told them I do for a living. MATT WALKER, NASHVILLE, WRITER AT WWW.LITTLEROADSEUROPE.CO SEE THE REST OF THE STORY AT BUSINESS INSIDER
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