We’ve all had those moments where traveling sucks. Sometimes it’s because a flight is missed or we get stuck in a middle seat, sometimes we get lost when we don’t want to, sometimes we get sick from something we ate.

Last night I had one of those ‘traveling sucks’ moments. My flight was delayed, which was likely going to cause me to miss my train into the city… with just enough time to make connections before the subway closed, but the people in the customs line who had to look up where they were staying after they got up to the counter solidified that chance.

Plan B was to take a bus into town and then an expensive (estimated at $45) taxi to the hotel from the bus station, but then I had a better idea. I tweeted to Hyatt and asked them to change my reservation even though it was past the allowable timeframe, and they were willing to… So, I made a booking at a hotel closer to the airport that said they had a 24-hour shuttle, only to call them to request the shuttle and be told that the shuttle wasn’t actually a 24-hour shuttle.

By this point I had just missed the 12:00 am bus, and the next bus on that line wasn’t until 1:00 am. At this point I was getting near the verge of breakdown mode. I was tired, hungry, and frustrated. It had been 12 hours since I had left my hostel in Kuala Lumpur.

I tweeted back to Hyatt and asked them to change my reservation back, found a different bus that was scheduled to depart Osaka Kansai Airport at 12:30 am that would get me about the same distance from my hotel, just at a different bus station.

It all ended well – I made it to my hotel and was able to check in and get some sleep, and the taxi only cost $35, making my total cost from the airport $47. Ouch. But better than a $140 taxi straight from the airport.

Lesson Learned: When arriving into an airport late at night, make sure to look up late-night transit options and plan accordingly.

Sometimes traveling sucks, but that’s okay. It’s a part of the journey and gives you a reason to be excited when crazy plans go off without a hitch 🙂