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.

Whilst at university I went youth hostelling in Wales and also staying at one small hostel was a teacher from my old school. She hadn't taught me at all in my time there so she didn't know who I was.

First day on my holiday in Barbados lying on a sun lounger “Hopping is that you?”
One of my work clients was there with his family
Luckily it was one I really liked and we had some fun with them that week, I went horse riding with his wife and DH went out drinking with him and we had a few meals out/drinks with them.

Yes on 3 occasions! It's a weird feeling

I forgot about this one. We also bumped into a neighbour at Disneyland but we did know they were going at the same time as us and we were looking out for them.

Saw a friend of a friend that I knew to say hello to, bumped into her in Cornwall while on holiday in the toilets at Tintagel

@sunflowersandbuttercups

We once met our postman in the Lakes (we lived in Suffolk at the time).

We went on holiday to Austria and bumped into my dad's best friend from when he was nine - they hadn't seen each other for thirty years and lived on opposite sides of the world!

How did they recognise each other?

Yes a lot. We go to a certain part of spain as do a lot of people who live in our area. We always see people we know. I don't mind if it's in the evening but I hate it when we see people on the beach when I'm in my bikini.

Yes!

In Spain, a few years ago and a man who lives around the corner, who I knew quite well, popped his head out of the swimming pool water and said hello!

Last year on a beach in Devon we bumped in to a family we know quite well from the same town as us. We also found out we were in the same area as another family and met up with them a few times during our stay.

I live in a tiny village in Scotland. The local primary has less than a hundred kids in total.
On holiday in Cephalonia, my DC were so violently sick on the bus taking us to the ferry to Ithaca, the bus had to be delayed for cleaning and the ferry had to delay departure for half an hour to wait for us.
Eventually arriving at the ferry port, we heard a shout of “Yoo hoo! Babdoc! Fancy seeing you here. Did you hear we’ve been held up because some fool has been sick on the bus?”
It was a teacher from the DC’s primary school! The DC shamefacedly confessed that “some fool” was them.

What were the odds?!

I met a girl when I was traveling. Exactly 2 years later I was on holiday, in a similar part of the world but completely different country and she came up to me in a bar! Was brilliant, I was so surprised. She was on her way to Australia to work for a year.

Yes ! At an airport in the Maldives saw someone I know through work. There had been quite a scandal about him connected with politics - proper tosser - hadn’t seen him for over a decade. I think we both spotted each other but decided to say nothing. I like to think he was embarrassed but I doubt it.
Unfortunately there were significant flight delays and I spent several hours ‘avoiding him’/deep on phone type activity.

Saw a client (I’m a criminal lawyer) once in Ibiza - we nodded and said hello.

Once in a hotel bar in Greece heard a group talking about my set of chambers. They were going and didn’t know me. I decided to leave rather than eavesdrop. I was on holiday !

‘Young/very junior bar/maybe pupils’ not ‘going’

Not someone I know but when I was in Melbourne I was standing in a pizza shop and the bloke behind me recognised my accent - turned out he lived in the next town to me in Cumbria

We met an old friend in a shopping mall in a utah and then the next day bumped into him in Salt Lake City.
We also met the family of a boy my son went to school with at a resort in Mallorca. Our holidays over lapped by 10 days but we only saw them that one time. The resort was so stupidly crowded.

In los Angeles I met a lovely girl and when she introduced me to her British boyfriend he was my very recent ex and turned out the dates overlapped. Awkward!

We were on a bus in San Francisco near one end of the Golden Gate Bridge. We came to a bus stop and DD piped up: ‘Oh! There’s Mrs D from school!’ Sure enough, Mrs D and her family then boarded the bus. Bet she was delighted to see my two DCs when she’d travelled 5000 miles to get a nice break from school

Yes, it's usually someone my husband knows. Lost count of the amount of times I've heard 'hello mate', turned round and he's chatting away to someone. Doesn't matter where in the world we are.

School mum and I, with a child in the same year as DD, talking about upcoming half term holiday plans. We soon realised we were booked on the same flights and in the same hotel for our half term break. We'd booked identical holidays! It was actually really nice for DC to have some ready made friends to play with round the pool. We had a few drinks together some evenings but were careful not to encroach on each others holidays. It was fun!

Another one - not on holiday, but at an event in Shanghai. I was chatting to a retired gentleman who, we soon discovered, had worked with my mum about 40 years ago.

I bumped into 2 people who had been in my sister's class at school having a stand up row in the middle of London when I was there for a weekend away.

Also bumped into my cousin in a queue for food at Animal Kingdom at WDW.

I bumped into my dad at the acropolis in Athens (I had no idea he was there).

Yes, repeatedly, both in the UK, even when 6 hours plus away from home and abroad too!
It really is a small world.

I went on a day trip whilst visiting my parents, we were wandering around a castle in Wales (I live in the NE) and this lady tapped me on the shoulder and said my name. I was really confused although her face was a little familiar I couldn't place it at all. It took me until halfway through the conversation before I realised she was someone I had gone to drama club with when we lived in Somerset, it then took me until we started walking away to remember her name. Apparently I looked exactly the same (to be fair a lot of people say that, I haven't changed much) after a period of about 25yrs, and my son looks identical to my brother at that age, she however had changed completely.

yeah. Doing the Bondi to Bronte walk in Oz. My ex (or was it his identical twin? I will never know) was walking past us in the opposite direction in full Hare Krishna regalia.
We both did a double take, then pretended it hadn't happened. I was with my DH at the time so I thought it best to just carry on walking

DP and I are both teachers at the same school. We've bumped into students on two separate holidays now, in addition to seeing some at the airport. They are usually far more embarrassed than we are!