My best and worst vacation was a family trip to Thailand on August 2, 1990. I remember the exact date because it coincided with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. We lived in Bangladesh at the time. To start off, the flight path changed to avoid flying over certain countries - an ominous sign of what was to come.

Big deal right? I mean Bangladesh is an Islamic country but it is nowhere near Iraq. Wrong, a lot of people in the country were pro-Saddam. My father was grounded by his company, we were told that flying was an unnecessary risk and that we were to stay in Thailand until further notice. After a few weeks as refugees at a five-star hotel, things started to get expensive. We moved in with a family friend. We stayed on in Thailand for another month and a half - then decisions had to be made about school.

We got the go ahead to fly to Australia. We had a house there, but we had tenants and you can't just throw people onto the street because the political situation in the country you are living in forces you to suddenly return home. So, my family of five moved in with my cousin's family of five at a time when there were severe water restrictions. The house was big enough for one family - two was a squeeze.

Meanwhile things back in Bangladesh were tense. There were a lot of Kuwaiti kids at my school who had heard bad news from back home. Iraqi soldiers had looted them blind: gold, expensive watches and luxury cars had been taken - family members had been murdered. The school buses had to change their routes every day, and a whole bunch of my friends from different countries were evacuated. If they were nearing the end of their term in Bangladesh, they simply moved back home.

Three months had passed, so my parents decided to put us in school. The school donated uniforms to my family because we were only going to be there for a short time. The uniforms looked donated. But I made some good friends. Our tenants moved out and we went back to our house. My dad worked from home. Three months later we got the go ahead to return to Bangladesh - the only thing was that a good number of my friends had returned to their home countries, never to return.

The trip was supposed to take two weeks - it turned into a six-month adventure. Despite the hardship and uncertainty that we faced, I have fond memories of the time.

Image: A room at the Landmark Hotel in Bangkok, where I spent almost a month.

The worst trip ever was Las Vegas when I was 14 years old.

First being in a city like that with your parents who obviously would like to drink and gamble is not fun. I was there with a friend of mine, who was a year younger. I got sick from the heat at first, not used to it since I live in a rather rainy/dreary area. Secondly my friend decided this was a great time to run off and meet older men...I was 14 yeah guys woohoo but I wanted to go hang out, go on the rides, see the shows....I ended up by myself for one week in Las Vegas. Not fun.
My parents would hang out, take us to the museum, that was fine and dandy but it was only a couple hours, if I was lucky. I ended up get pushed to the ground outside O'shays, stepped on, some creep tried to get me in his car, I wandered really far away from the hotel, had to pay for a cab, which is not cheap mind you, lost my cellphone in the water, got yelled at by the police for being out by myself when I was looking for my parents, got questioned by security because I was eying the slot machines. UGH! It was horrible! I ended up staying in the hotel room majority of the time, upset, pissed off and wanting to rip my hair out. The city that has potential to be extremely fascinating, and I was looking at it through a 22nd story window. How lame! I have never willingly gone on a family vacation since, with the exception of going to see my younger cousins who idolize me. Luckily I will be 21 here soon so Vegas will NOT be a problem if I get deserted next time!

@tealmyster

Got 2.

1) Driving back to NJ from Penn from a Hersey Park vacation with the family. Somehow went the wrong way, and realizing it was taking us longer to get home then it did to get there we see a sign "Welcome to New York." We turned around at the next opportunity and found our way home. So getting home we went PA-NY-NJ.

2) Florida vacation. Getting there the flight was delayed at the airport from NJ because "they couldn't find the crew." Got there to our hotel 9one of the Disney Hotels) and they didn't tell us the tower part was under heavy renovation, and our room had a nice view of the construction and the closed pool. My mother also left the lights on in our rental car and we got a jumpstart and recharged the battery, from a Disney towtruck. Did I mention going to NASA in part of a tropical storm?

Went to Mexico to visit my ex-husband's parents for Christmas and was asked by him to pretend everything was all right even though we were having severe marital problems. Longest, most excruciating 12 days of my life. We separated a couple of days after we got home.

(Don't cry for me, Mahalo. I'm better off.) :)

When I was 5, we drove from San Diego to Montana. I was very unhappy so 1 year later we took a trip to Disneyland and to drop me off at my Dads back in San Diego.

On the way, we got stuck on a mountain pass in the snow, the battery died, and we had to be pushed by a semi down the mountain. Think about being 6, in the back of a jeep with a semi pushing you down a snowed in road. Horrifying.

The car died again in the desert so we sat around for about 6 hours in 100 degree heat until the car decided to work again. For some reason, instead of letting me stay at my Grandparents house in LA, we got a motel room in Long Beach.

I'll never forget the clerks exact words.

"It's cheap and we got baseball bats for the cockroaches"

We opened the room door and flipped on the light and about 500 cockroaches scrambled to their hiding places. I slept in the jeep miserably and the next day the Disneyland thing was horrible. I didn't care if I went there or not because I'd already been many times.

We went to my Dads but what I later found out that nobody ever even called him and they just lied to shut me up and the whole point of the trip was to bring home some ugly yellow truck.

Broke down 3 times between the 2 vehicles on the way back to terrible Montana.

Great vacation there!

I like to say that there will always be a part of me in Maryland. That's because at age 11, during a family vacation to Ocean City, Maryland, I had a sudden attack of acute appendicitis. I had to be sent by ambulance to the nearest hospital (one hour away) to have emergency surgery. And that was after having to take my aunt to the ER a day earlier because she fell in a hole while running on the beach and tore ligaments in her knee. Yup, that was a vacation that will go down in infamy!

I came from a very poor family. Every Monday when I was in the first grade kids were asked to relay their family's outings. We never went anywhere. Finally I could stand it no longer and relayed the following trip: Keep in mind this was 1955 and you will be able to see why the teacher knew it was not a true trip..."My mom and dad and I took off in a plane right after school on Friday. We went to Disneyland. (There was no Disney World in those days so I was referring to California and we lived in Illinois.) The plane ride was so fast it only took us 35 minutes. We stayed in a hotel with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Pluto. The next day we went to Fantasy Land and I spent the whole day making my dreams come true. Then that night we went out to eat and my dad took us to three different restaurants where we could all have what we wanted. The next day was scary though because we went to Adventure Land and a Native American almost shot my mom in the breast with an arrow" That was when the teacher made me sit down. It wasn't a real trip except in my mind but I thought you might enjoy the rantings of a little boy who was tired of being left out. To me at that time it was a very real trip. The teacher of course called my parents. I had a make-believe friend too--good thing she didn't know about that.