Holidays mildly spoiled by ...
Holiday greetings
Enjoy your break. But be careful, things can easily go very wrong
... The exchange rate
If there's one thing certain about exchange rates, says James Marrison, it's that you never win. Especially in Argentina.
... Explosive remarks
Samantha Marson caused outrage when she joked with security guards at a US airport that she had three bombs in her luggage.
... flying to the wrong airport
All Liane Katz wanted was a weekend of pampering in Adare. Instead she chose the wrong airport, a traffic jam and some tiny country roads.
... heat
"Hot?", said the man selling papyrus on the top of the hill outside Cairo's Citadel. He couldn't be asking a question, surely. He must have got the intonation wrong. After all, we were in such a sweaty, bedraggled state on reaching him.
...touts
Being swamped by hard-sell merchants from the moment you step off the plane in Bali is bad enough, says Thomas Irvin - but you really need to start worrying when you find yourself seeking them out
...minor injuries
I have an unusual sickness. My family call it holiday-itis.
... Dengue
Will Hodgkinson went on holiday to Brazil and ran into an epidemic of dengue fever. But he never expected to catch it
...jungle fever
Richard Cane finds the wildlife doesn't agree with him in an Amazonian rainforest
...Ghosts
Ros Taylor is scared silly in France
...Plastic bags
They creep into my dreams. I dream I have children and they can't swim in the sea because it is soup-thick with plastic bags.
...Previous drugs convictions
After six months in Australia, I was planning to meet a friend in Nepal on my way home. My flight had a stopover in Bangkok and I decided to spend a couple of days there before going on to Kathmandu.
...mosquitoes
For the first time, I am travelling to a region where mosquitoes are officially dangerous. And I have the pills to prove it.
...mosquitoes
We sit at the side of Lake Como, drinking beer and talking late into the night. Johan, my new Dutch friend, shares insights from the fount of centuries of acquired Continental wisdom. "It's like, you have to go for it. For sure."
