Two American travel influencers went viral this week after a vacation mishap sent them to the wrong country. The women, planning a getaway to Nice, France, instead boarded a plane bound for Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. As they posted through their experience the internet did its thing and ripped into the young women in real time.
The confusion, according to Brittney Dzialo—the more outspoken of the two—stemmed from a miscommunication at booking. “Nice,” pronounced “neese,” was apparently mistaken for “Tunis,” and the pair wound up with tickets to North Africa rather than the French Riviera. Once they boarded, there were clues that they were going to the wrong destination everywhere they looked: the words “Tunis Air” printed across the plane, headrest covers emblazoned with “Tunisia,” and fellow passengers headed decidedly south of France. They only realized the error after speaking with a flight attendant mid-boarding. By then, their luggage was already loaded, and it was too late to disembark.
“We’re supposed to go to Nice, France,” Dzialo said in one TikTok, capturing the disbelief on their faces. Instead, the pair touched down in Tunis and quickly found themselves in over their heads.
The videos that followed—nearly two dozen in all—documented the pair’s struggle to reroute their trip. Dzialo claims airline supervisors yelled at her, leaving her in tears, and that she had to invoke EU regulations just to be taken seriously. Eventually, after hours of back-and-forth, a sympathetic employee helped them board a flight to France, though only after they paid for new tickets and begged the captain to hold the plane.
By the time they finally arrived in Nice, Dzialo marked the moment with a TikTok captioned, “NICE COMMA FRANCE,” posing in front of a fountain as if to emphasize that they had, at last, reached their intended destination.
The internet, however, was less forgiving. The first video alone amassed more than 1.7 million views, with comments accusing the women of entitlement and ignorance. “Stop saying Africa and say Tunisia. I’m sorry, but you are just dumb,” one user wrote. Others pointed out the irony of expecting English-speaking staff in France, when both their intended and mistaken destinations were in countries where English is not the primary language.
On one hand, we get it. Anyone who’s navigated international travel knows how easy it is to make mistakes, to mishear a booking, to stumble through language barriers. On the other, the glaring signs—the name of the airline, the signage on the plane—made it hard for viewers to believe the influencers hadn’t noticed until the doors were nearly closed.
Whether the internet’s harsh judgment was fair or not, the pair inadvertently reminded millions that, sometimes, the journey matters more than the destination—especially when you’ve landed 500 miles away.
