A woman showed what happens if you don’t stay vigilant about your surroundings when you are using GPS apps like Google Maps. Her trip to Venice didn’t quite go to plan
Whenever you’re using your phone to navigate, you should always remain aware of your surroundings. Spending too much time staring into your device can actually lead to you running into danger – and that’s exactly what happened to a tourist in Venice.
Wiktoria Guzenda was strolling around in the popular Italian city, which is famous for its bridges, picturesque canals and unique bridges. It can be a bit of a labyrinth if you don’t know where you’re going, especially with all the winding narrow streets.
And unfortunately, the Polish holidaymaker learned this the hard way. She took the advice of Google Maps a bit too literally when it asked her to “go straight” at a canal. As she couldn’t walk on water, she ended up stumbling into the murky channel and grazing her legs.
Wiktoria posted a video of her Venice fall onto Instagram as a cautionary tale to others. It has since garnered more than 14.7million views and 191,000 likes.
Locals pointed out they’ve seen plenty of tourists suffer similar fates in the past. This is likely to be because it is difficult to use GPS in locations where there’s lots of narrow streets and tall buildings.
What’s more, the waterways can be incredibly slippery. Moss and algae build-up can give steps a slick surface – so you should avoid going down them to take pictures.
One commenter said: “I think it has become almost impossible to count how many times this happens to tourists in Venice and how many people post about it on Instagram.”
Another agreed: “It must be so often. I had a local warn me while there and walking in a narrow ally along the water.”
And a third added: “This is like the 3rd video I have seen of this exact scenario… some of y’all have no survival skills… taking a picture at the top would have worked just fine.”
However, others had different theories about why Wiktoria fell into the canal.
One said: “She obviously wanted to stop at the last step and ended up falling in. She was just wanting a cute video and likely cut herself on the sharp shellfish that post up along the Venice waterways. Poor girl.”
Meanwhile, another agreed: “She probably wanted to do another video stopping right in front of the water, but she slipped.”
Either way, Wiktoria seems to have made a full recovery. In a recent vlog posted to her Instagram page, she was surrounded by her friends.
We’re glad she’s doing a lot better!