Today, instead of chilling at my apartment with a huge bowl of Vietnamese takeout, I’m supposed to be partying it up at the BBK Festival in Bilbao. I bought my tickets months ago when one of my friends invited me to tag along with her group of friends. But right at the last minute, she pulled out – leaving me with the decision of whether to go anyway, or whether to gracefully bow out.
I decided to bow out.
Even though I was really looking forward to going and I’m disappointed not to be seeing Franz Ferdinand and the Black Keys, my past travel experiences with flaky friends made me realize that it really was the best choice for me.
I’ve had quite a few of those experiences in my travel history. It’s totally different when your friends cancel on meeting up with you at the bar versus canceling on a commitment that involves hopping on a plane (and probably some kind of financial commitment).
Here are five times when my friends have fallen through on our travel plans at the last minute…and what I ended up doing about them. Oh, and guess what? These are all different friends!
New Year’s Eve, 2009: Dublin
I was just finishing up my study abroad program in Sevilla, and one of my best friends from high school had been living in the U.K. for a few months. We’d been to lots of European cities together over the semester and had had a fantastic time. So we decided to meet up for one last Euro-fling before heading back stateside – celebrating New Year’s Eve in Dublin.
A few days later, she called and said she wouldn’t be able to make it after all.
My friend must have had a sixth sense for canceling at the worst minute. I got her call literally five minutes after I’d booked the hostel and paid the deposit.
Did I stay or did I go?
I stayed. Luckily, I called the hostel right away to explain my situation and they were really nice about it. They let me cancel the reservation and get all my money back! That was a relief, because their policy didn’t guarantee that you would get your deposit back. They could easily have charged me, and then I would have been a bit more upset.
Lesson learned:
If one plan falls through, see who wants to make another one! I ended up going to visit a college friend who was finishing up her study abroad program in Bristol, in the U.K. (it’s where Skins is set and where there are lots of Banksy paintings). I rang in the new year at a wild house party packed to the brim, and got to see a totally new city.
Also, once you know that your plans are cancelled, call the hostel/airline/whatever right away to see what you can do about it.
It wasn’t Dublin, but it was still cool (although this picture IS Dublin).
New Year’s Eve, 2011: San Francisco
I was spending Christmas break at home after a truly devastating few months in Barcelona. Between a horrible breakup, an apartment that was literally roofless in places, major issues with my job, and health problems, the start to my dream of living in Barcelona had not gone well at all.
Instead of living it up on the Mediterranean like I’d dreamed of, I was spending all my free time in bed crying. I could have really used a friend at that time, but when your first impression of the new foreigner is that they’re constantly in tears, it’s no wonder I struggled to make friends.
With all that, I’d been really looking forward to seeing my friends at home, who I expected would be supportive and distract me. They were going to San Francisco for New Year’s, so I asked if I could join in too. Like good friends, they said yes.
Well, sort of. They said they would figure out somewhere for me to stay and promised it would all be fine. When I was in the airport hearing my boarding group number called, I got a phone call. “So, um, Jess…there’s not a place for you to sleep.”
I said I didn’t care, I’d sleep on the floor.
“Maybe it would be better if you just didn’t come”, was the answer I got.
Did I stay or did I go?
I stayed. I called my mum crying, asking if she would please turn the car around and pick me up right away. Then I asked her, “But how do I get OUT of the airport?? I haven’t gotten off a flight!” I was so upset I couldn’t think straight.
Lesson learned:
If you’re traveling with notoriously flaky friends, make sure you have a backup plan. My mum, who’d bought me the ticket as a Christmas gift, had very sensibly had the foresight that my friends might cancel things at the last minute (my group of friends from my hometown is great, but definitely flaky). So she’d booked a refundable Southwest ticket.
You can only exchange it for flight credit, but if you’re unsure at all about your plans coming through, it’s a way to get something back out of an unfortunate situation. They are a little more expensive, but they are worth it if you know that things might not go exactly as planned.
I spent New Year’s here instead – not too bad!
Salamanca, Segovia, and Àvila, 2012
Just a couple of months after my New Year’s Eve fiasco, a very cheap student trip to the Castilla y León area of Spain popped up on my radar. A bunch of my friends promised they would buy tickets too, so I picked mine up on the way to work one morning.
The trip sold out much faster than expected. Not one of my friends had bought a ticket in time. They promised to look for someone to sell them their ticket, but nobody wanted to give theirs up.
Did I stay or did I go?
This time, I went! I had always dreamed of seeing beautiful Salamanca since I saw a photograph of its Plaza Mayor, and I’d already spent the money on the trip. As my friends hadn’t told me until the night before, I couldn’t get a refund anyway. So I just went.
I was definitely nervous, because I didn’t know anyone.
But as it turns out, there were a bunch of people who were also there on their own. Plus, the trip organizers did a pretty good job of introducing themselves to everyone, especially people who were obviously on their own.
Lesson learned:
If it’s a trip you’ve been wanting to do for a long time, just go for it. On big group trips, there will probably be other people traveling on their own. Most people are perfectly friendly, and if you truly hate it, you can always get the next ticket back home. I was so busy I barely had time to feel lonely, and I’d made “weekend friends” pretty much instantly on the 12-hour bus ride there. Some of them have turned into good friends 2 years later.
I actually was so glad I went that I signed up for a similar student trip to Asturias in the fall of that year. Again, it wasn’t long before I’d found a group to hang out with for the weekend. Don’t pass up chances to see places you really want to see because you’re worried about being lonely for a few days.
Spring Break, 2013: Ibiza
I’d gone to Ibiza in 2012 with a bunch of my friends and had a fantastic time partying it up in paradise. So in 2013, we made plans to do a repeat trip. They kept putting off buying their tickets, but eventually all of them confirmed that they would be on their way to the bank that very morning to get things sorted out.
I called one of the guys – “OK, so my plan is to get my ticket on my way to work this morning. Are you absolutely, 100% sure that you guys are going? No hard feelings if you aren’t, but today’s the last day”.
“Yes,” he promised, “We’ll get ours today! Go ahead and get yours.”
That afternoon, it turned out they’d put it off just a little too long. Shortly after I got my ticket, the trip sold out. The guys tried bargaining and looking for extra tickets, but again, no luck.
Did I stay or did I go?
I went. I knew one or two people and figured it would be easy enough to join in with their friends. (Er…and I couldn’t get my money back). Unfortunately, their friends weren’t especially open or welcoming, and I hadn’t known quite as many people as I thought without the friends I’d originally planned to go with.
I had a perfectly nice time, and got to see sides of Ibiza that I hadn’t seen the previous year due to being permanently installed at the nearest pool, beach, or club. But it wasn’t nearly as much fun as going to party heaven with all your friends (especially one night when the whole group I was with disappeared at a club).
Way better with friends!
Lesson learned:
Sometimes, you’ve got to be clichéd and make lemonade out of lemons, right? If you’ve already made the commitment to a trip that doesn’t go as planned, figure out a way to make the most of it anyway.
Here’s the thing. City tours are usually just as enjoyable on your own; actually, I kind of like doing them on my own because then I can take as many pictures as I want without worrying about annoying my travel friend. But clubbing is something that is sort of weird to do by yourself.
I felt a little uncomfortable and out of place most of the week, and was definitely a tiny bit resentful of my friends for falling through.
That meant I had to re-think my idea of what a week in Ibiza entailed. Because the group I fell in with was not very open to “extra” people, I made my own plans. I went for a long walk along the coast, I saw the ancient fortress, I hung out at the pool with a book, and I tried to talk to everyone I could.
The clubbing and parties? Well, I went and tried to chat to everyone I met, but clubs are not the best place to have a good conversation. On top of that, I actually got very, very sick after the first party and could barely speak. While Ibiza is gorgeous, it’s not really surprising that the partying wasn’t as much fun as I’d hoped with all that combined.
In the end, I did have a good time, but I was quite glad when it was time to go back home.
BBK Festival, 2014: Bilbao
I’d been planning on going to BBK for months, and had it pencilled in in my calendar since the tickets first went on sale. The lineup was good, the festival was cheap, and I was looking forward to getting to go back to Bilbao. The idea was to go with one of my friends and her group of friends, who were plenty welcoming but I didn’t know well.
This Monday, a message arrived. She’d just started at her regular summer job, and her boss decided at the last minute that she couldn’t take any days off. I was supposed to be leaving in less than 48 hours. Obviously, this wasn’t at all her fault, but still.
When my friend cancelled, I instantly felt disappointed. All the excitement I’d had about the festival disappeared. I decided to mull it over for a few hours. That evening, no matter how often my yoga instructor encouraged us to let go and focus on our breathing, I couldn’t. I spent the entire class dwelling on the situation.
Did I stay or did I go?
I’ve already given this one away! Based on my experiences being the “extra” person in a group in Ibiza, I decided that I just wasn’t comfortable going to another party event as the outsider. I ended up selling my ticket in a sketchy deal on Facebook.
(Side note: one of the most frustrating parts on top of the disappointment was that BBK had been sold out. Then, pretty much just as my friend canceled, the festival released a bunch of extra surprise tickets. Had she cancelled just a day sooner, I could have made a nice profit (like, 500 euros profit). I made a little extra cash, but it was so, so irritating!)
This group is almost certainly different than the Ibiza group. They were very welcoming and glad to have me come along. But…I had only met them about two times. Although they were so nice to me and I’d love to get to know them better in the future, I felt really awkward about tagging along with them. First of all, they’d known each other for a long time, and it’s almost always hard to break into a group like that right away.
Secondly, they prefer to speak in Catalan in the group. I don’t have a problem with Catalan and I do understand most of it, but I’m afraid my speaking level is abysmal. I know I would have had a hard time being involved in conversations and goings-on during the festival. Language barriers are pretty exhausting to deal with (and yeah, I am regretting not doing more Catalan courses).
Thirdly, the festival is six hours away from Barcelona. Had it been here instead, I would have gone anyway, knowing that if things got too uncomfortable I could always have gone back to my apartment. And fourthly, I went to Coachella one year with a group of my good friends, plus a girl who tagged along. There was absolutely a weird dynamic with having just one person who wasn’t close with anyone else, and I didn’t want to be that person (and we all spoke the same native language).
Lesson learned:
Trust your intuition. I didn’t feel comfortable with the change, and if BBK was going to be anything like my Ibiza trip the year before, I knew it just wasn’t worth it.
Solo travel is a great thing for some people and in some situations, but this wasn’t the right time, place, or person. Going to see a beautiful old city like Salamanca by yourself is one thing. Going to a giant music festival is totally different. My favorite memories from going to Coachella with my friends in college aren’t seeing the bands play; they’re about spending a weekend getting crazy with my favorite people.
Also, even though solo travel gets a lot of positive press, I almost always prefer to travel with someone. It’s probably hideously uncool to admit that, I generally enjoy being around people and having someone to share my travel experiences with. That’s even more so for party situations.
Maybe if it were just a trip to Bilbao the city, I would have gone. Maybe if I hadn’t had a weird experience in Ibiza the year before I would have gone. Maybe if it had been a group of people who spoke in Spanish or English, I would have gone. Still, I think I made the right call in staying in Barcelona. And hey, it’s not all bad! I have a 4-day weekend because I already had the days off work, and I’ve decided to use it to relax and enjoy myself.
So today has been a chill day of lazing around with a delicious Vietnamese curry from my favorite takeout place and endless cups of tea to go with dramatic T.V. shows (please tell me someone else is addicted to Pretty Little Liars too!) and scandalous documentaries (in honor of the Tour de France, I am in the middle of The Armstrong Lie. What. A. Tool). I might go down to the beach, do a spot of rebajas shopping, go check out the cool new restaurant I found…or I might just enjoy not having anything at all to do.
(The restaurant, if you’re wondering, is A Tu Bola in the Raval neighborhood. It is SO good and so cool).
Bonus: I will be able to go to a bar to watch the World Cup finale on Sunday night without worrying about getting back from Bilbao in time!
Even though having your travel plans fall through at the last minute is frustrating and disappointing, I’ve learned how to deal with lots of different unexpected situations thanks to my flaky friends. You can’t always be prepared, but now I know better how to figure out the best course of action for me when travel plans don’t go as I’d hoped.
Have you ever had a friend cancel on a trip at the last minute? What did you do about it?
Besos!
-Jess
It’s disappointing when your friends bail at the last minute but it looks like you handle it well. Glad you went to Salamanca. I was there once and loved it. Once a friend and I planned to meet in Frankfurt and then go on to Spain. (we live in different cities in Canada). We had planned this for over a year. She didn’t show up! I didn’t know what to do but continued on the trip as planned. She showed up a day later in Madrid. Somehow she had got the dates mixed up on her ticket. We laugh about it now. (She is normally so reliable it was so out of character.) It was upsetting and I believe I cried at one point. We didn’t carry our cell phones then either.
Wow, I would have reacted the same way too! I’m glad it all worked out in the end.
I actually think now that everyone carries a cell phone, my friends cancel plans much later. We’re so used to doing everything instantly and we know that everyone will have their phone on them in case you feel like canceling last minute…
…Oy, I TOTALLY feel you with this–flakiness is one of my number #1 pet peeve!!…
Still, as someone who is, *hem*, not always the most socially graceful with strange groups of people, I totally understand why you decided not to go a lot of the time!!…
Haha I can actually be flaky, just not when I’ve made a financial commitment to being somewhere! 😀 Bailing on a night at the bar is NOT the same as bailing when you have tickets and a hostel booked.
I like meeting new people, but I didn’t want to be stuck in case they turned out to be standoffish like the Ibiza people, you know? It just didn’t seem worth it. Oh well, maybe I’ll hit BBK next year!
…Haha–right!!…And don’t worry, dear–there IS always next year, :-)!!…
As the loner I am, believe or not, I truly understand this, and that´s why I´m a loner 😀 I usually plan my trips on my own, tell all the people interested and let them know something like: “Ok, we should really start buying air tickets, booking hostels, etc … you have to tell before x…” Most of the time, they don´t confirm anything, so I get my tickets on my own. In many situations it has happened that they decide to go on last minute and have to settle for prices that were 2 or 3 times more than what I paid…
I usually don´t trust them that much (I have flaky friends as well 😀 ) so I try to picture the trip for myself and if later they come on board they are more than welcomed, but if not, I enjoy getting the trip at the “super deal” price…. 😀
It makes sense not to trust your friends when it comes to travel! I have had soo many flake out. But it really only gets in the way of travel when it’s a party event that you can’t really go to alone. Seeing beautiful places can be very nice to do alone! (Going to the club, not so much).
This is why I travel solo!! Planning to travel solo and planning to travel with friends but ending up traveling solo are two very different things though. I would be disappointed if I had travel plans with friends and they canceled on me!
Yeah, I’ve been disappointed a few times. I understand that stuff comes up (like my friend’s boss not letting her go to BBK – obviously that wasn’t her fault), but it’s super annoying when people don’t have a reason, they just don’t feel like taking the trip anymore.
I had the same ‘friend’ cancel trip after trip after trip and then when we had been planning a trip to Ireland together for the fall, she announced that she and her boyfriend had bought tickets for February (5 weeks away) and that I couldn’t come. She said it would be weird with me there. That finally clued me in that we weren’t really that good of friends and now we are no longer friends. Kinda sucks, but real friends don’t do that to each other if they can help it.
That does suck. What a bad friend! Sometimes it takes a big disappointment to realize how little people respect your friendship though.
Sorry your travel plans for this festival did not pan out. Seems like this group of people sounded nice enough, but I understand not wanting to be the extra person who doesn’t really know anyone tagging along. Some groups are open to meeting new people, others are more reticent. You know if you will fit in and have a good time so it’s fine to bow out of a trip if the one friend you are close to is no longer going. No one likes being the extra wheel.
I really believe travel is about 50% of the company you travel with. I have revisited places that I first visited with people who I did not really care about and it makes all the difference when you’re with good friends or family. This happened to me in Provence in 2012. Some of the places I had already been to when I had previously studied abroad in Toulouse in 2009. I’m not going to sugarcoat it–the students I studied abroad with were a whiny bunch and were super annoying, I could not relate to them at all. Therefore my trip to Provence was nice but not so great because I was surrounded by people I did not care for. Fast forward three years when I returned with family and friends–I had a lot of fun and was able to make better memories.
I agree, your company is so important when you travel! I can totally see that happening on your Provence study abroad trip; it happened to me on a similar trip to the Costa Brava in Spain too. Not picking your travel-mates can turn out really badly.
The festival…well, maybe it’ll happen next year. Oh well!
I love the fact that you’ve learnt so much from your travel plans cancellations. I totally agree with what you said that If one plan falls through, see who wants to make another one! I
Yup, there’s usually someone around on big holidays like New Year’s who will take pity on you! And if not, then it’s not the worst thing to go somewhere alone.
As a natural organiser I get really annoyed at flaky people! I agree about solo travel to party destinations would probably not be the best idea. Saw the Armstrong Lie a couple of days ago – what a sociopath – very scary how easy it was for him to lie and how convincing he was.
Right?? He is truly awful, and he keeps trying to make himself sound special even though he was caught. The last thing he says is something like “You can remember me for doping like everyone else…or remember the guy who won the Tour de France 7 times.” It was a very good documentary, although it made me quite angry!
Friends bailing can be the best/worst in my experience. I had 1 week in Europe planned with my friend from Ireland that I hadn’t seen in over a year since I came back to Canada. We booked everything in advance and planned it all….and then she bailed. As I booked my ticket to Europe way in advance I still followed though and had an incredible time despite being super bummed when she cancelled on me. You just need to make the most of it!
True! A cancellation can definitely have a very nice silver lining, like in your case. I still can’t believe people would plan out a whole trip and book everything and then just bail on it. Did she ever explain why?
love the photography, I had to compromise with my best friend im paying for our hotel and spending 2 days with her but intead of her coming with me on my vacation im doing springfield il with her which is not far from her home and on the weekend. then im going to Colorado on my own
Thanks, Lorrie! Solo travel can be great, I hope you have a wonderful time on your adventures in Illinois and Colorado.
Great post! It was a really good read 🙂 minus all your dissapointments! I cringed a few times. I’m glad you were able to see the bright side and make it into a post for others to get something from! Knowing yourself and what situations you should or shouldn’t put yourself is key when it comes to travel!
Thank you very much, Francesa! 🙂 Knowing yourself and what you like when it comes to travel is definitely the most important thing when you have to make one of these decisions…although I hope not many people do.
Another great post Jess! In my experience the people you are with can make or break a trip and I’ve had a few bad experiences with people I didn’t really know who were, frankly, a bit of a nightmare and made us all pretty bad tempered and the trip less enjoyable! Very disappointing when you’ve looked forward to and planned something. As for unreliable friends…even more disappointing. Lots of good advice from you for us all to learn from. Thanks.
Definitely true! Traveling with someone who makes the trip less enjoyable is so unpleasant, although lucky that hasn’t happened to me very often. I actually think that might even be worse than an unreliable friend, in a way!
When life gives you lemons, take a tequila shot!
Do you know what’s worse than a flaky friend? A flaky girlfriend. Thank God I’m single again 😀
Cheers to both of those things! 😀 Flaky partners suck. I’ve had a flaky boyfriend and it just goes to show how little they respect you, your time, and your feelings.
Non-travelers partners deserve their own level of hell altogether hahaha
Whoa, that’s a lot of flaky friends! I can’t believe you were at the airport about to board a flight and they told you not to come! I’m not sure I’d make plans with those “friends” again.
The only time I’ve had travel plans cancelled on me was last summer. My friend from New York was planning to visit me in Shanghai and then we were going to Hong Kong together. She got her NYC>SHA flight and I arranged everything for the HK portion. But a week before she was supposed to come, she found out that her Chinese visa application had been denied. She was so angry she changed her flight and went to a resort in Costa Rica – and I went to HK by myself! I ended up having a fabulous time and got to do and see way more solo than I would have with her. She’s currently planning her trip to Latvia for this fall so fingers crossed!
Yup, I swear they are all different people! Crazy, right? The San Francisco one was definitely the worst; things haven’t been quite the same between me and the girl who told me that ever since then.
That’s so frustrating that a visa issue would get in the middle of a trip. I’m glad you had an awesome time anyway!
great post Yessica!
i don’t understand why you call people “friends” when they are not really friends, at least i have learnt to distinguish between friends and “known people” who you may go out with sometime, but they are far from being friends, at least under my humble opinion.
i know plenty of people, but friends as i think of friendship i can count my friends with the fingers of only one hand as we say in Spain 🙂
I think there are lots of different kinds of friends, at least for me. And in these cases, I think I would probably only count one of them as actually mean and malicious; the others were just forgetful or life stuff came up. I get it, things happen, and life gets busy.
But I definitely understand why you have a higher standard for somebody to be called a friend. 🙂
i think that there is only one kind of friendship because friend is just one word, just like furniture is furniture whether it is a sitting-room table or a bedside table, jaja 🙂
also it is a bad times when you lose a close relative when you realise “quien es quien” (who is who), i mean, a real friend will stay with you or will visit you if you lose your father for example, whereas other “friends” you may go out with or meet up from time to time don’t even come round to say “lo siento” (i am sorry) for such a loss, etc
perhaps i am a loner or not as “sociable” as others, don’t know…
I remember my trip to Bucharest. I was planning to go with my fiancee. We bought the tickets on a first minute sale in June. We were about to fly in December And then, guess what, we broke up two days before the planned departure. I decided to go and I had a great time.. I think it’d be way harder to handle the break up if I stayed home….
Whaaat? Oh my gosh, that must have been awful! But I agree that it probably would have been worse to stay home and stew over things. And it’s almost definitely better than breaking up mid-trip. I’m glad you ended up having a good time.
I can’t believe your friends are so flaky! That would totally piss me off and cause me to reconsider if they are real friends at all! Unfortunately for me, I also like to travel with people so I probably would not go too. I think it’s brave of you to still have gone those couple of time. But it’s true that you have to trust your gut instinct!
Oh, I’m totally addicted to Pretty Little Liars too 🙂
I know, it turns out I have quite a few flaky friends! I only felt that one person was flat-out mean about it though, so I wasn’t really upset for very long with any of the others. Like my friend who canceled this week – she wasn’t being inconsiderate, her boss just said no at the last minute. So I’m not mad at her, because stuff does come up sometimes that’s out of your control.
But yeah…there are lots of flakes around. I’m not saying I don’t cancel plans at times too, but I don’t when I’ve got a plane ticket somewhere! The best thing is to figure out for yourself if it’s still worth going if your friends do cancel.
Glad there’s another PLL addict around! Haha it’s such a guilty pleasure. 😀
I usually travel with one friend, my best, and she never “pulls out”. Other than that I travel with my husband or alone, so never had those problems, luckily. I hope you soon will get better friends, if not, travel by your own! Xxx.
Thanks! Although most of them are pretty good friends…just not the best at long-term planning. 🙂 I definitely see some more solo travel in my future, but party events are just awkward to do alone (and lots of these are party trips haha).
I hate when plans go wrong! Especially while traveling. I am glad to managed to make the best of out what you could.
Same! It’s so frustrating. But you usually do have some options to make the best of a bad situation if it does happen.
I had a friend flake out on me days before a trip to Croatia. I decided to go anyway, and it was a blast. I definitely went outside of my comfort zone and ended up having a great time on my first solo trip.
That’s awesome! See, I would totally still go somewhere like Croatia if my friend bailed, but going on a party trip by yourself kind of sucks.
Wow! You are very patient with your “friends” 🙂 I would have been really angry in some of the cases! If it’s for a festival or so, I always make sure we book our tickets together, if it’s for a city-trip, I’m perfectly happy to go on my own if my friend can’t make it.
I was only really upset over the San Francisco one, because I felt like that was the only time somebody was actually actively unkind, as opposed to just busy or truly unable to make the trip (like the BBK friend – no hard feelings there!). I actually booked my festival ticket after my friend, so it was really unlucky that her boss was such a jerk about the whole thing.
But city trips are definitely still nice on your own!
That’s so disappoint Jessica. I can’t believe how many times this has happened to you. I’m not much of a fan of travelling with friends after a few bad experiences myself, but never have they pulled out at the last minute. Although after some of my trips, I wish they had because some friendships are just not made to travel.
I know, right? Haha. Well, two of them were big group trips, so I can totally see how people just didn’t get their stuff together in time to buy tickets. One of them is a legit reason – the BBK friend really couldn’t risk losing her job to party for a weekend, so that was fair enough. The SF one was the only one that I got upset about (rather than frustrated).
It’s true that some friendships aren’t made to travel! I heard that about relationships too; the way to test if someone would be a good life partner for you is supposedly to go to a really foreign country for a while and see how you like each other after that. 🙂
Traveling with the wrong person is the worst. Maybe it’s better that these people canceled, at least in the long run.
In some cases, maybe so!
Friends can be tricky to deal with at times. No matter what age you are. I traveled across the country with one of my friends who was attending a conference and didn’t want to go by herself in Vegas. I’m attending a conference now and asked her to accompany me and she came up with every excuse in the books. Lesson learned..
They can definitely be tricky! That’s so frustrating that your friend wouldn’t return the same favor you’d done for her.
You have a knack of turning a negative into a positive. It is not until you travel with some friends that you really get to know them truly. So glad you still had a great time and lessons learnt throughout.
True! Some friends show their real colors when you travel with them (or at least plan to travel with them, in this case).
Great post. Its annoying when friends flake out on plans so I always ready to go it along providing there are no costly consequences.
It’s super annoying, especially when it happens at the last minute. Plus, if I have a plane ticket somewhere, I’m going!
Oh my goodness, I feel so bad now. I had planned a trip with a friend in August, but then we got invited to a press trip and I’m going to have to bail out on my friend. At least, neither he nor I had to pay for anything upfront. I’ll direct him to this post!
You know, stuff happens! Most people are understanding, even if they’re not thrilled that their plans got cancelled. And it’s totally different canceling in mid-July for an August trip that you haven’t paid anything for than canceling at the last minute when flights and/or reservations have been made (like my friends did). He has at least 3 weeks’ notice at this point, which isn’t last minute by any means.
But do tell your friend ASAP so he has more time to figure out what to do. 🙂
Ah it is such a shame when travel plans fail even more disappointing when its because of flacky friends! It happens to me a lot too! Not on such a big scale rather on nights out or weekends away…they either forget to tell me the details and head off on their own or cancel last minute! 🙁 But good on you for going to some of the places anyway! 🙂
I agree, it’s so disappointing! Obviously, sometimes it can’t be helped, but having little to no notice at all is tough to deal with. My friends do the nights out thing too haha. I think it might be because we’re all so used to being able to access everything instantly that you really can do most things last minute (going to a concert..or canceling a trip).
I’ve definitely had more than my fair share of flaky friends over the years, this post speaks to me lol. So many useful tips 😀
Haha I’m glad I’m not the only one who has flaky friends! 😀
Wow, your San Francisco “friend” was so MEAN! Honestly, who does that? I would definitely cut that person straight outta my life. You deserve better than to deal with people like that. Personally, I can’t stand when people flake out or take forever to make a decision, so I tend to travel solo most of the time.
I have actually heard a lot of people tell me they love solo travel precisely for that reason – you don’t have to put up with anyone else’s silliness or flakiness! I may have to reconsider my opinion on it after this slew of experiences. 🙂
What a shame that your friends cancelled on you at the last minute. I think you know when you’re the most comfortable, and as long as you’re happy – that’s the most important.
I agree, it’s all about knowing what you like when you’re traveling! I guess figuring out what you’re comfortable with quickly is the silver lining to having flaky friends – they kind of force you to do it.
Sounds like you’ve had a few bad experiences, but love what a positive outlook you’ve taken on it all! I’ve thankfully never been in the situation where a friend has cancelled travel plans at the last minute, but think I’d be a lot more annoyed than you seem to be!
Haha thanks! I’m actually fairly difficult to really anger, maybe that’s why. 🙂 There was only one time when I was really hurt and upset by my friend canceling, and that was the San Francisco trip. But with stuff like the Bilbao festival, my friend really couldn’t help it, as it was all her boss’s decision. I was annoyed at the situation, but definitely not at her! I try to separate out when it’s somebody being simply thoughtless versus actively unkind – that helps me to get less frustrated by travel mishaps.