The Night I Lost Everything. Gained Perspective.
How one missing backpack in Estonia became a masterclass in staying cool.
Recently, I was in Estonia. Long day trip. Fourteen hours on my feet, two islands, mainland Estonia, two planes, two ferries, several ridesshares, and around 10 busses. By the time I got back to Tallinn in the evening, all I wanted was a quick dinner and lots of sleep.
Dinner? Great. Rideshare back? Great as well. Then I reached for my room key to get into the hotel…and realized my daypack was gone.
Inside: my wallet, passport, chargers, and AirPods. Oh, and the key. It was 11 p.m.
I could’ve panicked — and maybe I did, a little. But panic doesn’t help. Calm does. So I asked myself, what’s in my control right now?
Three places it could be: the restaurant, the bar I’d stopped in afterward, or the rideshare I’d taken between the two. Problem? Both locales were closed, and as anyone who’s ever dealt with rideshare support can tell you…they’re not the most helpful.
I messaged one on Facebook, and then remembered: my AirPods were in the bag.
Find My → Ping → There they were. Still sitting quietly where I’d last been.
Ok. Step one: sleep. I can’t control the time they open, but I can be rested enough to deal with it in the morning.
In the morning, I woke up to see they had replied overnight: they wouldn’t open until 2 p.m., but they’d try and be in a bit early and check around noon.
Fine. I asked my hotel for a late checkout; they said, “Of course.” I asked if they had a charger I could borrow; they handed me two. People help you more when you’ve been kind to them on prior interactions and stay kind, not frantic.
I never did hear back from the place at noon, so around 12:30 I went and camped out front. A few minutes later, the kind owner came out holding a bag: “looking for this?” Passport, wallet, everything. Still there. Still mine.
That night, after managing to carry on with my trip and make it to my next stop, I kept thinking how easy it would have been to spiral…to let one mistake ruin a trip.
But it turned out to be the opposite: a quiet reminder that travel, like life, rarely goes to plan. You can’t control what happens, but you can control how you handle it.
And sometimes, that makes all the difference.
💡 Five Takeaways for the Road
1️⃣ Always leave a backup VISA (not just AmEx or Mastercard - Visa…it’s everywhere you want to be) in your hotel safe or at a minimum in a hidden compartment in your luggage in case you lose your main wallet.
2️⃣ Keep color photocopies of your passport somewhere separate, it’ll save you time at the embassy if worse comes to worst.
3️⃣ Track your stuff. Use AirTags, “Find My,” or anything similar. It’s peace of mind in your pocket.
4️⃣ Cash is king. Keep it in multiple places, because not every country is tap-to-pay friendly and cash can get you out of even the worst of situations
5️⃣ Duplicate your essentials. Glasses, meds, chargers…anything you can’t function without should have a twin.
Travel teaches you that control is mostly an illusion, but composure is a skill.
Lose your cool, and you lose twice. Stay calm, stay kind, and the world has a funny way of giving back.
✨ Your turn:
What’s the worst travel mishap you’ve had and how did you handle it?
👇 Tell me in the comments.
Great post! So cool and collected! Comes with age though. The older you get, the more you realize what you can and cannot control. Glad it worked out well. 👏🏾
Worst mishap-my wallet left on top of my car while fueling up in Utica. Was there for the Boilermaker race. Realized I left it there when I got to Walmart to buy some snacks for the morning before the race. It’s probably still somewhere on the highway. Luckily my passport was in my hotel room and I didn’t have anymore purchases I had to me before heading home.