This Class Trip Turned Into a 50-Hour International Travel Nightmare
The Houston-area high school students and teachers were heading back from a weeklong trip to Japan.
I was not in the class-trip-abroad tax bracket as a child, so I actually cannot imagine any part of the following story, which involves a weeklong trip to Japan, 31 teachers and students, and traveling around the entire world via a nightmare series of flight transfers. But even for those of you who did go on those trips, I bet most of this sounds pretty unfamiliar to you as well. According to reporting from KHOU 11 News, the group spent roughly 50 hours traveling home from Osaka, Japan to Houston, Texas recently.
The journey was documented on the teacher's TikTok account. Dr. Trevor Buffone first shared that he and his students were stuck in Japan after Japan Airlines and American Airlines lost the booking for the group—and that the next flight they could all take was in 12 days. For a trip that was just one week, and for just a handful of teachers responsible for a ton of high schoolers, that was an untenable situation.
Fortunately, American Airlines was able to find an alternate solution that would take just over two days, not 12. The catch? For the entirety of those two days, this horde of learners would be circling the entirety of the globe. First was a flight to Bangkok, where they had a nine-hour layover. Then a flight to Munich, where they had an 11-hour layover. Then they landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, before finally arriving in Houston.
"We traveled the entire circumference of the globe to get back to Houston," Buffone told KHOU 11 News. "I've been up for 50 hours. We're incredibly exhausted."
Check out the rest of Buffone and his students' adventures below. Despite the exhausting journey, the group seemed to make the most of the experience.