We’ve had some of the best times of our lives travelling, but we’ve also had some of the worst. I mean it doesn’t get much worse than thinking you might actually die! After four years on the road, we’ve had our fair share of close shaves (sorry Mum, probably best you flick to another page!).

We love sharing all our best travel tips and experiences here on the blog but we also want to share personal stories that show the other side of travelling. The side which can, quite frankly, be a bit scary! After all, it isn’t always stunning views, experiences and pinch yourself moments.

Some of these near death experiences were our own fault (the bear story) but some just come out of the blue! So check out the five times we thought we were going to die and let us know about similar experiences you’ve had in the comments below!

1 - Being attacked by bears in Nepal

Of all the bad travel experiences we’ve had, this is definitely the worst one. Yes, we somehow managed to survive an attack from not just one, but three bears! It’s not your average travel story, and we still haven’t quite figured out how we managed to survive!

If you want a nail-biting blow by blow account, then check out the post dedicated specifically to the bear attack, but for the sake of this post, we’ll go over the basics.

Into the park

Being avid hikers and nature lovers, we decided that our trip into Chitwan National Park in Nepal would be on foot! I know what you’re thinking, that was a pretty questionable decision, especially as the jungle is packed with tigers, elephants, rhinos and sloth bears, but trust us it’s a thing, and every tour shop in the nearby village offers it. So we assumed that it must be reasonably safe…..

I realised as we entered the jungle there were very few other people around and it did make me feel more vulnerable, but brushing it off, on we went. For the first few hours all was well, before a flash of brown in the dense jungle had our guides stand stock still.

They were right to be worried because before we knew it we were charged by three adult bears - one’s famous for their relentless desire to kill whatever their opponents. Of all the animals in the jungle these are the ones feared the most by the local villagers.

Fight for our lives

Joe and the guides had to fight for our lives (I had stupidly declined the offer of a wooden stick at the beginning of the trek, which is how they were defending themselves, because I didn’t want to carry it!). Fail.

Instead I lay on the ground covering my eyes (these bears are known to try and remove eyes first as then you obviously can’t fight on) and wondered what it was going to feel like to be torn apart - I say that with no exaggeration, macabre as it sounds. One of the bears tore our guide’s leg and arm open and the fight seemed to go on forever.

The escape

Long story short, by some kind of miracle we managed to escape and we all survived, although the jungle exit involved a 15km hike, hacking through the undergrowth and crossing crocodile infested swamps to reach safety, as we couldn’t retrace our steps on the trail due to said bears in the area.

Suffice to say, it had a profound effect on me for a long time and it’s only seven years later when I forced myself to hike in bear country in North America that I have largely overcome my demons.

2 - When a man broke into our room in the middle of the night in Panama

Backpacking Central America with my sister is one of the best trips I’ve ever done. But it wasn’t without its incidents. One of the most scary of which took place in Bocas Del Toro in Panama, a gorgeous archipelago near the border with Costa Rica.

We spent our days swinging in hammocks on an array of beautiful, and at the time completely uncrowded beaches. Our entire trip was done on a shoestring budget and we were staying in a small family run pensione in town. It was separated from the main house and had two single beds, a chest of drawers and a shared bathroom down the hallway.

A nasty jolt

I woke up in the middle of the night and felt a breeze on my face. My bed was beneath the window and I wondered if I’d left it open, which was unusual as we were staying on the ground floor, it would have been a security risk.

My bed was against the wall and in a position where you couldn’t see my head from the doorway. I sat up and realised in horror that the breeze was coming from our door which was halfway open. Worse than that, a man was crouched down on his haunches with one hand, fingers spread apart (you never forget) slowly opening it further, little by little.

Trying to stop the intruder

I could see him, but he couldn’t see me. I looked over at my sister and could see she was still asleep - she’d had a pretty bad case of food poisoning and looked dead to the world. I knew I had to do something while he didn’t know I was there.

I lept from my bed shouting “NOOOOOO” and slammed the door back on him, which - due to his unstable position on his haunches - knocked him backwards. I yelled to my sister we needed to move the chest of drawers in front of the door immediately. Luckily, even in a daze, she was on it and we secured the door. We then sat traumatised as he continued trying to get in for over an hour.

Needless to say I didn’t sleep a wink that night and the following morning we didn’t just leave the pensione but the whole island. Before we went, we tried to tell the owners of the hotel, but we never quite knew if the message got through.

3 - Paragliding in Guatemala

When I look back at this one I am quite surprised we even did it, but I was in my very early twenties and gung ho about all things travel. My sister and I were backpacking in Guatemala and neither of us had ever tried paragliding.

So far so good

We heard about a French guy who was operating a small business out of a restaurant in Lake Atitlan. Now, we should have realised this was all super low budget (and a bit dodgy) when the three of us took a bus, followed by a hike up to the top of the mountain.

He then told me to wait at the top while he took my sister first. She had a good flight and they both came back up on the bus a couple of hours later.

The warning

I got geared up ready to go and we walked to the ‘runway’, but couldn’t jump because the wind had disappeared. There was barely even a breeze. So we waited. And waited. Eventually I suggested that maybe I would have to miss out because it was pretty hot up there and I’d already been waiting over three hours by now. I should have trusted my gut. But instead after a little longer, a light breeze came and he said we could go.

So we did.

Disaster strikes

We ran off the cliff, but instead of being picked up by the wind we began falling down the mountain, hitting trees and shrubs along the way. I felt blood dripping down my face and had no idea where it was coming from, I could see scratches on my arms and legs as we continued to fall down the mountain. It all happened so fast that I don’t even remember having time to panic.

Eventually a big thermal did pick us up and - unfortunately for me, having already gone through an unexpected cliff dive - it began spinning us round and round. I had to ask for the sick bag.

A lucky escape

After around 30 minutes we landed and it was a long time before I could get up from lying sprawled out on the ground thanking my lucky stars I was alive and also wondering what the state of my face would be; it turned out to be scratches which didn’t scar, phew.

When my sister arrived, the first thing I asked was to look at her photos because I couldn’t believe what had just happened. She looked at me and said ‘I didn’t take any because I thought you were dying’! Fair enough, I suppose.

Crazy as it seems, four years later I decided to give paragliding a second chance in Nepal. Let’s just say it is the last time I will ever try again. There were no near death experiences that time, but sadly I have an 100% record of needing a sick bag. You can read about it here.

4 - Flying into Singapore

We know that lots of people talk about scary flights but honestly this one was bad. Really bad. It was the only time I’ve heard people screaming on a flight and then deathly silence for what felt like hours.

It was on a small plane between Hat Yai in Thailand and Singapore during monsoon season. Anyone who has flown into Singapore will know that huge storms can come out of nowhere, and even the bigger planes can feel a bit rough.

Around halfway through the flight we entered a storm and the turbulence was off the scale. We’re used to turbulence, but this was different, it just kept getting rougher and rougher, and we felt it even more in this small plane. I started to get pretty worried but it wasn’t until the plane started to fall from the sky that panic really set in.

One of the nicer times flying over Singapore

People started screaming and crying and I began breathing heavily into the sick bag! It then went completely silent with everyone in shock and one of the worst parts was that no member of the crew nor pilot said a word. That made it so much more scary as I assumed they were panicking too!

45 minutes after our flight should have landed we were still circling somewhere above Singapore. We’d made two attempts to land and both times the pilot pulled back up and circled around. Still no word as we kept enduring this flight from hell.

Eventually we did of course land and I have never been so glad to set foot on terra firma. Unfortunately this incident has led me to develop a fully fledged fear of flying, not great for an avid traveller!

5 - On the mini bus in Laos, Kong Lor Cave

This is the least dramatic of all the near death incidents I’ve experienced but no less dangerous at the time. Unfortunately it’s a known fact that the wages for most public transport workers in Southeast Asia aren’t great and they often have to work very long hours. This was clearly the case on our journey between Kong Lor Cave and Vientiane in Laos and it nearly cost us our lives.

We were travelling in a songthaew, which if you haven’t travelled in Southeast Asia before is basically like a mini bus type vehicle where you can jump on and off anywhere along the route.

I had the privileged position of sitting up front with the driver, which genuinely turned out to be a life saver. I noticed fairly early on that he was falling asleep at the wheel, veering into other peoples lanes before coming to and jerking back into the correct position.

I started to strike up a conversation to keep him awake, but the language barrier was too much to get very far. So I adopted a different tactic. Every time I saw his eyes begin to droop I clapped loudly, prodded or pinched him. I indicated that he was falling asleep and we should stop but he denied it.

In the end I asked to stop at a stall selling drinks and bought him some red bull and continued pinching and clapping like a woman possessed until we got to our stop. I also warned everyone else on the bus what was happening so they had the chance to get off too.

Looking back I wonder why we didn’t just demand to get off firmly, but I think it was because we were in a really rural area and I wasn’t sure when we might find onwards transport. I think nowadays I would probably just chance it and get off but luckily we lived to tell the tale anyway!

Have you got any travel horror stories to share? Let us know in the comments below!