In case you haven’t heard of How Two Live, the sisters are noted bloggers, social media addicts, shoe designers, globetrotters and are otherwise known as ‘those girls in the giant sunnies and even bigger platforms.’ Exhibit 1 (of many):
As a cautionary tale, and to give you an idea of the kind of entries wanted in Visa’s Holiday Replay competition in which Aussie globetrotters can win $20k to re-do their worst ever holiday experience, Jess Dadon and Stef Dadon of HTL are taking us on a trip down Memory Lane:
What happened on the holiday you wish you could replay?
The time had finally come for our long-awaited Euro trip. Our first stop was Paris, one of our favourite places in the world, and we couldn’t wait to explore all that the City of Light had to offer. High on the smell of freshly baked pastries, we headed to the closest ATM to withdraw a large amount of Euros, which we planned to stash for the month ahead. As we were waiting for the cash to come out, a young guy ran up yelling something in French, and held a sign over the ATM, which he was gesturing for us to read. For a moment we were startled, not sure what was going on, and before we knew it he was sprinting in the other direction, with our money nowhere to be seen. We quickly realised that he’d obviously been watching us enter our pin code, and sprung up just in time to snatch our cash. Apparently this kind of thing is common in Paris, and it all happened too quickly for us to realise what was going on. We think it’s safe to say there aren’t many worse ways to spend your very first day on holiday!
If you were able to do it all again, what would you change?
We’d ditch the idea of stashing cash, and stick to using our cards (which is what we did for the rest of the holiday!)
Despite all that, what were some of the highlights of visiting that destination?
Well, once we finally got over the shock of what had happened, boy were those pastries delicious! We obviously hit up all the typical tourist attractions like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but our favourite moments were shopping in the streets of Le Marais, exploring the artist square in Montmartre, and discovering some of our favourite cafes in the world.
Any other tales that come in second place for worst travel experience?
Rocking up to our guesthouse in Rome in the pouring rain, only to find that it didn’t exist!
From all you’ve learned on your many overseas adventures, what are your top tips for trotting the globe?
Always have a camera on hand, as you never know when the perfect insta moment might arise! And remember the essentials: phone (that’s charged), lip balm, sunglasses, pics of your pups, and cards – you never know when you might get into a sticky situation!
Have you ever lost your cash travelling? We know that feel bro. It hurts. It probably still hurts, but If you head here and tell us your story, you could win a chunk of the $75k up for grabs to do your holiday all over again, thanks to Visa.
