Fact or Fiction: Vacations gone wrong

We've all been there. Your long anticipated vacation was dampened (in more ways than one!) by rainy weather or car sickness. Your flight was delayed. Your kids fought the entire length of 1-70. You forgot your phone, passport, wallet and/or ID.

But what if things went really, REALLY wrong? What if there's a stowaway called COVID-19 on your cruise ship? Or a murder on your interplanetary space liner? Here are some vacations - both fact and fictional - that went terribly, horribly wrong.

Unexpected Creatures

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton 

From the perspective of Jurassic Park owner John Hammond’s two grandchildren, their visit to the theme park certainly goes awry. An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Creatures once extinct now roam Jurassic Park, soon-to-be opened as a theme park. Until something goes wrong and science proves a dangerous toy.

You might also try the first “lost world" subgenre of sci-fi/fantasy adventure that was especially popular between the late 19th century and World War I. The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1912, features an eccentric professor, a newspaper reporter, a biologist and an adventurer investigating claims and then trapped on an isolated and precipitous jungle plateau where they must survive prehistoric perils if they ever hope to return to the outside world. 

For something lighter try the science fiction screwball romantic comedy The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis. A skeptical bridesmaid traveling to Roswell, New Mexico, for her best friend’s wedding, discovers an actual alien attempting to kidnap her. 

Amusement Park 

Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park by Andi Mulvihill 

Welcome to “Traction Park” where broken bones, friction burns and near drownings are all part of the fun! Andi Mulvihill humorously recounts his father’s twisted vision for an amusement park where the customer was in total control.  

You might also try Class Action Park, a feature-length documentary on HBO Max (sorry, this isn’t available on DVD) about one of the most dangerous amusement parks in America.  

Time Travel

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Time traveling historical researcher Ned Henry is sent from the destruction of the London Blitz to an  Oxford, England, construction project in 2050. Then he's sent to get some rest in a doctor-prescribed vacation to Victorian England, boating along the river Thames. This is a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. 

You might also enjoy other books by the same author and set in the same time travel history department. In Doomsday Book a young woman is traveling to medieval England. Blackout and All Clear are two books focusing on several historians throughout the London Blitz and World War II. 

Cruise

Cabin Fever: The Harrowing Journey of a Cruise Ship at the Dawn of a Pandemic by Michael Smith

All 1,234 passengers on Holland America’s cruise ship Zandaam were about to embark on a dream vacation: a month-long trip around the tip of South America. The date? March 8, 2020. Uh oh. 

You might also like The Passenger by Chaney Kwak. Off the Norwegian coast, the cruise ship Viking Sky was pummeled by 60-foot waves and 87-mile per hour winds. As the band played on, so to speak, travel writer Chaney Kwak contemplates his life and possible impending death. 

Space

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowder heads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so the newlyweds can get back to canoodling—and keep the real killer from striking again in this genre-mashup science fiction space mystery romance thriller. 

You might also enjoy Station Eternity by Muir Lafferty in which a woman who seems to attract murders takes refuge on a space station, until a shuttle of diplomats and tourists arrive and people start dying again, quickly. The graphic novel Know Your Station by Sarah Gailey is more of a permanent vacation for the 1% of the wealthiest people in the solar system who abandoned Earth for a private sanctuary in space, leaving the rest of us to die amidst cataclysmic climate change. But they won’t be safe for long. 

Beach

The Last Resort: A Chronicle of Paradise, Profit and Peril at the Beach by Sarah Stodola

Ah, welcome to your beach paradise. Enjoy the beautiful white sand – wait, where is the sand? Smell the salty air – I can’t, that stinking pile of seaweed is messing with my nose! Admire the beautiful sea view – difficult when that ugly breakwater is interfering!  

You might also like The New Tourist by Paige McClanahan, a thoughtful critique of the tourist industry. 

Romance 

Beach Read by Emily Henry

A literary fiction writer and a romance writer are complete opposites. The only things they have in common is that for the next three months they’re living in neighboring beach houses, they're broke, and bogged down with writer’s block. The summer goes awry when they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts.

You might also enjoy the romances People We Meet on Vacation and Happy Place, both by Emily Henry, The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas and Hate to Fake it to You by Amanda J. Sellet. 

European Vacation

An Innocent, A Broad by Ann Leary

A not uncommon fear among pregnant women is that the blessed event will unexpectedly happen in some public place and humiliating headlines will read: “Woman Gives Birth in Library, Bewildered Mother Thought She Just Had Stomachache!” To give birth prematurely in a foreign country during what was supposed to be a fun long weekend with your comedian husband would really be a nightmare. 

You might also like Bill Bryson’s rollicking, sometimes ribald adventures in Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe.

Classic and Literary

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Vacations don’t look the same in classic literature as they do in more modern stories, but vacations could still go terribly wrong. Lizzie Bennet just wanted a relaxing sightseeing journey through Derbyshire when she inadvertently stalked Mr. Darcy by touring his estate – awkward! 

You might also enjoy The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart about a wealthy spinster who takes a house in the country for the summer and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde – after some deception, all four characters arrive at a country home on the same weekend.

Family Vacation 

Black Wave: A Family’s Adventure at Sea and the Disaster that Saved Them by John and Jean Silverwood

Marital discord, John’s struggles as a recovering alcoholic, the kids longing to go home, debilitating sea sickness, dangerous gales, the very real threat of piracy, expensive and time-consuming boat repairs – this was sailing through paradise? 

You might also like Wavewalker, Suzanne Heywood’s memoir of her family’s decade long travels in the South Pacific. 

Written by Julie Nelson & Lissa Staley