One-sentence travel stories
A large green latex item (a Halloween mask) leads to hijinks at a Fiji post office.
The following are excerpts from travel stories sent to Afar by our friends. We all love a nice, long travel story. But sometimes a sentence or two takes you just as far. See where these take you.
In the process of sealing the package, a postal worker asked what the large green latex item was.—Charles Edwards, from Fiji
As the sun broke the horizon, we floated back to the hotel and our untouched bed wondering how we were ever going to catch our plane.—Crista Cloutier, from France
“How much?” Rafael replied. “Fifty bucks and a box of bullets.”—Van Patterson, from Mexico
Eventually the postman rode by, and he took us to Yoko’s house.—Laura Kingston, from Japan
I ate like four hundred thousand of them (passion fruit, not turtles).—Adam Grossman, from the Galapagos Islands
This was apparently very out of the ordinary for Russians, who mostly travel in silence.—Ina Saltz, from Russia
Few historic buildings remain downtown, unless one considers the original downtown office for Nintendo as historic.—Jack MacDonough, from Japan
She and her assistant spent about 30 minutes washing Paris’s face with hot, wet, leaves that smelled like eucalyptus.—Amy Graff, from Bali
That was before we’d even seen the acrobatics team flipping and tumbling on the concrete floor.—Pallavi Dixit, from Tanzania
Not smelling the whiff of espresso anywhere, I kindly asked a gentleman in the office to point the way.—Andy Strait, from Jordan
The low grunting and the breaking of branches clear signs we were approaching our destination.—Melinda Ruane, from Uganda
What would be your one-sentence travel story? Share it in the comments below.
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“Her French was minimal, but even she could translate the tombstone: 3 people were assassinated in the village on Bastille Day, 1900.”
Evelyn Jackson
8 Aug 09 at 7:24 am
The “borrowed” raft lit up orange with the sunrise. –from Argentina
Samantha Walters
8 Aug 09 at 7:49 am
Who knew there were two bus drop offs in Fareham?
Beebee
10 Aug 09 at 9:00 am
Bun will instruct me in a fatherly tone, “Finish your blood,” and though the floating bits will make it damn near impossible to swallow, I will do as I’m told, with tears in my eyes. – from Cambodia
Brandon
11 Aug 09 at 6:43 am
Love these…
Here’s my try:
Going for a bike ride in Nicaragua, I saw that Dad was chopping up a fallen palm tree with a machete, and so was his 5-year-old son, with his own child-size version of the tool…
J Cyr
11 Aug 09 at 9:10 am
Garbed in a counterfeit persona designed to gain your confidence, they lay bait and entrap their prey: usually the unsuspecting traveler.
http://bobarno.com/thiefhunters/2009/07/fake-police/
thiefhunter
11 Aug 09 at 12:30 pm
As the sun went down I found myself alone in the rainforest, unsure of my direction, without headlamp or matches…regretting not having either nor having read the chapter in the guide book regarding indigenous animals.
carol
11 Aug 09 at 3:32 pm
We didn’t know the snake that they brought out of the burlap sack for us to eat was a very alive, very angry cobra, until it flared it’s crown, causing all of us Marines to jump over each other screaming like schoolgirls-Vietnam
Liz
11 Aug 09 at 6:10 pm
Barcelona is both never quite done and just one step on the right side of overdone.
Christine Negroni
13 Aug 09 at 8:11 am
As the 12-foot guita lurched toward me, sparks flying from the firecracker fuses sputtering in its mouth, I understood why the locals had so many holes burned in their clothing. –Berga, Spain
Cathy Moore
14 Aug 09 at 5:02 pm
After a near-dawn meditation on the ridge, I opened my eyes to see the sunflower fields below me.
Holly M
14 Aug 09 at 8:20 pm
As the Cuban mechanic deftly opened her suitcase in seconds, she cursed having forgotten the tiny lock key and she helplessly watched as underwear cascaded spontaneously onto the crowded lobby floor.
Mags
15 Aug 09 at 9:04 pm
Look not at the magnificence of the 63 building as the highest art gallery in the world but the way it catches the sunlight as you hop on the Han River sunset cruise.
felicia wong
16 Aug 09 at 6:46 pm
The bystander pops into a few-second jig: frenzy-whipped by accordion, banjo, and drum.
July 12 (Tig Cóilí pub, Galway)
Suzanne Lettrick
23 Aug 09 at 8:07 am
The RAV-4 driver, after carefully guiding us over the last snow-covered Sardegnan mountain road, stopped, motioned our car forward, gestured toward town and then headed back into the blizzard.
Nancy
24 Aug 09 at 1:20 pm
“Yeah but then we’d be broke.” – Appalachian Trail Hikers on having to pay a $5.00 camping fee in the Green Mountain National Forrest when they only had $3.00 to their name.
DURRDAY
5 Sep 09 at 1:09 am
Sunset on the bridge at Angkor, through a sea of people, in orange robes he approached me, smiling softly, ‘So where ya from?’ he whispered.
Lauren
12 Oct 09 at 6:05 pm
The Haitian vodou priest asked us to bring “a bottle of rhum and a whale”. He used the word “baleine” which is French for whale, but it actually means a candle in creole and that reassured us.
Carole
13 Oct 09 at 10:16 am
The radio producer — who seemed nonplussed that I was Malachy McCourt’s entourage — dug in her bag and extracted a full bottle of merlot, placing it with a thump on the table. Then she pulled out a bag of cigarettes, and lit one up, standing directly under Dublin Radio’s “no smoking” sign. “Want some?” she asked us all, nodding to the wine. Malachy refused; I said sure.
Kim W.
14 Oct 09 at 6:27 am
“This is an official government tour of the pyramids. Now, follow your camel through the hole in the chain-link fence.” -Cairo
Yael
26 Oct 09 at 1:39 pm
As the rental car sputtered to a stop leaving the Mendoza gas station, I began to suspect that Argentinians and Chileans use different words for “diesel.”
Stephen Buel
14 Nov 09 at 10:17 am
Cold and damp, I got into the car that had pulled up thinking this just may be the smartest thing I could do given the situation and if it wasn’t, oh well, at least it wasn’t windy inside the car.
Emily Mahon
30 Nov 09 at 6:38 pm
When the blimp flew into the exploding volcano I kicked myself for using the camera’s batteries up filming my Pacino impersonation in the hotel mirror. -Mexico
Paul
2 Dec 09 at 12:49 pm
“Don’t pee in that area, there are fewer elephants over here….” ~On a Canoe Safari in Zambia
Cat Chiappa
2 Dec 09 at 9:20 pm
Our waiter introduced himself as “George of the Jungle” and explained he was a shaman and a jungle tour-guide. -Mexico
Laura LaBrie
30 Jan 10 at 7:44 am
In London, on the thirtieth and last day of a month long trip to Europe, we found Gesus (pronounced “Jesus”) who would liberate me and my wife from shopping boredom (but alas, not from our sins of gluttony committed over the last month) and show us the way (past purses and shoes, the fabric department, and the Christmas shop, and finally to a good Chinese lunch at a reasonable price)
Dick Jordan
22 Feb 10 at 11:08 pm
[...] AFAR magazine recently came up with a clever way to get readers to interact with it: It invited them to write and submit a “One sentence travel story.” I’m going to “take” this page from AFAR, and give you the chance to get [...]
You Be The Travel Writer « Tales Told From The Road
1 Mar 10 at 1:27 pm
We had been on the road now for what seemed like the entire day, but the day wasn’t in a hurry; it kept on pounding with incessant heat and glare. The road seemed to be going on forever. This was, after all, the Amazon.
René Volpi
3 Mar 10 at 4:59 pm
Early morning in the Lukula Selous – From the latticed upper branches of one of the trees that were hidden among their foliage there sounded a bird’s cry, a strange voice permeated with wisdom, singing a Tanzanian song, full of weariness at some beautiful thing not yet lit by dawn’s golden light.
Jill Paris
5 Mar 10 at 9:50 am
After eating a single Mexican ice cube, I spent the following semana en los baños.
BIG RON SAMUELS
18 Mar 10 at 11:43 am
“One Love” by Bob Marley blared over the speakers at the road side bar while we sat with our new friends and brothers, toasting each other in St. Kitts with a cold Carib.
Lynne Brandon
20 Mar 10 at 9:50 am
Culturama shuts down the island of Nevis each summer and blends high humidity, island food and sweating, swaying bodies to reggae at a feverish pitch that pulsates through your body.
Lynne Brandon
20 Mar 10 at 9:52 am
I picked up a hitchhiker in New Zealand that made the drive from Dunedin to Christchurch much shorter.
Kevin Kimpel
27 Mar 10 at 8:11 am
Watching the old cowboy walk his old friend, an older cow, across the street on the one lane road to Pantano do Sul, Floripa, left a moment ingrained that will last a lifetime.
Michael Rosenfeld
28 Mar 10 at 8:49 pm
[...] magazine recently came up with a clever way to get readers to interact with it: It invited them to write and submit a “One sentence travel story.” I’m going to “take” this page from AFAR, and give you the chance to get [...]
You Be The Travel Writer
8 Jun 10 at 5:23 pm
I never really thought of myself as a prude, until my Father made me go on the Sex and the City Tour of New York City.
Lisa Peterson
11 Jun 10 at 7:50 pm