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What was your MOST EXPENSIVE travel mistake?
I'm curious to know how fellow traveler have mistakenly wasted their money while planning or during the trip. I'll start with my latest stupid mistake so hopefully this will help someone avoid such a costly mistake in the future.
My wife and I recently traveled to Panama from The Netherlands. We are non-EU citizens and our passport is crap so we need a VISA to most countries in the world. However, our EU residence permit gives us VISA-free access to a few countries including Panama. This was one of the main reasons why we decided to visit Panama after checking out a few other destinations and spending MANY hours planning a detailed itinerary for a trip to South Africa which required a VISA that we could not get.
Once we settled on Panama and had an itinerary ready, I proceeded to book accommodations and flights. The flight I chose departs from Frankfurt and flies into David with layovers in Washington and Panama City. Additionally, I booked a Flix bus to Frankfurt, and a train for the return back home from Frankfurt airport.
The day before our flight around 9 PM, as we were packing and excited for the upcoming couple of weeks, I received an email to check-in for our flight. I decided to do that real quick so I can take a break from packing. While going through the check-in process, I found out that because we are transiting through the US, we should've obtained a TRANSIT US VISA!!! I jumped onto Google to check if that's something I can do real quick by submitting an online form and paying a fee. Nope! You have to apply for an appointment at the consulate and go through the whole VISA process just because you're gonna land in an airport and then run to your gate to catch your next flight :)
Luckily, I had a US VISA that was issued for me because of a work event a few months before. But, my wife does not have a US VISA so she could not take the flight. A couple of hours later, I had booked her a direct flight from Amsterdam into Panama City, an internal flight from PC to David, and a hotel near the airport in PC. Those costs in addition to train fees from/to Schipol Airport (AMS) came at around 2100 EUR (**$2270**).
But hey, we did end up having an amazing trip to Panama! Although we're "seasoned" travelers and have been to Central America before, this was the first time we transit through the US. So it was an expensive lesson, but we learned to be VERY thorough when checking entry requirements for our future trips!
#travel
source
I'm curious to know how fellow traveler have mistakenly wasted their money while planning or during the trip. I'll start with my latest stupid mistake so hopefully this will help someone avoid such a costly mistake in the future.
My wife and I recently traveled to Panama from The Netherlands. We are non-EU citizens and our passport is crap so we need a VISA to most countries in the world. However, our EU residence permit gives us VISA-free access to a few countries including Panama. This was one of the main reasons why we decided to visit Panama after checking out a few other destinations and spending MANY hours planning a detailed itinerary for a trip to South Africa which required a VISA that we could not get.
Once we settled on Panama and had an itinerary ready, I proceeded to book accommodations and flights. The flight I chose departs from Frankfurt and flies into David with layovers in Washington and Panama City. Additionally, I booked a Flix bus to Frankfurt, and a train for the return back home from Frankfurt airport.
The day before our flight around 9 PM, as we were packing and excited for the upcoming couple of weeks, I received an email to check-in for our flight. I decided to do that real quick so I can take a break from packing. While going through the check-in process, I found out that because we are transiting through the US, we should've obtained a TRANSIT US VISA!!! I jumped onto Google to check if that's something I can do real quick by submitting an online form and paying a fee. Nope! You have to apply for an appointment at the consulate and go through the whole VISA process just because you're gonna land in an airport and then run to your gate to catch your next flight :)
Luckily, I had a US VISA that was issued for me because of a work event a few months before. But, my wife does not have a US VISA so she could not take the flight. A couple of hours later, I had booked her a direct flight from Amsterdam into Panama City, an internal flight from PC to David, and a hotel near the airport in PC. Those costs in addition to train fees from/to Schipol Airport (AMS) came at around 2100 EUR (**$2270**).
But hey, we did end up having an amazing trip to Panama! Although we're "seasoned" travelers and have been to Central America before, this was the first time we transit through the US. So it was an expensive lesson, but we learned to be VERY thorough when checking entry requirements for our future trips!
#travel
source
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