Where's the furthest you been on holiday and bumped into someone you know?

[WatermelonSugarLow]

Just wondered how common this is and could prove an interesting thread. Have you ever been away, especially abroad, and bumped into someone you know? We are away abroad at the moment, busy kids pool and it got me thinking wouldnt it be funny if someone from DCs school appeared in the pool. It's never happened to me for the record...

As a teen, I met my Head of Year on a Gondola in Venice. More than 30 years ago.,

More recentjy, a mum I vaguely know from baby groups 15 years ago was on our flight to Reykavik, and in our hotel.

Antigua from UK. 1996. My boss and his wife and their friend, a shared work colleague, and her husband. Same resort. Booked independently. Complete coincidence we went to the same island which we ended up knowing after chatting...Did not know it was same resort

Gibraltar when I was 16. Getting some food in the square and a lad I went to school with walked past with his parents

That reminds me that late DH & I ran into a client on holiday in Antigua about 10 years ago.

When I first moved to Australia I ran into a women that I’d met when I was holiday on the aisle of Skye a few months before!

Also in Australia I met a flute player from Ireland who was touring NSW. I ran into him a few years later when we were both in Glasgow at a folk session. I was home on holiday, he was visiting Glasgow for a week from Ireland. The next time I saw him was at a folk festival in a totally different part of Australia when he was touring again. He wanted to know if I was stalking him😂😂😂

Paris. Not me though, it was my boyfriend at the time.
For me personally, Leeds when we both lived in Sheffield. A weird random pub during the day

I was in Cornwall with my friend from Doncaster and we spoke to a shopkeeper. My friend immediately said, “you’re from Doncaster, aren’t you?” She was! I have no idea how he can pin down an accent so precisely.

Not me but my sister was lost on a mountain in China years ago and night was falling. She heard something coming down the path and hid a little as she was nervous of aggressive monkeys, turned out to be someone she knew from the UK!

and another mountain one, my parents were on holiday in a Middle Eastern country, stopped at a local mountain viewpoint and bumped into someone who had taught my sibling piano 20 years earlier in another country (where neither of them lived by this point). All just so random.

We could have made up a 7s Rugby team from all of my DH's ex-Army mates we met up with completely coincidentally at the 7s Rugby World Cup in San Francisco in 2018. We now live in the US on the East Coast, and they came from all over the US, Canada, NZL and the UK.

Also, we were at a small camp in the back of beyond of Botswana, next to the border of Namibia, where it then becomes Angola. The barman was a friend of my cousin's. I got him on the phone to my cousin, who had since moved and settled in the UK from southern Africa.

Disneyland Paris....bumped into our neighbour & son's school teacher in the same day! 🤣

This is a bit crap compared to all yours, but we were on a boat holiday on the Thames when I was a teen and going through a lock when we noticed a bloke in the boat in front of us was wearing a T-shirt advertising the pub in my mum's home village. (It's a very nice pub.) My parents didn't stop exclaiming about what a small world it was for days .

Barbados - we sat at dinner next to someone from uni but couldn't remember her name at the time.

Tenerife - bumped into people from school in a queue.

In corfu bumped into a colleague at the airport. And in majorca I saw someone who lives down my street in the pool.

Melbourne. Victoria, not Derbyshire.

Standing looking across the border between Norway and Russia in the far North. Campervan drives up and parks beside us. Out comes by old history teacher.

Bumped into a student in Cornwall. Not as far as Australia granted 😂 but was a surprise.
Stayed at same campsite with a supply teacher who I had worked closely with earlier that year. It wasn't a pleasant ending so I tried to avoid her. This was in The Algarve.

Bumped into two sets of friends whilst clubbing in Ibiza.

Also, bumped into my exes family on holiday in Brittany an hour after stepping off the ferry.

Bali, randomly met someone who interviewed for the same job as me once (neither of us got it).
Also met a colleague's ex wife in Sidari in Corfu.
Both many years ago.

When I was about 7 we visited some caves in France, and as we came out a substitute teacher I’d had that year was going in. I just said “Oh hi Mrs X” and carried on, but all the adults were like what???

Then when I was late teens we had a girls holiday in the Med and ended up hanging out with a group of lads from London (we were from Manchester). The following April we bumped into one of them at a cinema in Blackpool - we’d only stopped there to get pick n mix. He was with his girlfriend, and judging by his reaction to seeing us I think he must have been much less single than he had let us believe!

We were at the airport in Boston Massachusetts and I saw a family I’d known as a child. They were getting an Air France flight with us to Paris. So not only did we recognise each other but we were both flying somewhere that wasn’t our home country.

Bumped into a colleague in a looooong queue for the ladies loo in the desert in Jordan.

Two stand out

Australia - staying at Cape Trib and went to a bar down the road to watch rugby. Rammed! Found a small space. Girl we sat next to was working on a project with my H at Amex in Brighton.

India - flying from Chennai to the Andaman Islands. At the time no fancy hotels there and it was v much an Indian holiday location. Got on the plane to seat I'd chosen. One woman on end of our row. She stood up to let us in and I looked at her and said "don't I know you!" She said yes your Zoey Bartlett! We'd worked together on a project for about a year a few years previously. She was staying same place as us so spent Christmas together. After Christmas we moved to another place which essentially consisted of plywood huts. We were sat one morning drinking our chai when a Tuktuk pulled up with an English couple. We looked at them and I'd been working with the woman for last 6 months. Spent new year with them!

That's actually quite handy did you share a taxi home 🤣

Blooming cheek!

As a child, bumped into a boy from my class in the dungeons of Chateau Chillon in Switzerland. Wasn’t even school holidays… (the glorious Seventies before fines)