"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"
-Murphy's Law
-Murphy's Law
The one universal truth in this crazy, mixed up world is Murphy's Law. The origins of the quote are in dispute, but the meaning is still the same regardless of its telling. In any major undertaking any detail, both major and minor, that can go wrong will go wrong during some point in the process. That law has proven to be true in every facet of life, including travel.
Other sites have attempted lists of the Murphy's Laws of Travel however have left out some very important details that are more likely to occur to the everyday traveler. Throughout my travels I have come across a few apparent universal truths that would fall into the categories of Murphy's Law, and as fellow travelers, I feel you should be aware
1. A large cache of cheap local foods will always be one block over after you cave and eat a crappy Western/Fast Food Meal.
2. Souvenirs will always be cheaper at the next stall over, but only after a purchase has been made, bargaining or not.
3. If you pass on a fairly specific souvenir for hopes of finding it cheaper, you never will.
4. Attempts to use the local language will be met with a response in English a majority of the time.
5. You will get lost when carrying 15kg of gear and a day bag, but almost never without it, map or not.6. Attractions will have random unpublished closure days only on the day you want to visit.
7. Prices inflate themselves when you walk in the room, and decrease as soon as you leave unless previously marked on a sticker.
8. Getting sick is inevitable. The variety of the sickness will coincide with the specific medicine you forgot to pack.
9. Airfare will always decrease in price after you buy the ticket, unless your ticket has a refundable or price matching option, in which no price change will occur.
10. Items that are lost will only be found after their primary moment of need has come and gone. This is especially true with hostel keys, in which a lost key will be found only after a replacement key is paid for.
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Have you experienced any of these Murphy's Laws of Backpacking? If so, talk about it below!
17 comments:
How about hearing about a great/inexpensive room after you've committed to a pricey/crappy one? Or just missing the last room in a cool place by 1 minute? :)
Great list, btw. Funny as hell! I've experienced most of what you described.
Ooo those are good ones! I always booked my hostel in advance (hate wandering with my bags) but I know the feeling of getting to book and an awesome one being full already.
Totally relate to a few of these, we also know it as "Sod's Law" here, origins equally spurious!
Have another one, which relates to an earlier article of yours I read, no matter where you sit on the public transport, or which room you choose in the hostel, you will always be 'paired' up with the local 'crazy!'
Cool to read, thanks for sharing :)
Sod's Law huh? I've never heard it called that before.
Oh man, that sounds like a time I was next to the crazy lady at a restaurant in Malaysia. Open dining seats and two single people means together at a table... hilarity ensues!
Great addition!
Number 4 is dead on - always met with an English response! Great list Jeremy
I spent 6 months learning Arabic before going to the Middle East and the only benefit it got me was making friends in the tout shops when bartering. And I get to put it on my resume. English really does dominate the tourist trade in most places.
Great chuckles there - esp. #8 LOL! ;)
How 'bout...
The one item that you desperately need, will be the single item that you neglected to pack.
Similarly, the 80/20 Rule states unequivocally that:
80% of the items you packed will be used 20% of time (or less) while... 20% of the items you neglected to pack - you'll wish you had 80% of the time.
And finally, one more:
The cheaper the hostel you bunk in, the more likely it will have free wifi. Conversely, the more pricey the hotel you foolishly choose, the more likely the wifi will be both exorbitant and broken.
All good ones! I must have missed the effect of the 80/20 rule in my travels, because I totally forgot to take band aids the entire time I was gone. Maybe because I rubbed the Billiken shrine in Osaka (pictured in this post) I got good luck for that one!
The internet one is so true its disappointing :(
I hate when #4 occurs, especially when I know the language well. I have recently been encountering #6 a lot here in Ireland.
Another one I hate is when you book a place mainly because they have WiFi and then you get there and your room doesn't. So annoying.
I had that happen to me all the time! I was so annoyed when the internet was crappy or didn't reach my room when it was advertised that it did. I usually monitor reviews to see that but you'd be surprised the number of times they are missed on it.
Love it! :) But I am not sure about the second part of
7. Prices inflate themselves when you walk in the room, and decrease as soon as you leave unless previously marked on a sticker.
I don't think a sticker means anything :) And neither does a barcode :) I once went to buy scissors in a pharmacy in Hurghada. The lady rand them up by scanning the barcode and up popped a price that was crazy high. I said "thanks, but no thanks" and went to put it back on the shelf. She said "no, no, wait", restarted her computer-thingy, typed something, scanned the barcode AGAIN and up came a much lower price. Go figure!
That is true, now that I think about it. Most of the time sticker means fixed price, but not always. Chinatown in Singapore was the same way. Everything had stickers for prices on it that magically got dropped down to 60% off in most cases. But actually being in a place where sticker price wasn't sticker price is few and far between from my experience.
So true! I love numbers 1-3. We spent 6/7 of our RTW trip looking for very specific waffle cookies from LIDL. Never found them again. Ugh!
1,6 and 10 does sound familiar to me :) Especially bad with keeping hostel keys with me, had it that I got a spare key but lost that one. So they made me pay for a new key, but weeks after I left I found the 2 other keys back hidden in a dark spot of my backpack... Things like this always happen :)
Ooo I know the feeling of that one Kimberly. I had an amazing chocolate bar in Germany that I couldn't find anywhere in the world outside of Europe and Macao (funny) but now its finally available online and in some stores for twice the price. Ouch!
The key issue makes me remember a lot of people from my time in Japan Tijmen. A bunch of hostels charged around $15 to replace keys, and everyone seemed to be losing theirs.
These are awesome! And I've experienced them all for sure - except that with #5, I get lost all the time. Map, backpack, whatever I have on me doesn't matter. Always getting lost!
Ouch! Yea some people for sure get lost quite a bit. I figured that one might not apply to everyone all the time, but there are extremes where it happens every time too.
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