12 Thanksgiving Travel Horror Stories

Abby G., now a businesswoman in Los Angeles, wouldn't let anything get in the way of her flight when she was younger. "I was in college and was so excited to go home, as it had been months. I was on my way to the airport, which was an hour away, and got a ride with a college friend. His car broke down on the freeway and I was going to miss my flight, so I flagged down an 18-wheeler who picked me up on the freeway and took me to the airport. I left the guy in the dust and made my flight with two minutes to spare."

One Redditor wasn't so lucky. "First Thanksgiving, freshly divorced. Blew out two tires on my way to my mom and dad's in the middle of [nowhere]. No cell phone signal, one spare, not a soul on the road for hours. Spent the night in my car. Ah … great memories!"

Amy S., a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, had to get towed on the final leg of her epic Thanksgiving road trip. "It was my first year teaching in Appleton, Wisconsin. My boyfriend was in Minneapolis. (We were doing long distance.) I left my classes early to pick him up. We were driving nonstop to get to my mom's in St. Joseph, Missouri. In Iowa, he asked if my air conditioning was on. I thought he was nuts—but then I realized my car was overheating. Luckily, there was a gas station ahead. The woman was hilarious and was trying to tell us about cheap hotels. We just wanted to sleep. We waited until she was done working, and she drove us to a seedy hotel. Then she picked us up at 7 a.m. and took us to the gas station, where there was an old man who looked under my hood and said 'gasket.' I broke down crying. My mom came and picked me up from an hour away and paid the old man to tow my car to Missouri."

David B., a filmmaker in Portland, Oregon, and his whole family, had to endure food poisoning on the three-and-a-half hour drive back from Thanksgiving. "I am still traumatized. My dear Aunt Edna, bold, smart, full of love, hosted the entire family Thanksgiving 1986 in New Jersey. She stuffed the turkey in the morning but didn't start cooking until it had been on a counter by the window for many hours. Everyone except my grandma and my cousin and Aunt Edna got sick—but not until 24 hours later, at which time my family (the four of us) had traveled to Bethesda, Maryland, to visit my dad's best friend. I remember we got in the car [to go back home]. Oh boy, I have never seen my dad drive so fast. Literally, we were all sick constantly throughout the drive, and it was real teamwork to get back to Brooklyn. I remember my dad driving like a bat out of hell with these little burping sounds interspersed with groans of excruciating abdominal pain. My dad was the hero, though, and he collapsed when we got home. I was, by that time, feeling pretty darn good. I-95 North never seemed so endless as it did that day."

Perhaps the only thing worse than being sick in a car with your whole family is being sick in a car by yourself, like this guy named Steven, who shared his story on Jalopnik. "If you've ever driven I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, you will agree with me that there is no shoulder to pull off on. It is a stacked highway. Luckily, my loving mother packed me a goodie bag for me to snack on while I made my trip separately from them. [I] quickly empty the bag and proceed to empty my stomach into said bag, also crapping my pants a little, while still maintaining about 45 mph over the next seven miles until I got to the one rest stop. Skedaddle (technical term for having just, or about to crap your pants. You know the awkward walk/run you do) inside with clean underwear to finish throwing up, empty my guts from the other end. Clean up and make it to Glenwood Springs, where I didn't leave the room or bathroom for two more days. I missed the awesome Thanksgiving dinner sitting on the toilet with a trash can in front of me. Worst holiday trip ever."

One Redditor was expecting turkey and stuffing, but got something quite different. "My first semester of university after moving to Canada from America. My uncle offered to have me over. I spend 12 hours traveling from my university to his place, only for him to put me to work on demolishing the bathroom tiles. Then, he puts me to work on figuring out how many tiles he needs. Then, it's time for me to go home on a 12-hour journey and have a midterm. I was told we'd be celebrating Thanksgiving. I didn't even get a nice dinner out of it."

Even if you avoid traffic, you can't always avoid other people—as Jacqueline Gifford, a one-time special projects editor at Travel + Leisure, and her new baby found out. "This past Thanksgiving, our Amtrak train was so packed that people were standing in the aisles, chockablock. We had picked traveling home on Saturday at 3 p.m., thinking we'd beat the Sunday crowds. Not so much. A family of five with three sick, coughing children plopped down in front of us and proceeded to cough for the entire course of the trip on our newborn son. Welcome to parenthood!"

Some modes of transport, such as the famously cheap Peter Pan bus line that runs up and down major northeast cities, should simply be avoided. Melanie Lieberman, a one-time assistant digital editor at Travel + Leisure, found out the hard way. "Two years after moving to Boston for college, I swore to my parents that I would never take a Peter Pan bus ever, ever, again. It was always an uncomfortable experience, and the hour-and-a-half drive seemed to turn into two or three hours on every occasion. Yet somehow, on my way home for Thanksgiving, I found myself on that sad bus outside of South Street Station—again. This time though, we didn't just bumble our way along. Our driver missed an exit and we ended up, for all intents and purposes, heading back toward Boston. When we finally found ourselves pointed in the right direction, thick clouds of smoke started to belch from our bus, and quicker than any other part of the trip, we ended up on the side of the road while the bus caught on fire. Much to my horror, they brought another Peter Pan bus, and asked us to board. Six hours later (which, I'd like to point out, could have easily been enjoyed on a first class flight to Europe), I arrived in Hartford, CT. And to be honest, no one wants to end up in Hartford after a trip like that. Needless to say, my parents finally conceded that I would not take a Peter Pan bus ever, ever again."

Rianne Cole, a writer for the Chicago Tribune section RedEye, said she's always had horrible luck traveling during the holidays—but her own bus story stood out as one of the worst. "One incident occurred over a Thanksgiving break during college. I was heading to Michigan via bus, and a man ended up sitting next to me. He seemed pleasant enough at first, but also chattier than I desired for my five-hour trip home. He talked about his semi-pro tennis career, what he did for work, how much money he makes a year, his life as a bachelor, etc. Not having the heart to tell him to please shut up and let me read, I continued to chat with him, and I'm pretty sure he thought we were 'hitting it off.' We definitely were NOT. Eventually, I told him I was tired and would like to sleep for the remainder of the trip. I propped my pillow up against the window and rested my head to the side, exposing my neck. Not two minutes into my slumber, I awoke to steamy warm breath on my uncovered skin and the man in a full pucker. Yes, the dude tried to kiss my neck WHILE I WAS ASLEEP! Needless to say, I immediately notified the bus driver and moved to a seat far, far away from my creep-tastic buddy."

Sometimes, you get stranded—which is what happened to CaptainJack. He wrote on Gizmodo, "Thanksgiving 2000. My seven-months-pregnant wife and I were returning from a road trip to visit family, and it was Sunday night. Driving through Cle-Elemat about 8:30 p.m. there was a bit of snow on the road, and maybe six inches accumulated on the sides of the road. Being from a snowy realm, I thought little of it and assumed the slowdown approaching Snoqualmie pass was due to Thanksgiving traffic more than the little bit of snow. By 10 p.m. we were just crawling along, and by 11 p.m. we had stopped completely. By midnight, it was clear we weren't moving anytime soon. There were hundreds of cars on the road and no traffic coming the other direction. My wife had to pee, as all pregnant women do, but she refused to traipse off into the forest in the snow to do so, and stubbornly held it. We were near the summit and so the snow was a couple feet deep on the sides of the road. We had blankets and 3/4 tank of gas. Others weren't so prepared, so we let some folks siphon some of our gas so their kids could have heat trapped in their cars overnight. Around 2 a.m., we finally got reception of an AM radio station that stated that the pass had been closed for the night due to snow and the state patrol being sick of having to rescue all the holiday drivers that were going off the road at slow speeds. Funny thing, nobody had bothered to inform the folks stranded up there of that."

Some stories are simply the same holiday travel nightmare, served up again every year—like day-before-Thanksgiving gridlock in Los Angeles. One L.A. driver wrote, "My worst day ever was on the 405 the night before Thanksgiving. Took me over three hours to get from Marina Del Rey to Sherman Oaks; 17 total miles."

And sometimes, the airport math simply doesn't add up. "Missed my flight cutoff by 5 minutes but I'd been in line for at least 20," tweeted @Tedwin92.