My Biggest Travel Regrets
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A while back on Instagram, I posted the story of my biggest travel regret.
In 2015, I studied abroad in Ireland and had an amazing time. It was my first time traveling abroad, and I watched tons of travel shows and vlogs about Ireland in preparation. I’m a sucker for cheesy touristy experiences, and I knew that I HAD to kiss the Blarney Stone to get the gift of gab.
Getting Excited
When I got my itinerary for my two week study abroad program, I was so excited to see that we would be visiting Blarney Castle. I’d finally be able to meet my goal of kissing the Blarney Stone!
The day finally came, and we had about an hour and a half scheduled for our visit at the castle. That seemed a little short to me, but the guy who made our itinerary was a total Ireland tourist attraction pro, so he knew what he was doing. An hour and a half would be plenty of time to kiss the stone and explore the grounds, right?
Ha. WRONG.
Crushed Dreams
We arrive and get in line to go to the top of the castle, where we will be able to kiss the famed stone. The line seems really long, but it should move pretty fast, right?
Wrong again.
We proceed to wait in line for about 30 minutes, all while barely moving. After waiting for a while, our guide decides that maybe we won’t have time to make it to the top. He encourages us to explore the gardens around the castle and grab some lunch at the cafe rather than keep waiting and possibly waste all of our time waiting in the line.
Saddened, we left our spots and went to explore the castle grounds.
A Silver Lining
Don’t get me wrong, the castle and the grounds were beautiful. There were tons of really cool gardens, including a Poison Garden, which is exactly what it sounds like. Some of the trees on the grounds also had on cute little tree-sweaters, which I’m still not entirely sure were for.
It was still disappointing though to miss out on the castle’s main attraction. On the bright side, though, at least this gives me a good reason to return!
Other Regrets
Missing out on the Blarney Stone is probably my biggest travel regret, but I have a few others too. My junior year of high school, I had the opportunity to travel with my Spanish class to Costa Rica. I had originally planned on going; however, I changed my mind when I saw that the dates conflicted with some other summer plans I had.
Guess what? My original plans fell through, and I missed out on zip-lining through the Costa Rican rainforest with my classmates.
Another regret? When I went to Ecuador last summer, I took a trip to the equator. They were giving out super cool souvenir passport stamps to mark your visit. Except I never carry my passport with me while I’m exploring, so mine was left back at my hostel.
Lesson learned: always check if somewhere you’re visiting has a souvenir passport stamp you can get before you leave your passport behind!
And an honorable mention: I had an amazing time ringing in 2017 in London. I spent 10 days in the city, however, I didn’t go to one single museum. What kind of traveler am I? London has some of the best museums in the world, and I really wanted to go to the British Museum, but for some reason we never made it there.
#NoRagrets
It definitely sucks missing out on cool experiences, but thinking about all the great experiences you did get to have can help cushion the blow. Best of all, it gives you the perfect excuse to travel again to make up for those lost experiences!
What’s your biggest travel regret?
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