Have you ever bumped into someone you know while on holiday?

[BeckyRac]

Not me but while we were in Devon my mum bumped into someone she knew from the north west.

Yup- In Denver Colarado- they lived two streets away/

This happens to me all the time :

• too many times to count at Disney World but we have been a couple of times during school holidays so slightly more predictable
• my guide leader on a ski holiday
• an old friend from uni at 2am in Boston train station
• old next door neighbours in a hotel in San Francisco - bumped into them in the lift
• friend from school on a beach in Greece
• family from dc’s school in the same holiday park in France
• friends staying at the same campsite in Wales

I’ve come to the conclusion that I could never just disappear because wherever I went someone I know will be there.

Back in the late 1950s my dad went on holiday to Paris with his parents during the school holidays (my grandad was a history teacher). Foreign holidays were still quite unusual then, so imagine their surprise when a boy called out "Hello, Sir!" when they were walking around the city one day. It was one of the boys my grandad taught at school!

The other coincidence I've heard of was when a university friend got stuck in a traffic jam on holiday in the UK during university holidays. She'd wound down the window to let some air in and suddenly heard someone calling her name - it was another girl from our corridor in our university halls!

I walked out of Rome airport and there was my ex manager. She didn’t like me and so I’d resigned, about a year previously, rather than be sacked. Apparently, she later left the company rather mysteriously, without saying goodbye to colleagues.

We spent a few excruciating minutes pretending not to see each other, before we got on separate buses.

Met an ex boyfriend in a bar in Manhattan when I was on my honeymoon 😳🤣

Yes, several times.
Met one of my colleagues and her family on a boat trip in Menorca one year, and discovered that my DH's best friend from school and his family were staying in the next resort to us on another holiday.
When I was a student inter railing in Europe I think we saw someone else from University in almost every city we visited. Then the year after we graduated my best friend and I went to Crete for a week and met 2 lads who had been on our course on the plane and basically ended up spending most of our holiday together.

This thread makes me wonder how often these kind of coincidences almost happen - but you miss the friend / neighbour from home by five minutes or on the other side of the restaurant and so don't realise they're there. Surely if a lot more often than one would think?

When I was a teenager we went for a day trip to France, and bumped into my French Teacher from school 😅

Yes South of France as a kid. Camping on a haven type site. And the tent next door had my dad's workmate and family in. They hadn't even told each other they were going away.

I went on holiday to New York with my parents when I was 14. When we arrived at the hotel on our first day, my mum and I went to explore it. I told my mum I could see a family from our small Welsh village. She didn't believe me at first, but sure enough it was them.

Also a few years ago I was holidaying at a campsite near Dijon with my DH. There was a small swimming lake at the campsite with a few inflatables. My DH was messing around with them, and a woman approached us from the bank. I thought she was going to tell us off for hogging the inflatables, but she turned out to be the mother of a boy I used to teach. He was also there, now an early teen and very embarrassed to see his old teacher in a state of relative undress. Needless to say I was a bit embarrassed too. No escape when you're a teacher!

Not on holiday but a few years back I was stuck in traffic on a motorway in the midlands (going to Birmingham NEC) and as I looked at the car in the next lane I realised it was my dad driving it! Might not sound surprising but we live in Somerset and my dad lives in the highlands of Scotland and neither knew the other would be in the midlands! Hadn’t seen him for a year or so at that point, what are the chances if he was a couple of cars ahead we would have missed him.

Also saw an acquaintance in a Florida mall. Never saw them at home despite them living a few minutes away.

Twice. Holiday Eurocamping in the south of France, and the family in the tent behind us on this huge camp site turned out to be a girl from my son's class at school. Also bumped into some ex-neighbours standing in a queue in Mumbai airport.

Was seated at the table next to my high school maths teacher in a cafe in Paris, and bumped into the neighbours near Schindler's factory in Krakow

Yes, met the woman from our local Asda checkout in our hotel in Majorca.

DPs a teacher- we’re always bumping into Ex pupils, pupils and colleagues wherever in the UK we go. Bizarre

When I was little we bumped into my DDad's colleague and his family in Disneyland Paris, he didn't know they were going to be there. A couple of days later we bumped into them at Charles de Gaulle airport, they were there at the same time for a different flight.

My (newish friends at the time) happened to be staying in the same hotel as me in the south of France. I was sitting in the bar and saw them coming up from the beach. I was staring at them thinking how remarkably like my friends they looked, then I realised it was them.

Bumped into an ex bf I hadn't seen in a decade in a club in Amsterdam. It was an absolutely massive place as it was the ADE festival but we were in the same spot at the same time.

Also bumped into 3 different people I knew on the same day in Niece airport. I don't know loads of people so that was bizarre!!

Yes I bumped into a family I knew quite well in Yosemite. They had stayed at the same (completely funky) hotel as me - the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obisbo.

I also got chatting to a woman in the airport lounge who knew a German guy I'd been at college with.

And, as coincidences go, when I went to university in the US a British guy on my course had been to the same primary school as my boyfriend in Broken Hill, Uganda. That blew my mind.

In the 1950s when international travel wasn't so popular, my aunt went to Egypt. She was most surprised to bump into an old friend who happened to be staying at the same hotel.

This happens with dh all the time. I never see anyone I know, anywhere, but that might be because I’m always daydreaming short sighted.

Happened to me three times in various parts of the world. Know several other people it's happened to as well.

Amazing sliding door moments. How many other times have we just missed people we know?

My sister and her partner bumped into her neighbor (not next a few doors up) while in India!! Luckily they get on, because what's the saying.
Don't make enemies as youll probably meet them on a desert Island. .

Just remembered another one, so four times.

We had lived in Chester but just moved back to the Midlands. We went for a weeks break to Edinburgh. We were sitting on a park bench in Princess Gardens and my youngest son said - I am just going to that bench over there to say hello to Mrs B- his reception teacher from Chester - he was just so matter of fact about it.

In San Francisco late 90s, on solo trip distracting myself from a ridiculous period of relationship breakup and subsequent messy sex life. Spotted one of messy sex life people! Hid!

Yes - once got on the same plane ok (children in the same class) and then went to the same hotel with water park in Dubai arrrrrrhhhhhhh I didn’t want to be in my bikini whilst there had full coverage swim suits on 😬😬😬 for an entire 9 days - Felt weird especially as they only drank water and I liked a cold beer in pm 😬

2nd time - Portugal another kid from the class - 🤣🤣🤣🤣