When you travel, something is always bound to go wrong, right? 

Usually it’s something small and easily fixable, like forgetting a toothbrush. But sometimes things can go really wrong, like missing a flight. Lucky for us, in 4 months of travel across 7 countries, we didn’t really have any big mishaps. 

We lost a few items here and there and cut it very close catching a couple flights and busses, but all in all everything went super smooth. Being newbie travelers, we were quite proud of ourselves to be able to say we didn’t have any big setbacks on our first ever extended trip. 

Well, I guess the Universe heard our gloating and decided it was time to change that.

After backpacking Asia, we knew we were no where near ready to settle back down into our old routine, but we also didn’t want to keep bouncing around like we had been doing. So the solution? Move to Mexico! 

This was an easy choice for many reasons. As a US citizen, you are automatically granted a 180 day visa, it is simple to bring pets (this was a must because we needed to bring our dogs with us), it is a quick flight back home in the case of an emergency, it is affordable, it is beautiful, and we’ve been wanting to learn Spanish.

Now, to the fun part of the story. 

On our last day in Texas, we had a rental car because we chose to fly out of Dallas instead of Houston near our family. Well because our dog sheds and we weren’t suppose to have pets in the rental (oops!) we were in a bit of predicament because the car had to be cleaned before we returned it. But no worries, we had a plan! 

Our plan was to arrive to the airport 3 hours early to check in, then Ricky would quickly leave to clean and drop off the car and make it back to the airport since the car wash, car rental, and airport were all within a few miles of each other. 

This almost worked. 

When we got to the check-in line with our luggage and two dogs in tow, there were only about 6 people in line. 

Sweet, just like we planned!

We thought it would move quickly and we would have plenty of time. Well, we were very mistaken. It was 45 minutes before it was our turn and at this point I was an anxious mess. (I already get overly anxious at airports. I have this “irrational” fear that something is going to go wrong and we are going to miss our flight.) Since this was our first time flying with the dogs and specific paperwork is required, I was extra anxious. 

Fortunately, the airline employee who checked us in was super nice and made the whole process a breeze. She quickly gave Ricky his boarding pass so that he could leave to clean and return the car while she finished checking in the dogs and I. 

However, at this point I knew we didn’t have time to clean the car, but our only options were to clean it or pay the ridiculous $300+ pet fee. 

What did we decide to do? You guessed it - clean the car.

After dropping off Daisy (our dog) at the cargo area, I made my way through security with Duke (our other dog) and found our gate with about 45 minutes to spare. I hurriedly whipped out my laptop to try to get ahold of Ricky (he had my phone because his was broke, but thats a different story). 

I finally got a call from him with only 15 minutes until the gate closed and he was on his way to drop off the car (still blindly believing he could slide through the gate like Tom Cruise at the last second). 

This is when reality sunk in that I was going to have to fly to Mexico, at night, with our two dogs and all our luggage, by myself to a city we had never been to before.

I had no choice but to board the plane because my dog was already in cargo. As I made my way to my seat at the back of the plane, it took everything in me to not start sobbing. It wasn’t so much that I was scared, I think I was more or less feeling stressed, overwhelmed and slightly helpless. 

With just minutes to spare, I told the flight attendant what was going on and she graciously let me borrow her phone to call Ricky. Once on the phone, he told me he was going through security and for a quick moment I genuinely thought he would make it because our gate was the closest one to the security area. However, moments after we hung up the gate was closed and it was too late. My sudden moment of hope destroyed. 

Now, I really was crying. 

It wasn’t until about 45 minutes later that I was able to connect to the inflight wifi and talk to Ricky. Turns out he had made it to the gate right before 7pm which was when our flight was to depart. We were both pretty upset at the situation knowing he was so close and only missed it by a couple of minutes. Thankfully, he was able to be booked onto the next flight, however, that wasn’t until 7am the next morning. 

A few hours later, I arrived to Mexico for the first time and made my way through immigration and customs. To my delight, the whole process was pretty simple considering I was importing two dogs and a staff member helped me with all the luggage and our dogs. The only issue I had was Daisy had an accident in her kennel which was not going to be fun to clean up. 

I had prearranged a shuttle to take us to our place which made leaving the airport so easy. When I arrived to our Airbnb sometime after 11pm, I was greeted by the neighbor who gave me the keys to the house. I was so exhausted, but before I could go to sleep I had to give Daisy a bath. I also had to somehow connect to the internet to let Ricky know I made it. I had written the password down as I knew I wouldn’t have access to it once I arrived, but I somehow lost the paper. When I realized I couldn’t find the paper with the password I lost it all over again, but I remembered the password being an odd combination of letters and numbers and quickly searched for the modem. Bingo! The home owner never changed the wifi password and I was able to get connected. (This is very bad for security. Change your wifi password bro.)

After a very long day, I finally felt some relief and went to bed. 

I barely slept that night and knew I wouldn’t get any rest until Ricky was on the plane headed to Mexico. After an hour and a half weather delay, his flight finally took off and he arrived at our airbnb around 1pm. We were both so exhausted but so very relieved. The first thing we did was celebrate with tacos and then checked out our soon-to-be home.

It was an absolute crazy day that we never want to experience again, but we made it through and now have a good story to tell!

I hope you are never put into a travel mishap situation, but unfortunately things happen so here are some tips that could help.

1) Don’t Panic

Remaining calm in a bad situation is essential. When things begin escalating quickly, it is easy to get overwhelmed which can affect your decision making skills as well as drain you physically, emotionally, and mentally. Once I realized Ricky wasn’t going to make the flight, my mind immediately began racing with thoughts and questions: How am I going to carry both dogs and luggage? I’ve never even been to Mexico! What if I get lost? It took me a moment, but I had to catch myself and tell my brain to shut up. 

Breathe. 

Everything is going to be okay, I will figure it out as I go. And that is exactly what I did and it all worked out. So far our travel experience has taught us this important lesson.

2) Weigh Your Options

Missing a flight is not the only travel mishap that can happen. You could get a flat tire on a rental car or even get injured while abroad. In these situations (once you’ve calmed yourself down and can think straight), the best thing to do is look at your options. Is there someone you should call? Is there something in particular you should do? For us, the only option was for Ricky to board the next flight. So he took the necessary steps by talking to the airline and then he booked a hotel for the night. It wasn’t the end of the world. In some scenarios, if you have travel insurance, your mishap might even be covered!

3) Resolve and Move On

Depending on the trip type and what the mishap is, it could be easy to sulk and be sour, but don’t let it ruin your trip! Yes, it sucked and was not the way we wanted to start our stay in Mexico, but it was resolved so there is no reason to continue stressing or sulking about it. 

Written by Katelin Brooke