a collection of my wild and embarrassing travel stories

my #1 love in life is traveling. i would trade all the seitan, tarot decks, and ayurvedic herbs in the world if it meant i could travel forever.

since traveling is my main priority, i have so many amazing stories about incredible food, kind strangers, and beautiful places.

these are not those stories.

this is a collection of my most embarrassing travel stories. traveling is not all rainbows and butterflies. sometimes it’s running through airports and being drenched by rain.

when i read travel content, i always see the beautiful pictures and curated stories from influencers. there’s nothing wrong with those posts, but i wish that there was more realistic travel content on the interwebs. travel is messy and fun and some of the best memories are made when things don’t go well.

so here’s a collection of my wild and embarrassing travel stories!

why i can never go back to soul shine cafe

if you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you probably know about my voracious love for san diego. in fact, i wrote a whole ass vegan guide to my favorite city. i go there often, pandemic permitting.

in mission beach, there is a teeny tiny cafe called soul shine. it’s my hippie dream restaurant. the menu is full of amazing whole foods plant based creations. they have teas infused with crystals, raw desserts, and a+ vibes.

i was on a weekend trip to san diego to go to a conference, and after watching the sunset i decided to pop in and get dinner. everything was amazing, including their peanut noodles. everything was fine and dandy until i got up to pay.

i’ll try to explain the set up the best that i can. you know how some point of sale computers swivel so they turn towards you, and then can swivel back to face the cashier? they had one of those.

i give the cashier my card, she runs it, and turns the computer towards me to fill out my tip information. i try to turn it back to her, but i guess i was a little too forceful. i push the whole computer off the desk and on to the floor.

i have truly never apologized so hard in my life. luckily the computer was fine and the cashier was very nice about it, but i can never go back out of pure embarrassment.

being stubborn in the bali rain

if you weren’t aware, it rains a lot in bali. and very spontaneously.

it was a friday, and if you’ve spent any amount of time in ubud you know that friday is ecstatic dance at the yoga barn. it’s a whole event. it was my only friday in ubud and i was sooo hype to get my dance on. i got all dressed up in my dance garb, and decided to go to zest to drink cacao and nourish myself before dancing my ass off.

my accommodations were about 40 minutes away from zest by foot, so i set off. foolishly, i forgot my rain jacket.

i got to zest, had a very strong cup of cacao and a raw quesadilla. it was fab, 10/10 recommend. while i was there, it began to lightly sprinkle. i didn’t think much of it. but as i got up to leave it started down pouring.

i am not a wimp about the rain. i used to be a lifeguard in florida, and have literally stayed on stand during hurricanes. i am used to hard rain and getting wet. but this was craaaazy rain. 30 seconds outside and i was drenched.

for some reason, i decided against using a driver and just decided to walk back to yoga barn, which is 30 minutes. along the way i got a bit lost, which added another 30 minutes to my adventure.

by the time i got to the yoga barn, i was a wet sponge. my hair, clothes and shoes were dripping. i could wring water out of my skirt.

the best part was that nobody cared! everyone took one look and me and was like “yep, typical bali tourist” and went about their day. by the end of the night, i had danced so hard and long i had replaced the water with sweat.

even with the cray rain, it was still one of the best nights of my life.

waking up a whole ass airplane

i’m a really hard sleeper, to the point where i have to set 5 alarms to wake up in the morning. i’m sure you know where i’m going with this.

i was on a 17 hour flight to singapore, and i was very lucky to be upgraded to business class. being the person i am, i settle in for a long winters nap.

i’m waken up by a flight attendant shaking me awake.

“ma’am, your alarms are going off"“.

i had 100% forgotten to turn off my numerous alarms before getting on the plane. apparently they had been going off for about 5 minutes before i heard them. i had woken up most of first class.

it was truly one of the most embarrassing things that have ever happened to me.

i will do anything for vegan food

i don’t fly through lax very often, but when i do there is one place you will find me: real food daily. i mean c’mon, is there anything more l.a. then a vegan restaurant in their airport?

on one of my layovers, i only had about an hour to make my connection to san diego. the gate was at the other end of the airport, and this was when lax had an insane amount of construction. it was going to take me about 20 minutes to walk to real food daily, stand in line for my food, and twenty more minutes to get to my new gate. the responsible thing to do would be to go straight to the gate and board.

nope. i full out sprinted through the airport. i have never ran faster in my life, i felt like an olympian.

i got to real food daily, got my seitan wrap, and bolted to my new gate.

some of you may think that i was just speed walking. no. i was full out running in the airport. i wasn’t even late for my flight, i just really wanted vegan food.

i made it to my gate just as they started to board, got on, and very much enjoyed my wrap while watching a beautiful sunset flying into san diego.

thanks for experiencing my crazy stories! leave your embarrassing stories in the comments, or send me a message on instagram for a chance to be featured!

not quite ready to travel? check out 5 ways to beat the travel bug at home.

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