Many travelers have had tales of colossal mishaps, but only one could be deemed “the worst.” In a repeat of their popular travel promotion, Travel Guard solicited stories of travel nightmares and received nearly 500 entries from across North America. After weeks of voting, a winner has emerged, and Travel Guard Names the World’s Unluckiest Traveler® Contest Winner for 2024. Find out the worst travel nightmare stories below.

The runner-up entry “MexiNO!” recounted Jennifer G’s diagnosis of kidney failure and a decision to go on a travel adventure before her course of dialysis began. To escape the Wisconsin winter, she booked a vacation at a resort in Mexico that – as it turned out – had no beach access, a closed pool, and a room with mold, bedbugs, and no running water. She decided quickly to make her escape but could not get a same-day flight. Not wishing to share a bed with parasites, she lined the bathtub with towels and spent the night there. Amazingly, that was only the beginning. The runner-up winner won a cash prize of $5,000.

In third place, “Don’t look up while walking” offers a cautionary tale about visiting Maho Beach in Saint Martin to witness the planes flying low overhead to neighboring Princess Juliana Airport. The third-place winner won a cash prize of $3,000. And fourth place, “A Trip That Took Many Years Off My Life,” tells of a mother and pre-teen son traveling to southern Italy for the first time, only to have the child wind up in a hospital with a bacterial infection that required seven consecutive daily visits for ultrasounds. The fourth-place winner won a set of Victorinox luggage.

“The stories of our winners are not typical, but travel mishaps can befall anyone, so we encourage travelers to prepare for and protect their trips,” said Jeff Rutledge, CEO, AIG Travel. “We launched the World’s Unluckiest Traveler to recognize those who have endured the worst in pursuit of their love of travel and to highlight those sorts of unexpected misfortunes that might make a travel insurance plan worth considering.”

The 2024 World’s Unluckiest Traveler promotion also recognized a couple of “lucky” participants:

Melanie A. was randomly selected – among the nearly 33,000 votes for the promotion – to win the sweepstakes prize of a GoPro® action camera and kit.  Travel Guard also invited their U.S. and Canada travel advisor partners to participate for a chance to win an iPad Air by resharing Travel Guard’s social media posts about the contest, and Sheri B. from Sheri’s Ultimate Dreams Cruise Tours and Travel was named as the winner of that prize.

The full stories from each of the winners can be viewed at www.worldsunluckiesttraveler.com.