Tell Us Your Travel Horror Stories!

There's a 95 percent chance Senior Editor Christine Sarkis is thinking about travel right now. Follow her on Instagram @postcartography and Twitter @ChristineSarkis.

Christine Sarkis is an SATW-award-winning journalist and executive editor at SmarterTravel. Her stories have also appeared on USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her advice has been featured in dozens of print and online publications including The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and People magazine. She has also shared travel tips on television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Marketplace, and Here & Now. Her work has been published in the anthologies Spain from a Backpack and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008. She is currently working on a travel memoir.

The Handy Item I Always Pack: The Trtl Pillow. It's easy to pack and comfortable, and makes it so I can actually sleep on flights.

Ultimate Bucket List Experience: Seeing the Aurora Borealis from the comfort of somewhere warm, like a glass igloo or hot spring.

Travel Motto: Curiosity is an amazing compass.

Aisle, Window, or Middle Seat: Aisle all the way.

Email Christine Sarkis at editor@smartertravel.com.

See recent posts by Christine Sarkis

Halloween is creeping up on us again, which means it’s time for our annual descent into horror! Your horror travel stories, that is. We’re inviting you to dust off your best—er, worst—tales of travel woe.

You know the ones: The time you found yourself camped out at the airport for two days instead of stretched out on a tropical beach. The dream cruise dashed by a one-two punch of bad weather and norovirus. The so-called luxury resort that, upon arrival, you discovered should call itself a last resort. We’ll publish a selection of these terrible travel tales in time for Halloween.

Me, I’m debating between the time I got thrown up on by a hung-over stranger (his sprint for the bathroom was fast, but not fast enough) while having breakfast with a friend at a cafe in Barcelona, and the trip to Wales when I checked into a hotel without realizing that it had a 10 p.m. curfew for guests but also hosted a heavy metal club that ran until 2 a.m.

This is your chance to vent, warn, or share those “I can laugh about it … now” stories with other SmarterTravel.com readers. Submit your horror stories of 250 words or less through this online submission form by October 17 (you’ll be briefly redirected to another site). We’ll be collecting stories and publishing the best in a feature publishing October 30. And remember, we’re looking for fact, not fiction, so please stick to your best true terrible travel tales.

Thanks! We can’t wait to start reading, and sharing, your stories.

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