Misery multiplied: Readers' travel nightmares

As millions of Americans are home or nearly home after the busy Thanksgiving holiday, Gut Check America readers share their worst travel nightmares. Here are their stories.

Who said Tahiti is relaxing?
Heading to a conference in Tahiti two years ago, our flight was delayed. We arrived in LAX about 15 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave from another terminal. Since I was traveling with my 3-year-old son, my first assumption was that we should rebook our flight. The next New Zealand Air flight was 3 days later, so we RAN. The child pulled a regular, adult-sized carry-on the whole way to the gate and I had a backpack with books and toys, and a briefcase with a laptop and more books. We elbowed, begged, and apologized our way through all sorts of lines and MADE IT to the gate!

During the flight we had everything we needed — food I'd brought and very adequate airline food, our toys and a packet for little travelers from the airline, considerate flight attendants ...  everything seemed great.

When we landed in Tahiti, however, we found that our luggage had not made the connection and would be arriving 3 days later. I had tucked an extra swimsuit into the carryon at the last minute because I was too lazy to open the suitcase, but my son had no swimsuit along. Our luggage arrived very early the first day of the conference. In the meantime we hung out at the beaches and my son got NO tan lines! Good thing he was only 3!
— Jennifer Kopf

Unhappy Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving morning, albeit one of the worst traveling days of the year, was absolutely horrific this year.

Traveling from Bloomfield, N.J. to Philadelphia normally takes 1 1/2 hours. It took almost 4 hours. Five accidents on the N.J. Turnpike and the merge between exits 8a and 7a caused the backup. That merge is the cause of most of the traffic tie-ups on that road. While New Jersey has spent millions of dollars and half of my life (I'm 55) fixing route 46, the rest of the states' highways are in shambles. The only reason that I travel that road is that it's the shortest distance between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
— Kathy Black, Bloomfield, N.J.

Loooong trip home
Years ago, I was taken off an American merchant ship with chest pains in the port of Doha, Qatar in the Middle East. After a few days in the hospital, the doctor said I could fly home to New Orleans.

The flight was late arriving in London so I missed my connection to New York. When I arrived in New York, I was too late for my plane to New Orleans. The airline agent said I couldn't get a flight for three days because it was a holiday weekend. I kept bothering them for about six hours until they put me on a flight.

Further medical test revealed it was only a  hernia.  Advice: Don't eat too heavy when traveling.
— James McDaniel, New Orleans

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