I looked and didn't find any matching so I'm going to start one!

I was exploring an abandoned cluster of buildings out in the middle of nowhere woods. And the only way to enter one building was through a 2 foot round hole in the wall or a 3 foot hole in the roof. I chose the wall and went in. There wasn't much visibility and a lot of holes in interior walls and junk cluttering the floor. We turned the corner at the very back and came across a flock of buzzards with their youngins. Needless to say they were pissed. We hightailed it to the hole but trying to get 3 people through that small of a hole gets even more difficult when rushed. Only getting pecked a few times before exiting.

Moral of my experience..... walk tall and with a big stick. But in all seriousness. I'm a lot more cautious about crawling through small holes in the woods.

Always have a great exit strategy

Floors near windows in wooden buildings suck. Also fuck bees. Just fuck em.

Posted by jeepdave fuck bees

I second this.
I was metal detecting at a place where I believe there used to be a factory. I found a brass kerosene lantern. While kicking some leaves out of the way I literally kicked the hornets nest. It was certainly unpleasant, and I learned not to shuffle leaves around willy nilly.

Snakes. Rattlesnakes to be specific. Especially when you rappel down into a bunch of them. Changing over from rappelling to ascending all the while hoping you don't get bit by one of the bastards just sucks. Makes for good stories, but still sucks.

Abby Normal

My biggest mistake was probably when I kicked a door open in broad daylight. When I was 15 I thought that if its abandoned no one will care. Well I figured out pretty quick that someone will always care and its better to play it safe and stealthy than to just kick down doors without a second thought and get caught by the cops

Posted by PolyBlank get caught by the cops

You can't just leave it there I must hear more!

Not trusting my own instincts and listening to others. Recipe for problems every time

Probably walking through a door in a subway vent and letting it close behind me, forcing me to call a friend to let me out.

That, or taking along a Vice writer to a historic abandonment that was previously off the map.

Posted by Trout na bout You can't just leave it there I must hear more!

Not much more to hear about it to be honest. The cops took my knife and made us stand with our heads on our head for a while. The only reason I was let go was probably because of my age and me freaking out. It was awkward getting over a waist high fence in full view of the cops though.

Posted by Steed That, or taking along a Vice writer to a historic abandonment that was previously off the map.

And they call themselves journalists? I already had low expectations going in because it's Vice, but that article somehow managed to go even lower. That entire article is just insulting the locals, penis jokes, and trying to sound edgy by emphasizing the "illegal" aspect of urbex. That article was the complete opposite of "professional." I can see why you consider showing them the plane a mistake.

I don't have any crazy stories so here is a funny one.

Me, the girl, the big little bro (6'6" and 230 pounds, 22 years old ) and his girl were in the basement complex of an old hospital. The particular wing we were in was part of the mental health side (of course).

While exploring we heard a rather loud bang in a room right next to us. So us two guys, being strong manly men, went to investigate. We slowly entered the room and the doorway was built in with a small turn to the left creating an area you could not see until you were fully in the room.

As I entered the room a rat or small rodent bolted from the middle of that area to a hole in the wall. I jumped back and laughed as we realized it had knocked over a wall vent cover causing the bang.

As for the lesson learned it wasn't until the following week when watching a scary movie that I caught myself calling the actor an idiot for investigating some bumps he had heard which led to his death.

It was at that point it dawned on me that I am that idiot that goes to investigate unknown bumps

Posted by Aran And they call themselves journalists?

That was awful.... I am certain I lost IQ while reading that. Foul, unclassy, and about as disrespectful as one can get. How can people enjoy reading this junk?

My biggest mistake was going on a last minute explore (read that as impulsive decision) and not going prepared. It was probably the easiest location we have up here and turned out to be my worst one. It really was lack of preparation and being careless. The location involved a lengthy hill to get there and I didn't have the proper footwear for the conditions and ended up with a bad fall down the hill with many trees. Think Chris Farley in Black Sheep for anyone who's seen that movie! I sorta laid at the bottom of the hill, wrapped around a log and thought "what the f just happened"

Lesson learned.

Funny story now but could have been very bad.

Posted by Nihil Novi I found a brass kerosene lantern. While kicking some leaves out of the way I literally kicked the hornets nest. I

I third? this.

When my brother in law was 3 or 4 his dad drove the riding mower over a hornets' nest. Little dude was stung so many times he was hospitalized for nearly a week.
F. All. That.

Posted by 4Valhal It was at that point it dawned on me that I am that idiot that goes to investigate unknown bumps

I think that if real life was a horror movie, we'd all be the ones to die to the opening scene to a mysterious offscreen monster, just to introduce it to the audience. After all, we make a habit of sneaking around "haunted" buildings, drains, insane asylums, and Abandoned Factories of Doom.

On a different note, my worst mistake was not knowing how to play it cool. This was not long after I first started exploring, and I was a bit of a cocky teenager at the time. After exploring an abandoned paper mill, I decided to brazenly wander through the front gates of the adjacent scrapyard because I didn't see any workers around. Well, they saw me. Then, instead of trying to talk my way out of it, I made a poorly executed attempt to hide under a pile of crushed cars, where I was promptly found. They kicked me out, tailed several blocks back to my car, and boxed me in with their trucks until they got my license plate number. Then they sent the police to my front door with accusations of "industrial espionage."

I talked my way out of that police visit and even ended up shaking the hand of the responding officer, but it was still my biggest screwup.

Posted by Lola AB My biggest mistake was going on a last minute explore (read that as impulsive decision) and not going prepared. It was probably the easiest location we have up here and turned out to be my worst one. It really was lack of preparation and being careless. The location involved a lengthy hill to get there and I didn't have the proper footwear for the conditions and ended up with a bad fall down the hill with many trees. Think Chris Farley in Black Sheep for anyone who's seen that movie! I sorta laid at the bottom of the hill, wrapped around a log and thought "what the f just happened" Lesson learned. Funny story now but could have been very bad.

You probably didn't commit an error this extreme, but I now tell novice girls I meet not to wear high heels.

Posted by Aran And they call themselves journalists? I already had low expectations going in because it's Vice, but that article somehow managed to go even lower. That entire article is just insulting the locals, penis jokes, and trying to sound edgy by emphasizing the "illegal" aspect of urbex. That article was the complete opposite of "professional." I can see why you consider showing them the plane a mistake.

Note my lack of the use of the J-word. The two worst parts of the article, I thought, were:
-he got the city wrong. This is absolutely not in Seoul. We took a train to get there. Not that I wanted that corrected, obviously.

-he identified the POE, which was a spontaneous discovery during that visit by a friend calling it out and me doing some acrobatics.

Still unsure of what the hell it was doing there, we decided to break in. It was all locked up but amazingly one of my mates managed to slip through a window, no bigger than a small cat, that had been left open on the stairwell up to the aircraft’s entry door.

After his article went out, it put the site on the map and we started getting a flood of white English teachers from Japan visiting Korea to haikyo that shit. After a year or two of this, the property owners felt heat under their collars and had the thing demolished. I still believe his article, both through its exposure and its tone, had an influence on that decision.

Also, that same day, we went back into the city and went to a punk show. The same writer wanted to do an article on Korean punk, so I introduced him to a bunch of people to interview. I also agreed to give him some of my pictures for his article, as this along with UE is kind of my thing over here. The article turned out to be a photo essay. My name appears nowhere in it.

Posted by Steed The article turned out to be a photo essay. My name appears nowhere in it.

I run security at a local live metal venue and this happens all the damn time to the amateurs that come and take amazing pics for their blog and Flickr. Some of the 'Pros' out there are little more than thieves.

Some people just need to be taken out back and taught some respect.

Posted by jeepdave Floors near windows in wooden buildings suck. Also fuck bees. Just fuck em.

Not trying to turn this into a bee forum but I was trying to get into an abandonment and there was a road leading to it but there were lots of residential houses and my friend and I decided this was too public to be just walking down the dirt road so we went around. We had to sneak through a construction site and crawl through an actual bee farm. We went through all that to get the this place only for me to find out that my boyfriend knew the guy who owned it so I could have just asked and he would have been more than happy to let us go take pictures.
I had so many scratches, bruises, bee stings etc.

Posted by Steed You probably didn't commit an error this extreme, but I now tell novice girls I meet not to wear high heels.

LOL I usually don't wear those on a good day. I had hiking boots but should have had some spikes too. There was a nice layer of ice right under the dirt.