Jet lagged and weary, I arrived at my hotel in Gdansk, Poland, ready for a shower and a nap. I greeted the clerk and handed over my reservation number and follow-up email confirming my stay. She took my papers, looked at her room ledger, and frowned.
“No rooms,” she replied.
I peered over at her calendar, and saw my name written in for my travel dates, then crossed out with a pencil. Another name was written in over the smudge where my name had once been. The room had been double-booked, and I had arrived too late.
As an exhausted traveler, I wanted to sit down on the floor and cry. As a Grownup, I had to think fast. We grabbed our guidebooks and started making calls. We asked a local friend if she knew of any alternate arrangements. And within an hour, we had found a vacation rental apartment that was available in the same neighborhood, for less money. Crisis averted!
While the situation ultimately worked out, the whole experience was a jolting reminder that, despite best-laid plans, things will go wrong when traveling. Here’s how to plan for travel mishaps, and how to react when they (inevitably) happen.
Read the full story over on the Society of Grownups blog.
Sarah Pascarella | Writer 