Travelling isn’t always about fun times and being footloose and fancy free. Things can go very wrong. From headline-hitting transport blunders and embarrassing tourist antics to downright illegal behaviour, we look at the epic failures we'll all want to avoid on our travels during 2019.

It always pays to double check your booking as one unfortunate couple found out mid-air. They were aghast to find themselves heading towards the Caribbean island of Grenada rather than the city of Granada in Spain. There are obviously worse places you could end up than the paradise isle, but the American dentist sued British Airways for £28,000 ($34k) based on the cost of the extra first class flights he had to pay for and the lost earnings. He lost the suit. 
 

It's not just travellers that can miss mistakes on important flight documents... Cathay Pacific hit the headlines in 2018 when an eagle-eyed snapper at Hong Kong airport shared images on social media of a plane on the tarmac with the words "CATHAY PACIIC". Cathay Pacific later shared the photos of the Boeing 777-367 on its own Twitter account saying "Oops this special livery won't last long! She's going back to the shop!"

UK based airline Thomas Cook was left blushing over their newly rebranded Cook's Club planes in October 2018. Amused passengers noted the "I heart Cook's Club" livery became "I heart Cock's Club" when the plane's middle door opened and partially covered the second 'o'. Needless to say, the images shared on social media went viral and caused great hilarity.

 

Booze and bad judgement led to UK backpacker Lee Furlong being arrested after he sprawled graffiti on an 800-year-old fortress in Thailand. He was caught on CCTV tagging Tha Phae gate in Chiang Mai with "Scouser Lee", using a can of black spray paint along with Canadian Brittney Schneider. Not only did he do damage to a historic building, but he also misspelled scouse  – a British slang term for somebody from Liverpool – as Scousse. The 23-year-old was later spared jail and instead fined 200,000 Thai baht (£4,700/$6,100).

Some people will do any for that killer Instagram shot. Even swim with sharks. According to the BBC, model Katarina Zarutskie was keen to get some snaps with nurse sharks that she saw while holidaying in the Exuma islands in the Bahamas. Lying back to pose, she was gripped by one shark and held underwater before she managed to tear her wrist away, sustaining a nasty bite mark.

 

From the graves of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde in Paris, Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery, and Elvis Presley in Graceland: paying homage at the tombs of the rich and famous is part of tourism. Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar's grave at Cemetario Jardins Montesacro in Medellín has become an unlikely tourist stop too, but one British tourist went a step too far. According to a video obtained on social media by The Sun, Steven Semmens is seen kneeling at the tomb and proceeding to snort cocaine. 

British holidaymaker Eddie Gossage was no doubt hoping for a few weeks of sun, sangria and hotel relaxation when he flew into Mallorca's Palma airport but instead he spent eight nights in jail. According to a report on the Daily Record, he was arrested after being mistaken for drugs kingpin Michael David Phillips, who was on the Interpol wanted list. Phillips had stolen Gossage's identity and used it as an alias.

One near lethal animal attack is unlucky, but three in as many years? The BBC reports that outdoors enthusiast Dylan McWilliams, from western Colorado, was bitten by a tiger shark in 2018 while body boarding off the island of Kauai on his backpacking travels across the US and Canada. The previous year he had been clamped in the jaws of a black bear while camping in Colorado and had a run in with a rattle snake while hiking in Utah.

Many of us have had that sinking feeling when we realised we're going to miss our plane. But most of us resist the urge to run after it. Not so Patrick Kehoe. He dashed out of the terminal and chased the taxiing Ryanair aircraft at Dublin Airport in 2018. He was tackled to the ground and arrested before being charged with criminal damage to a door lock.

The journey home from the airport got a whole lot longer for a group of 34 passengers in Sweden after they found themselves in Luleå in the far north rather than the city of Gothenburg, 600 miles away on the west coast. Now defunct airline Nextjet had to cancel its flight from Sundsvall to Gothenburg due to bad weather but according to The Local, didn't tell its passengers, who thought their flight had just been delayed. They were put up in a hotel and flown to the correct destination the following day.

Language barriers can be the cause of the biggest travel mishaps, as French-speaking Lucie Bahetoukilae discovered when she was flown to San Francisco rather than Paris. United Airlines made a last-minute gate change but failed to make the announcement in French or notify her by email. The airline's crew did not spot the mistake either, allowing her to board the flight from Newark to San Francisco rather than Charles de Gaulle. She flew nearly 3,000 miles in the wrong direction and endured an 11-hour layover in California before being re-routed to France.

Another passenger facing a far longer journey than expected this year was Christopher Paetkau who boarded the wrong plane at Yellowknife Airport. He was booked on a First Air flight from Calgary to Inuvik, Canada, with a stopover in Yellowknife. A computer glitch meant ground staff had to manually check passengers in at Yellowknife and he was sent out onto the tarmac where he boarded a plane heading east for Iqaluit, about 1,404 miles in the wrong direction.

Apparently staff at Bologna airport don't… Callie Zucker's Lufthansa Airlines flight from Florence to San Jose International Airport in California was cancelled so she and her fellow passengers were bussed to Bologna where they were booked on another flight. After a layover in Paris and around two hours into the flight she realised to her dismay that she was heading to San José International Airport in Costa Rica and not the Golden State. 

A panicked passenger on a United Airlines flight took things into his own hands when he thought he was on the wrong flight at Newark Liberty International Airport. According to NBC, Troy Fattun opened the emergency exit door and departed the aircraft using the slide. He was arrested at the scene and despite claiming he was on the wrong flight, the Port Authority revealed his ticket was in fact to Tampa after all.

Discover the strangest things to have ever happened on planes here. 

One passenger who didn't seem to understand the concept of final calls was a woman called Hana who missed her Citilink flight to Jakarta at Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport in November. According to a report by Channel News Asia, despite having being called four times, she failed to arrive at the gate on time. Ten minutes before the plane was scheduled to take off, the woman broke through security at the boarding gate and dashed onto the tarmac. She was restrained by officials as she raced to the plane and the incident shared on social media.

 

You're about to set sail on a dream cruise holiday around Spain when you realise your luggage is in Scotland. That's what happened to 30 passengers onboard a BA flight from Edinburgh Airport for Malaga August 2018. According to the Daily Record, the luggage was meant to arrive by 8pm that night but it was still missing in action when TUI's Marbella Spirit departed Malaga. The poor passengers were unable to attend formal dinners or use certain ­restaurants because their clothes were missing. 

 

All set for an all-you-can-eat-and-drink European cruise? Let's hope you don't suffer the same fate as those on board the Aida Prima, which was struck by a sickness bug after the ship departed Palma in Majorca this September. Around 300 passengers were afflicted. Extra doctors were shipped in but the voyage by the German cruise liner had to be cut short due to the mass illness.

The fear of mass illness might put you off cruising, but what about a fear of falling? In an astonishing incident earlier this year, a British woman survived 10 hours in the Adriatic Sea after falling from a cruise ship off the coast of Croatia. She was rescued by the Croatian Coastguard around a mile from where she fell and treated for exhaustion and hypothermia.

You can read more about strangest things that happen on cruises here. 

 

You might expect a polite smile when raising a complaint about your seat with the cabin crew, but one passenger on a flight in the US saw the cheeky side of his attendant when he moaned about not getting his requested window seat. The flight attendant drew a picture of a window on a piece of paper and stuck it on the wall next to him. The sketch, complete with fluffy clouds, went viral.

Getting married overseas is the dream for many couples with wedding pictures in beautifully exotic climes a key factor. One outdoor-loving Chicago couple set their sights on a magical marriage on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. They wanted remote and dramatic scenery but they hadn't quite bargained for the strong winds and barrage of mud they were hit with while posing that left the bride's dress filthy. "We anticipated cooler, misty weather similar to that of the Pacific Northwest in the states," bride Lisa told the Mail Online. 

Polite, professional and team players are qualities you expect from your airline crew. So, imagine how passengers onboard a Jet Airways flight from London to Mumbai in January 2018 felt when their pilots had a cockpit bust-up. According to The Times of India, the co-pilot allegedly slapped the female captain mid-flight who then fled the cockpit in tears. At one point they both left the cockpit unmanned. However, the Jet Airways plane landed safely and the airline later grounded the senior commanders for an investigation. 
 

Something else you really don't want your pilot to be doing is fainting... just before touching down. In August 2018, Ryanair confirmed reports that a co-pilot on a Boeing 737 aircraft had "briefly fainted" in the plane's cockpit right before landing, meaning the captain had to land the plane on his own. The plane had been diverted from its original route between London Stansted and Palmero, Italy due to thunderstorms and was landing 67 miles away in Trapani.

Giant inflatables are a de rigueur accessory at European beach resorts right now, but one tourist who won't be sunning herself on a lilo in the near future is Olga Kuldo. The Russian national was rescued at sea after spending 21 hours on a lollipop-shaped lilo after being swept away by a current off Rethymno in Crete, Greece. She was saved when a border patrol plane checking for migrants spotted her and treated for heart problems and exposure.

Some tourists seem compelled to strip off in famous places. The latest site to suffer flashing tourists was Machu Picchu where three tourists from Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands were ejected by police for posing for photographs in the ancient Incan city with their bottoms on display, according to the Daily Star. It followed reports of a woman pulling down her pants next to a sacred rock on Koh Samui in Thailand and being photographed in suggestive poses by the phallic-shaped rock.

After a holiday in Paris, you're pretty sure to be watching your pennies. Pity poor Crystal Padlock then who was walloped with a £393 ($500) fine after she flew back from the European city to Denver via Minneapolis. She was given an apple sealed in a wrapper by Delta Airlines, which she took with her for her second leg but forgot to declare it at border patrol and was charged a penalty by customs. Ouch.

Smuggling in an apple may seem like an innocuous offence but what about a bag full of snakes? According to The Local, a passenger flew from Düsseldorf to Moscow with 20 non-poisonous snakes in his hand luggage, an airport authority discovered. Although amazingly it's not actually illegal to bring snakes into Russia, the man lacked the right documentation so the reptiles were confiscated and put in quarantine.

An American Airlines passenger was booted off a flight for placing her cello on an adjacent seat, even though she had bought a ticket for the large string instrument and it had been cleared by security and an American Airlines representative to board the plane. The airline later told NBC 5 there was a "miscommunication" about whether the cello met the requirements to fit onboard the aircraft.

 

Spotted an absolute bargain? It may well be too good to be true as some people discovered in 2018 when British Airways voided tickets they had managed to buy at budget prices after a glitch in the airline's booking system. Some people had snapped up heavily reduced fares including return flights to Tel Aviv for £167 from third-party agents. One woman had already booked accommodation which couldn't be refunded.

Micro rooms might be catching on with millennials on city breaks, but be careful what you book. A recent undercover report by Which? has discovered what could be one of the tiniest hotel room in the world in London. It found one room at The Corbigoe Hotel in Westminster was half the size of an average parking space and smaller than a prison cell. It barely fits a single bed and you can wash your hands in the bathroom sink while sitting on the toilet. 

Alcohol is all too often the reason for embarrassing overseas antics. Passengers on a plane from Bali in August 2018 were not amused when the flight was diverted to Port Hedland in Western Australia after a drunk French tourist had to be tied to his chair following a huge row with his girlfriend. According to the Express, the couple were arrested in Australia. To add further pain to his no-doubt excruciating hangover, a video capturing the scene went viral.

Bachelor parties have blighted many European cities including the Spanish resort of Benidorm. The destination hit the headlines in October when one group of British groomsmen strapped a husband-to-be to a lamppost while naked and wrapped in clingfilm in the daytime, according to the Daily Record. Needless to say, many fellow holidaymakers and locals were not amused.

Flight cancellations can be incredibly frustrating but one man whose flight with Pakistan International Airlines was cancelled due to bad weather had an extreme reaction to the news. He was so furious, in fact, that he set fire to his own luggage in the terminal at Islamabad Airport, Fox News reported in November. 

Now read about the hottest destinations for 2019. 

We've all heard the one about the dog chewing homework, but what about chewing your passport? Sadly, it was no laughing matter for Daniel and Tia Farthing who had splashed out £4,000 on a honeymoon to Bali. After flying 16 hours to the tropical island, they were refused entry for carrying a passport that had been chewed by their dog. Despite being allowed to travel from the UK, Bali officials declared the document was not viable and put them on the first plane home. On the return leg Daniel was also detained in Singapore for seven hours, reports the Daily Mirror.

 

Collecting seashells may seem like a harmless holiday activity, but it pays to know the local laws. A Texas woman was sentenced to 15 days in jail for taking 40 queen conchs from a beach in the Florida Keys, to give as gifts according to The Miami Herald. A Florida wildlife officer arrested Diana Fiscal-Gonzalez outside a Key West home, where she had the state-protected animals in three plastic containers. The molluscs were later returned to the ocean.

Discover which US airline had the most customer complaints in 2018. 

Knowing cultural mores is a definitely a good thing when travelling but it's a must in some parts of the world like the Middle East. Briton John Murphy was arrested and imprisoned for six weeks in Abu Dhabi, accused of sexual assault after touching a bodyguard on the hip at a hotel after a minor row. He was subsequently fined and deported. This follows a similar incident in Dubai in 2017 when a man was arrested for public indecency after putting a hand on a man in a bar to avoid spilling a drink. 

Now read: Epic travel fails: brochure v reality.