No matter how prepared you are–or think you are–mishaps happen when you’re on the road. That’s just the nature of travel. But the rewards are many, as you know if you’re a traveler. Things like passports, phones, and credit cards can be replaced. But your travel experiences will never leave you.

NextTribe takes small groups of women ages 45+ on fun, transformative trips across the country and all over the globe. Learn more here.

Still, you can prevent some common issues. We’ve seen a lot on our many trips, and offer guidance on avoiding land mines. Here are some real life scenarios that happened to me and other NextTribers, how they were solved and how they can be prevented.

Phone Fiasco

February, 2025. I’m in line at the immigration desk at the Havana airport behind two people. On my way to Miami after a glorious week leading a NextTribe trip in Cuba. My flight  was on time, scheduled to depart in two hours. 

I had my passport, my visa, and my wallet. But my phone? My PHONE? When I couldn’t find it after digging through my bags, I panicked. Your phone is your life these days. I figured I could depend on the kindness of strangers (which usually works, no matter where you travel) but I quickly made the calculation: 45 minutes back to the hotel by cab, 10 minutes to search, 45 minutes back to the airport, and a short line at immigration: I might get lucky.

After a few missed turns in the terminal, I found my way downstairs to the cab line. I hired a daredevil who agreed to take the assignment even though it meant speeding through some of Havana’s nicest neighborhoods with plenty of police eager to catch a speeder.

What happens if you overstay your visa in Cuba? I didn’t want to find out.

The whole way the driver kept reassuring me in Spanish “You’re going to make it. Don’t worry.”  Thank goodness I’m fluent and had enough cash left to pay for the roundtrip ride, but there was only so much he could do as I kept second guessing myself. What happens if you overstay your visa in Cuba? I didn’t want to find out.

He dropped me in front of the hotel, I checked with the front desk and they directed me to my room, where the housekeeper was still cleaning. “I thought you might be coming back for this,” she said, opening a locked closet in the hallway where she had secured my phone, charger, power strip and adapter. 

Mission half-accomplished, we sped back down the Malecon, turned toward the airport, and this brave driver only slowed down whenever he saw a speed trap. 

The line for immigration was short, and I made it to the gate just as they started boarding the plane.

PRO TIP: Always do an “idiot check” of the room before you leave a hotel. Check closets, under the bed, the bathroom, and, ahem, the nightstand, where I’d left my phone plugged in like a dummy.

Passport Panic

October, 2023. This one is not about me, thank goodness. On the last morning of our Day of the Dead trip to San Miguel de Allende, one of our travelers couldn’t find her passport. She searched her bags, her room, everywhere:  it was just gone.

She said she thought it was safer to carry her passport with her than to use the safe. “Someone could have broken into the safe!” she said. But in a city crowded with revelers during the Dia de Los Muertos festival, it’s much smarter not to take your passport out with you.

She thought it was safer to carry her passport with her than to use the hotel safe.

There’s no US Consulate in San Miguel. But there is an embassy in Mexico City. When she called the embassy, she was told she’d have no choice but to travel to Mexico City and wait two days while her new passport was processed. She was traveling with her sister-in-law and after some tears and lots of stress, they decided to make an adventure out of it.

They took the bus from San Miguel to Mexico City, got to the embassy the first thing in the morning, and used the time that they waited for the new passport to explore the city–from Frida Kahlo’s house to the pyramids. They had fun, but agree that it was a very expensive lesson learned.

PRO TIP: Always keep your passport in the hotel safe. You won’t need it unless you’re changing money at a bank. For local currency you can use ATMs, so there’s really no need for it on the street. Also, make sure to keep a copy of your passport with you. A photo on your phone is very useful.

Safe Crack Up

We always recommend that people use the hotel safe for money, passports, and valuables. But here’s the rub: If you use the safe, don’t forget to empty the safe before leaving the hotel.

On a recent trip to India, we were in a bus halfway to Cochin, when one of our travelers grabbed her earlobes and shrieked. She had just remembered that she had put her very pricey diamond earrings in the safe, but hadn’t remembered to put them on that morning. After some fretting, we were able to get in touch with our last hotel and have a staff member open the safe. The earrings were found and then sent on to our next hotel. Crisis averted, but only after the heart rate of many on that bus soared.

PRO TIP: Yes, use the safe, but make it part of your “idiot check” to look in the safe. Even if you don’t remember putting anything in it. And stand up on tip toes to see the back of the safe and feel around to make sure nothing small–like a pair of earrings–is hiding in the corner.

Credit Card Swiping

Jeannie Ralston has had a company credit card cloned while on a trip. This can happen anywhere and it has happened to me several times in the US. But when you’re leading a trip and buying dinners for everyone it’s a hassle. Fortunately she was able to have a new card sent to the hotel quickly. 

Even if you have your card in your wallet, professionals know how to steal the number. Credit cards with chips are vulnerable to “electronic pickpockets.” They stand near you and use a card reader to get the info from your credit card chip.

PRO TIP: Carry your credit cards in an RFID wallet. Some of the cheap ones don’t protect you. Buy a brand with good reviews. Here are some RFID products we recommend.

Data Drama

Data theft can also be an issue and if you travel with a computer it’s advisable to use a VPN, a virtual private network. This is a technology that creates a secure and encrypted connection over a less secure network, such as the Internet. This allows users to access a private network remotely as if they were directly connected to it. VPNs are widely used to enhance privacy, security, and access to restricted content.

It’s easy to download VPN software and it doesn’t change your computer’s performance, just puts up a shield to protect your data. NORD VPN is one of the best-reviewed and will cost you about $5 a month for the digital protection.

I wasn’t using one last year in Vietnam and one night as I was searching the web the entire screen was taken over by Vietnamese hackers. Everything on the screen was in Vietnamese and they started running some code so I shut it down. 

Suddenly everything on my computer screen was in Vietnamese.

I have a MacBook Air, and Apple has strong anti-malware tools. I never noticed anything missing in any accounts, so it was probably a failed attempt. Still, I plan to use a VPN when I go back to Vietnam later this year.

PRO TIP: In addition to your personal belongings, credit cards, cash and passports, protect your data. Don’t plug directly into charging stations at airports, even in the US! Use your own adapter and use a VPN for your computer when traveling internationally if it’s advised. 

Luggage Gone Astray

Frustratingly, on many NextTrip trips, travelers experience the frustration of suitcases going to parts unknown. In fact, this happened on our last two trips. On our Gorilla Safari, Brussels Airlines lost the checked bag of one of our travelers to Africa. Fortunately she had her air tag inside and she could see it was still in Brussels when she arrived in Rwanda.

The bag finally arrived 3 days later, just before we were leaving for Uganda.

On our just-completed trip to Colombia, a traveler from New York City to Cartagena was notified upon landing that her bag hadn’t made it on the plane. Baggage handling has to be pretty bad to end up with lost luggage on a non-stop flight! But it happens.

The good thing about traveling with a group of women is that we all pitch in to help those who are missing their clothes and toiletries. You’re likely to find someone the same size or with the same preference for moisturizer. And that’s just what happened in these two situations. A quick trip to a department store can help too. In Cartagena, the group was surprised to learn that the local mall included an H&M store.

Baggage handling has to be pretty bad to end up with lost luggage on a non-stop flight! But it happens.

Founder Jeannie Ralston had her bag misrouted on a return flight from Peru. The gate clerk in Cusco transposed letters in the airport code, so the bag ended up in the Galapagos (GPS) instead of Greenville-Spartanburg, SC (GSP). “It’s not as dire when you’re on the way back home,” she says. “I would never check a bag on the outbound flight–because a missing bag is no way to start a trip. But sometimes, if I’ve bought a lot of goodies I have to expand my Away bag, which means it’s too big to carry on.” It took five days to get her bag back.

PRO TIP: Try not to check a bag–especially on the outbound flight. You can do it, even for a two-week trip! But if you just can’t avoid it, make sure to pack an Apple air tag (or Tile, if you have an android phone) inside so you can follow its journey back to you! And it goes without saying that you should keep all your medicines, jewelry and expensive electronics in your personal bag on the flight. Plus, it’s not a bad idea to keep a pair of underwear and maybe an extra shirt in your personal bag–just in case.

Keep Your Personal Bag Personal

We say above that you should make sure to put passport, valuables, medications in your personal bag that you take on the plane–to make sure you have those if your luggage ends up on another itinerary. But it’s imperative that you hold on to that bag.

Fortunately two other travelers took the same blood pressure medicine and had enough pills to cover her through the week.

On one of our Cuba trips, a driver at the airport was loading luggage into the back of the shuttle that was taking us to our hotel. A traveler left her personal bag on the curb for him to load, but it somehow was overlooked. Which meant that when we arrived at the hotel, her most valuable items were gone. The driver went back to the airport to check, but of course her bag was gone–as it sadly would have been in any big city.

As you can imagine, she was not happy. But insurance covered the loss of her jewelry and fortunately two other women on the trip took the same blood pressure medicine that she did. They had enough pills to cover her through the week.

PRO TIP: Do not let anyone handle your personal bag. Don’t let it go in the back of a cab or a shuttle. Always keep it with you, even if it means it has to sit on your lap during a taxi ride.

Travel widely, and wisely. 

See you down the road!