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...

Vietnam. It was someone i knew from work, but didnt know her very well so had no idea she would be there. DH and I were cycling from South to North Vietnam, she was doing it the other way round. We crossed over in the middle at the same hotel. However, I was so convinced it couldn't be her (what are the chances?) that I persuaded myself it was someone who looked like her.

When we were back at work I asked her if she'd been in Vietnam and she had, it was definitely her. She didn't seem very impressed by the coincidence at all!

My DB who is terrified of flying got on a flight from Geneva and had a massive panic attack (he’s also got bad asthma). They put out an announcement for a doctor on board and someone came forward. It was DB’s own GP!

Disney Florida - school friend of DS1 primary
Cyprus - work colleague
Different Cyprus holiday - also a family from same primary school

those are the main ones - quite often meet random people!!

Probably Chichester

My dad's cousin live in Malta. My dad (who had no idea they were down here) bumped into them in Cornwall...

And also people from primary school in Lanzarote! Must all go to the same places!!

Didn't know them before we went away, but a couple at our hotel in Bali lived on our small estate. I went on holiday with my mum. This couple were around her age. Never knew them before we went.
This was 12 years ago and my mum meets up with them once a month or so!

On holiday in Kauai, husband gets on stage in a tiny resort we're at to do some bollox Hawaiian ball juggling shit they were doing😂, lady asks him a few questions whilst he's up there he answers in his broad accent gets down, bloke who's there for a day from a cruise ship says you're from where I'm from aren't you we say yes get chatting he'd worked with my dad for twenty years😁

Teacher friend on holiday in the Australian outback. About to get on a train and she heard frenzied shouts 'Miss, Miss'.....

Rome - bumped into a girl from my year at school at the airport, we both took the same return flight home.

Cornwall - a week after my final day in my primary school (much to my immense relief, as my form tutor had spent most of the year bullying and undermining me)...who should I see walking along the beach in my direction 😩. Needless to say, our conversation was brief!

Montreal, old neighbour. Sri Lanka, kids from same school.

Spain last month a lady who ran a playgroup I go to 😂 exact same flight too

Sri Lanka. I noticed a couple who were on their phones throughout every meal. Then recognised the woman (when she eventually looked up!) was a colleague from another department in my company.
Very random

Paris, the Eiffel Tower. I was about 10 and my dad took me and my brother up where we promptly bumped into 2 of the teachers from the summer school we’d attended back home the week before. I suspect my brother and I were more excited about it then them although they were very sweet to us.

Also when I was at uni I very sadly had to represent my hall at a funeral for one of the students which took place a 5 hour drive away from the uni in à county I’d never been to. When we stopped to have lunch in a random cafe after the ceremony , I looked over to see my grandparent’s best friends of 50 years waving madly at me, so random but so lovely to see them on such an awful day.

Christchurch, New Zealand. Just got back there to live, from having been living in the UK, to run into a man I had worked with, two years previously. Could have knocked me down with a feather.

Tokyo.

New Zealand. Walked into a bar and met someone who had been in the same (small, rural) primary school class as me. Her family had moved to Australia when we were around 10/11 and she happened to be on holiday in NZ.

We've had a few of these. Small island off paxos, ordered a drink from someone who we then realised was our ex colleague. Then in India bumped into a classmate of my dd and her family. Then in tuscany were in the same hotel as a colleague of mine who I'd never met because she lives in california. In the UK we've bumped into school friends and their families twice. In one of the canary islands bumped into another school family. Same holiday my ds bumped into a boy from his form at school. Seems to happen to us all the time!

Not a holiday but I was at the Live8 concert queuing for the loo. I was 6 months pregnant and desperate for a wee. Finally at the front and the portaloo door opens and my eldest son’s class teacher steps out.

Barbados, my teacher at the time and his family, same flight.

DH and I got on a plane from Sydney to London to find his work colleague (from a medium sized school) sitting directly behind us.

New Zealand (both from UK)

Happened in other places too, but NZ furthest

25 years ago with 3 teens in Florida
Heard someone calling my name. Someone I knew when our children were toddlers in my south coast home. She moved to Scotland about ten years before. If I hadn’t gone round the crazy golf a second time we wouldn’t have seen each other!

Rainforest in Australia. Old school friend.

As a kid in the wilds of Scotland with mum and dad - wild camping in Glen Coe area and the van that pulled up next to us was someone from our village.

A bar in St Omer in northern France. Bulped into someone from a French language class at home in Cheshire. We used to run into each other on licensed premises.

Ooo and also (will tell the short version) I met a an Australian girl when travelling and we travelled around for a while. She came from quite a niche place, and had an unusual name, and when we talked it turned out her brother worked near me in the UK. Twenty years later and we had lost touch. I get chatting to an Australian bloke in a bar in Amsterdam - he was from the same niche place .... he was her brother. Bonkers and we got back in touch via him!