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Original poster

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

209 replies

WatermelonSugarLow · 01/08/2024 22:12

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...

OP posts:
Lurleene · 01/08/2024 23:26

Not quite what you asked as it was in the UK but I took my son to a UK holiday park once only to find his Headteacher and her family there at the same time. Their accommodation was very close to ours which made matters worse. We constantly ran into her and I felt so awkward about preserving her holiday and privacy that she probably thought I was a complete weirdo.

junebirthdaygirl · 01/08/2024 23:26

After finishing college in the 80s l went inter railing with friends around Europe. Half our year must have had the same idea as we kept bumping into groups at railway stations and boats everywhere we went. No phones then so totally random being there at the same time.
One Summer we went, as a family, driving to France. On our way back to the boat at Le Harve we saw a family l was teaching at the time join the queue of cars. They were so excited to see me on the boat..not so exciting for me as wanted to forget school while on holidays

Cornishpasty342 · 01/08/2024 23:28

showeringthisaft · 01/08/2024 23:01

Saw someone I knew in Orlando.

DS also met a kid on holiday abroad and they played together all week. The following year met him again on holiday in a different country.

This exact thing happened to me. Met a boy in the canaries one year and became holiday pals, then randomly bumped into him in Orlando the following year!

Ioverslept · 01/08/2024 23:28

Australia, I bumped into a neighbour

Bigtitsbettyforgotherpassword · 01/08/2024 23:29

On a boat on a day-trip whilst in Tunisia with ex we bumped into an old school friend of his.
On holiday in Majorca as a student with friends, we started talking to another group of students. One of the girls was from my home town and we had mutual friends, another of the girls went to the same uni as my friend and was on a very niche course with my friend’s housemate. This girl had stayed in my friends house on numerous occasions.
In Disneyland Paris and walked up to queue for a ride, stood behind a bickering couple and recognised the man from my work. I said hello, and his wife started berating him for talking to a strange woman. I don’t think she believed we were colleagues.
Not far away but I went to centreparcs and was on the rapids, I bashed into a man and apologised. He turned around and it was my next door neighbour.

bananamum13 · 01/08/2024 23:31

Dubrovnik, at the top of the cable car!

pizzawinecake · 01/08/2024 23:32

Once when I was in a Scottish pub in Bolivia I bumped into an ex uni friend

Once in Thailand bumped into a colleague on her honeymoon

budgiegirl · 01/08/2024 23:33

I bumped into an old uni friend in Orlando - in the lazy river at Typhoon Lagoon, we'd lost touch after uni, but it turned out she lives only about 10 miles from me in the UK.

Another friend of mine bumped into a man who had been on her uni course on a boat in the middle of Hong Kong harbour. They chatted, and she found out he'd been living in the same town as her since uni, but they'd never once seen each other there!

leeverarch · 01/08/2024 23:33

A friend was on a plane going to the States and met her American relative's next door neighbour on the flight.

SnobblyBobbly · 01/08/2024 23:34

Havana airport - on holiday with DH & his family for a wedding and bumped into an ex-boyfriend in the departure lounge. So weird!

Berlinlover · 01/08/2024 23:35

I met someone I went to school with in Oamaru in New Zealand. I met my ex’s friend in Paihia in New Zealand and I met someone else I went to school with in Bondi beach in Sydney.

LostInTheColonies · 01/08/2024 23:38

Sydney. I'd arrived in Aus the day before, and the guy I bumped into, who I know from the UK but was working in Russia at the time, was visiting Aus on holiday. I thought I was seeing things. Also met someone that I didn't know at home but we had friends in common in the nether-reaches of Peru... Another classmate from school in the S of NZ in the loos in a ski field. Surely that's the furthest in miles from home!

oberst · 01/08/2024 23:46

New Zealand

Tarquina · 01/08/2024 23:46

Malta. Just strolling along by the water side bumped straight into a guy that my partner had been workmates with for 10 years.

Neither of them had mentioned at work that they were going to Malta.

LesLavandes · 01/08/2024 23:55

Singapore

SinnerBoy · 02/08/2024 04:44

I didn't know him, but white water rafting in the middle of nowhere in Kazakhstan, a 6 hour drive from the nearest habitation. I heard English being spoken and asked where he was from.

We were from two miles apart and he drank in my local, when visiting his friend from the street next to mine.

Sweetteaplease · 02/08/2024 04:46

Bumped into my cousin at the Singapore Airport! 🤣

marriednotdead · 02/08/2024 05:01

During a brief period before starting a new job after redundancy, I signed on at the local Job Centre to get my NI credits. Bumped into my signing on chap in an airport in Jamaica. Good thing I hadn’t been claiming to be jobhunting!

HollyGolightly4 · 02/08/2024 05:09

Lisbon!

My colleague was on a cruise and had stopped off in Lisbon for the day, I was with DP staying there for a week! Bumped into her in the main square.

Meadowfinch · 02/08/2024 05:11

Barbados. I ran into an ex-colleague in St James..

And when I finally flew home from the US after getting caught there with 9/11, I discovered my brother was on the same flight out of Miami. Neither of us knew the other was in the US, and neither of us had shared that fact with our habitual worrier dm. 🙂

GCAcademic · 02/08/2024 05:17

A remote tiger reserve (around five hours drive from the nearest city) in India. Someone from work.

garlictwist · 02/08/2024 05:40

PIL were on holiday in Australia and bumped into their next door neighbours. Neither had known the other was going.

I bumped into my English teacher in Venice when I was a teenager.

Highlong · 02/08/2024 05:43

I bumped into a girl from my uni English class in the bakery aisle in New Zealand

sparkles79 · 02/08/2024 05:45

Spain and Tenerife.

llamajohn · 02/08/2024 05:48

It's weird, I never ever bump into people i know who live in same Cambridgeshire town as me...but have bumped into people in Cornwall, Aberdeen, New York, Dubai airport and Beijing!

Oh and , not quite the same, but was in Australia and talking to a British waitress and chatting, turns out we grew up in same village, and we went to same primary school (although 12 years apart!)