The Year I Lost My Birthday
Travel Fails You’ll Never See on Instagram
Travel isn’t always coconut drinks and cute outfits. Sometimes it’s sprinting through terminals, losing your luggage, or realizing you just missed your own birthday.
The Beautiful Mess of Travel
Everyone talks about the magic of travel—the views, the food, the transformation. You book the trip, snap the photos, and collect moments like souvenirs. But there’s another side we rarely talk about, the chaotic, uncomfortable, occasionally awful stuff that doesn’t make it onto postcards.
The stress, the screwups, the sudden sickness. That, too, is travel. And sometimes, it changes you more than the skyline ever could.
I Lost My Birthday Somewhere Over the Pacific
One year, I miscalculated a long-haul flight from the U.S. to the Philippines. I left on the 16th. I landed on the 18th. Somehow, my birthday—the 17th—vanished into a time zone. Just gone. Like it never existed. Maybe it means I didn’t age that year. Maybe it just means time bends when you’re in between homes.
Missed Flights, Missed Meals, and Learning to Let Go
On a domestic trip to a beach island, I showed up two hours early. That wasn’t enough. The check-in gate had already closed. They wouldn’t let me board, and I had to buy another ticket for a later flight.
Instead of crying, I took myself to lunch. A good one. It’s funny what a decent meal and a little grace can fix.
Two Passports, One Problem
As a dual citizen, I have two legal names, one on each passport. During an international trip, my visa didn’t match the name on my flight ticket. I nearly missed my plane while embassy staff scrambled to issue a new visa.
I didn’t even panic. I just stood there, thinking, “This is what happens when you live between worlds.”
Six Months and a Bag Bribe
One of my bags took the scenic route around the world without me. It disappeared during a layover and bounced through airports in at least four countries. I sent a hundred emails, spent hours on hold, filed endless claims.
Six months later, I got it back. It was dusty and stuck in a warehouse in the Philippines. I had to slip someone a bribe to retrieve it. Strangely, everything was still inside. Maybe the bag wanted an adventure too.
Other People’s Nightmares
My friend had food poisoning so bad in Thailand that she passed out in a hostel bathroom. Another ended up in an emergency room in Italy, allergic to a language she couldn’t speak and the shellfish she didn’t know she ate.
Someone else spent a 14-hour layover in New Delhi with no access to clean water, a dead phone, and a random uncle who swore he was “just there to help.”
These aren’t the stories you post. They’re the ones you carry, quietly, because they remind you that you’re human.
It’s Okay If It Wasn’t Amazing
We often reduce travel to a sentence: “It was amazing.” Even when it wasn’t.
We don’t talk about the sunburns, the scams, the fatigue. We skip over the fights, the tears, the way your feet hurt so much you wanted to throw your shoes into a river.
Travel is rarely what we imagine. It’s often harder, stranger, more complicated—and more real. That doesn’t make it a failure. That makes it life.
You Don’t Have to Pretend
Not every journey is beautiful. Not every story has a neat, Instagrammable ending.
Sometimes you’re just sweaty, lost, late, or lonely. Sometimes you cry in airport bathrooms or fall asleep in the wrong terminal.
And that’s okay. You’re still growing. You’re still becoming. You’re still doing something brave.
So the next time someone asks how your trip was, you don’t have to lie. You can say, “It was a mess.” And maybe smile. Because it was your mess. And you’re still here.