Then you’re in the right place!

As part of my Inspiring Traveler series, I got the opportunity to interview full-time traveler Megan Tenney, who also runs the blog Family Gap Year Guide.

Get this:

Megan has been traveling full time with her family for over two years, and they’re still going strong and loving the adventure.

Below, Megan shares her top tips for living on the road with family, including advice on trip planning, roadschooling the kids, funding the lifestyle, and more.

Note: This post on how to travel full-time with a family features affiliate links to trusted partners I think you’ll love!

Where To Travel Next (Free Travel Personality Quiz!)

Wondering where to start your full time travel adventure or simply where to go for your next trip?

Take my free travel personality quiz for suggestions based on your unique interests:

After you take the quiz, keep reading for advice on long-term travel with family.

Expert Tips For Traveling Full Time With Family (Interview)

1. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview on how to travel the world with family. To get started, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

Absolutely, and thanks for having me as a guest on your blog!

My name is Megan and my family of six has been traveling full-time for over two years now. Our kids are 12, 9, 7, and 4 (boy, girl, boy, girl).

I grew up in Maine and then lived in Arizona with my husband, where he’s from, for 13 years before we hit the road. We both have a background in teaching and the performing arts, and I’ve been a blogger for 12 years and now also work in digital advertising.

Earlier this year I started a new website, Family Gap Year Guide, where we share our travel adventures and teach other families how to take life on the road!

2. Before you hit the road, you note on your blog that you were miserable from having jam-packed schedules that ultimately felt unfulfilling. What led you to choose full time family travel as a way to change this?

I’m sure a lot of families can identify — we just kept saying yes to everything and ended up with a calendar that was overflowing.

Originally, when we were feeling burned out, I confided that I wanted to move back to the east coast. We realized that if we were going to sell our house and move anyway, there was no reason we couldn’t take some time to travel before buying our next house.

We both had long bucket lists and wanted to see the world.

The list of places we wanted to visit would have taken us years and years, taking short trips in between work, school, and other commitments. We were overjoyed when we realized that traveling full-time meant we could go everywhere on our lists, one right after the other!

3. What were some of the important steps you took to prepare for the leap into full-time travel with a family?

The biggest step was definitely selling our house. We had to go through all of our belongings and decide what to sell, giveaway, store, or bring with us. We had a huge yard sale, made many trips to Goodwill, and filled up a 10’x10’ storage unit.

I was already working an online job that could be done remotely, and my husband switched to a part-time remote job. We had to file an affidavit with our state, saying we intended to homeschool our kids, and then we were free from all ties!

We directed our mail to my parents’ house, sketched out a general route we planned to take across the US for the next nine months, gave our van a tune-up, and booked our first Airbnb for four weeks on Whidbey Island, near Seattle.

4. When it comes to education, you homeschool — or, as you call it on your blog, “roadschool” — your kids. What does this look like and how did you prepare for teaching on the road?

We’ve definitely honed our homeschooling skills over the past two years, but it didn’t take long to get into a pretty solid routine.

My husband works some mornings and evenings, and I work during the day, so he took on most of the homeschooling. We use free online resources, like Khan Academy, along with workbooks and reading books, and then we try to incorporate local learning opportunities in each destination we visit.

Here are just a few experiences we’ve had because of where we were located:

• Learned about the Oregon Trail — on the Oregon Trail
• Toured all three branches of government in Washington DC
• Learned about the Battle of the Alamo — at the Alamo
• Went clamming and learned how to cook clams
• Learned about space at the Griffith Observatory
• Took a sandcastle-building lesson in Texas
• Watched Louisville Sluggers being made in Kentucky
• Saw hot air balloons take off in New Mexico

With all of the personal attention they get, the kids are flying through their schoolwork and are several grades ahead of where they would be in school.

In addition, we’ve incorporated a lot of life skills into their day, so they know how to cook meals, do laundry, and care for the little ones. Our oldest son even started doing about an hour of work a day for my father’s software company, so he’s learning about computer programming and already logging work experience that will serve him well in the future.

This is a super well-rounded system of schooling that we feel is really preparing our kids to face the world as adults!

I wrote all about our system in my Ultimate Guide to Roadschooling!

5. Let’s talk a bit about the financial aspect of traveling full-time. How did you pinpoint how much money to save before hitting the road?

We saved nothing!

I don’t necessarily recommend that, but our decision was a little last-minute and we had next to no savings.

Since we are working while we travel, we budget with the funds we have coming in.

6. What were some strategies you used to save money for full-time travel, and how do you fund the lifestyle now?

I work full-time at a wonderful remote job, and that income is enough to cover our regular expenses with a little for savings.

Additionally, my husband works part-time, and as a side hustle, I make money travel blogging. We use those funds as our “fun money” for dining out or extra activities that aren’t in the day-to-day budget.

The major factor to being able to afford full-time travel is if you’re willing to give up the safety of having a homebase. If you sell or rent your home, you no longer have a mortgage or rent payments and can put that money toward lodging while you travel.

But also, think of how many of your bills are associated with your house — electricity, gas, water, insurance, internet, landscaping, pest control, HOA, and so on. Those all go away!

Once we sold our house, we still had to pay for our car insurance, storage unit, cell phone bill, regular living expenses like food and gas, and subscriptions like Netflix and Hulu. That’s about it!

We mostly stay in Airbnbs for a month at a time. This allows us to take advantage of hefty discounts that Airbnb owners sometimes offer for longer stays — often up to 50-80% off!

It also means we have a little bit of stability — not always rushing off to a new place every few days — and lets us fully experience each destination like locals!

7. You run your blog from the road, so I’m curious how you balance blogging with traveling with family full-time?

In addition to traveling and blogging, I also work a full-time job! So yes I’m pretty busy, but that fits my personality. I love to work, and I love my job, so I’m happy to log on every day, and I spend a lot of my free time before and after my regular work hours working on my blog.

As I mentioned, my husband does most of the homeschooling, and we get lots of family time because we are always together.

On the weekends and in the evenings we make sure to explore the location we’re in, and I’m an ultra-organized planner, so that helps us keep track of everything.

8. What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced while traveling full-time as a family? How have you overcome them?

The biggest challenge was just making the decision to go — to pull kids out of school, to sell our house, to leave our town.

After we discovered how awesome full-time traveling is, we never looked back. The pandemic has been a big challenge because we had plans to travel overseas that have been pushed back an entire year, and in the meantime, we’ve just kept traveling within the US.

We want to make sure we’ve done all the traveling we want to do before we settle down again, so we’re kind of just biding time now, but we’re doing it in all of our favorite locations and some new ones.

9. What is one of your favorite short travel stories from the road that really exemplifies your perfect moment traveling as a family?

I love this question because I could share some very polarizing examples of what full-time family travel looks like!

We’ve had lots of incredible experiences, such as the day we gathered on the beach in south Texas to watch a rehabilitated sea turtle return to the ocean…and then there was the day we sat in non-moving traffic for seven hours because of an accident on the highway.

A lot of days are very normal for us — we do work and school, cook meals, clean the house, etc. And then some days we are touring the White House or hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Recently we were traveling through Kansas, and my husband had our three oldest kids gathered in a corner of the hotel room, reading scenes from Romeo and Juliet and then watching a few different versions of the play on YouTube.

Later that day we explored a salt mine, 650 feet underground! It has been so fun to be creative with what we learn and see while traveling.

10. What advice would you give a family looking to leave the settled 9-to-5 life to travel full-time and roadschool their children, but who may be nervous?

First, I would say that you will never regret it. It’s a little cliche, but you only live once! Don’t get stuck in a day-to-day life that isn’t making you happy.

Second, you don’t have to adopt this lifestyle forever.

Plan a family gap year and try it out for 12 months. If you love it, keep going — if it’s not for you, then it was a great adventure and you can go right back home and settle down again.

11. In terms of a practical tip, what is the first thing a family wanting to travel the world full-time should do, in your opinion?

I definitely think the first thing to do would be to take a look at your finances and figure out how you would budget for a year or more of full-time travel.

If you’re going to save up first, you might have to limit the amount of time you plan to travel, but if you have jobs that you can take on the road, then you can probably travel indefinitely!

I have a great guide focused on how to budget for full-time travel, and you can grab that for free here!

And, since that first step isn’t necessarily a fun step, the second step is planning the locations you want to visit. Way more fun!

Create a list of places you’d like to go — maybe have each member of the family make separate lists and see where you overlap — and then sketch out a route.

Hop on Airbnb.com and look for stays in those locations and create a favorites list to revisit when you’re ready to book.

12. What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned from the road?

Hands down, the most important lesson I’ve learned is that there’s no “right” way to live your life.

If you only do what you think is “normal” then you’re missing out.

I’ve always been a rule-follower, so I pushed back on the idea at first, thinking, “People just don’t do this. We can’t do this.”

But we can and we did, and you can do it, too!

Do you have any tips for traveling full time with family to add?

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Then you’re in the right place!

As part of my Inspiring Traveler series, I got the opportunity to interview full-time traveler Lana Katsaros, who also runs the blog Happily Curated Chaos.

Get this:

Before she sold everything to travel with her husband and son, Lana took on a passion project that involved DIY-ing a 6,000-square-foot Tudor in New York for five years.

Despite all of the things her family had amassed in this home, not to mention the fact that she and her husband had steady jobs, they wound up eventually selling everything and traveling — as well as learning how to world school their son.

Below, Lana shares her story of breaking free of a stressful cycle that limited her joy to instead make the world a home and a classroom.

Additionally, she offers tips on how you can do this yourself, including insight into how she funds this lifestyle.

Free Travel Personality Quiz

But first…

Before we dive into how to sell everything you own and travel, I invite you to take my free travel personality quiz.

Answer a few short and fun questions and uncover where you should travel next based on your personality.

Each destination has been carefully curated to offer a unique experience that you’ll love.

How To Sell Everything You Own And Travel The World (Worldschooling Tips Included!)

1. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. To get started, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hi! I am Lana and I am a world school mom who travels full time.

We are currently perched in the Netherlands while I finish up my vegan chef diploma and we ride out this pandemic.

I am a children’s wellness author and vegan nutritionist and have worked wellness and vegan exploration into our travels.

My husband, Joey is a composer and is the other half of our blog, Happily Curated Chaos.

2. Before your family traveled full-time, you took on a passion project that involved DIY-ing a 6,000 sq/ft Tudor in New York for five years.

This project even led to you putting your eight-week honeymoon through France and Italy on hold, a decision you’ve mentioned on your website that you would change if you could go back in time.

Why is this?

I suppose we all have an idea of what the American dream is, and I was just going through the motions of “being successful” and proving it with a big house.

We loved the creative process but hated the responsibility of a big house for just the two of us. If we could go back in time, I would have picked a week in Italy over a water heater any day.

We love homeownership and bringing a property back to life, don’t get me wrong! It was just the wrong time to root ourselves when we had explored so little.

3. What was it ultimately that led you to make the leap into full-time travel?

I had two brick and mortar shops, a child in full-time therapy, and a sick dad; travel looked pretty hopeless, yet it was a big desire for us.

Eventually, my dad got so sick, we had to close down the shops and move close to him.

During this time my son had done really well with occupational therapy and his schedule began to free up and we learned more about nurturing his needs and using yoga and meditation as a tool.

Sadly my dad wound up passing and suddenly we were living in a place we hated with no one to take care of and nothing keeping us in the states.

Our son is homeschooled as well, so if we didn’t leave then, I have no idea when an opportunity would happen again.

4. One major goal for your family was to “live with less things, and more of each other” which when I read it really sort of made my heart stop for a moment it was quite an impactful thought.

So I’m curious:

How did you begin this process of purging your physical things, and how do you feel it’s helped build a stronger connection in your family?

When we lived in New York, we worked a lot.

A 70 hour week was pretty normal, plus an intense commute. When we left the 6,000-square-foot house, most of the stuff wound up on the curb.

I realized I enslaved myself to just buy material possessions and disposable things. I really just worked for the weekends to have time with my husband and friends and to cook.

That thought made me extremely sad once I realized the cycle I was in.

What if we just had less stuff, less to worry about and all that money saved went to time spent together doing things that make our hearts full?

What if I didn’t want to be an executive and I just wanted to grow food and feed my family healthy meals and spend time in the sun?

Why were we complicating things?

So sure, we make less money, but we are also a full-time family homeschooling as we explore the corners of the earth.

Tiny pinecones and seashells have become treasured items instead of things that would eventually wind up in a landfill.

5. Now before moving you and your husband, Joey, had full-time jobs as a marketing executive and composer.

How did you both get to that point where you were officially thinking, “Okay, yes, we’re definitely doing this!” and what did you do to ensure you’d be financially secure moving forward?

We invested in real estate.

When we left New York, we bought a tiny cottage in Nashville and an investment property we short term rented.

We sold them both and bought a compound in West Palm that acts as a holiday rental, as well.

It became pretty popular and people like having weddings and gatherings there as well as photoshoots.

With the pandemic, there is a ban, but we are hopeful we can safely open our doors again soon.

6. You also had a small child, Atlas, who was six at the time you decided to shift into full-time travel.

What did your trip planning process look like, and what were some important considerations for your family during this process?

I am a pretty intense planner.

I planned the first six months of travel aligned with lesson plans.

The core of everything was to spend time together after feeling so raw from the passing of my father.

Secondary was to make everything a teaching moment without some elaborate arsenal of material to lug around.

This involved seeking appropriate museums, sensory-rich activities, and any social elements for Atlas.

This has been a cooking class in Italy to skateboarding lessons in London to an amazing school group in Holland.

Next, what vegan food could be found?

If those three things could happen, that’s all we needed.

7. While you travel full-time, you and your husband also world school your son.

For those who are unfamiliar with this idea, can you explain what world schooling is, how it works, and some of the benefits?

The world becomes your classroom.

The forest becomes a science lab.

Climbing mountains in Italy searching for waterfalls becomes PE.

A museum becomes a history lesson.

So much is out there, and so much of it is free. There are endless resources, guides, and other families to connect with.

I believe world schooling is what suits you. It’s hard to force it into a definition.

Some travel slow, some fast. Some only go with groups.

Using the world as your guide is the best way to explain it for us.

It’s beneficial to us because you can talk at children all you want, but until they see things unfold and understand for themselves, real learning doesn’t happen.

For example, we looked at photos of recycled sculptures in the woods, but until we went to see and touch and climb, they weren’t really real.

8. What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced while traveling full-time as a family? How have you overcome them?

In terms of challenges while traveling full time with family, the pandemic has taken our income away, so that’s been pretty tough!

Additionally, once in Paris our Airbnb host never let us in, and it was late at night.

You have to be flexible. You can’t do this and not be.

Plan all you want, but life is going to throw the most random stuff at you and you need to be willing to roll with it.

Another example:

During the only time we flew during this adventure, our flight over-landed us in a city we didn’t book with our luggage missing for a week and us needing to book a train to get to our accommodations a day late.

The airline took no responsibility and we had to pay for everything out of pocket!

9. What is one of your favorite stories from the road that really exemplifies your perfect moment traveling as a family?

Lake Como, Italy. Renting a boat on a cloudy day with no one else on the water was so much fun and wildly therapeutic for us.

It was the first time we just did nothing all day and it was so beautiful, it looked fake.

Everyone was smiles all day, it was perfect.

10. What advice would you give a family looking to leave the settled 9-to-5 life to travel full-time and world school their children, but who may be nervous?

Just do it.

And if you fail?

It’s okay!

It’s not going to go the way it is in your head anyway, so you may as well try.

And sometimes try, try again. It’s worth every botched accommodation, late train, and language barrier.

11. In terms of a practical tip, what is the first thing a family wanting to begin traveling full-time should do, in your opinion?

Map out your first six months in totality.

Download all your apps, find travel WiFi, make your curriculum, and do as much as you can before you leave because you can’t predict when you will have a clear head and space to plan again.

Study Googles Maps, walk down the streets, join all the Facebook groups, and only bring what you absolutely need!

Things may not go as planned, but all this information will be cataloged in your head and often super useful when you least expect it.

12. What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned from the road?

We need far less than we are made to believe.

Clean air, clean food, time with those you love, and something to look forward to seem to be the recipe for happiness for us.

Also, don’t wait. The second you can, book that one way flight.

It’s worth it.

Do you have any advice on how to sell everything you own and travel the world?

Any travel tips for those trying to transition into a full-time nomadic life?

Other Inspiring Traveler Stories:

How To Start A New Life Abroad

How One Woman’s Cancer Journey Led Her To Sell Everything & Travel

Kilimanjaro Trekking: A Healing Experience Summiting Africa’s Highest Mountain

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Then you’re in the right place.

In this eye-opening, empowering, and educational guide, Efia Sulter —the travel blogger behind Effy Talks Life — shares what it is like traveling solo as a Black woman.

On Jessie on a Journey, I’m passionate about not only sharing my own realities traveling the world, but also the experiences of other travelers.

For a long time, diversity in travel has been grossly lacking, which essentially leads to a space where many people, particularly those who don’t look like the smiling face on the typical travel agency brochure, don’t feel heard or included.

But in my opinion, travel is an incredibly enriching experience that everyone should be able to enjoy, confidently and safely.

That’s why these interviews are important. In my own words, I can only speak to my own experience as a White millennial solo female traveler from the United States.

But by amplifying the voices of others — in this case, sharing Efia’s experience as a Black solo female traveler — my hope is that other Black women can feel more confident hitting the road solo and that non-Black travelers can gain a better understanding of a reality that isn’t their own.

Why?

So that we can move closer and closer toward a truly inclusive travel industry.

Read on to hear Efia’s stories from the road, snag solo travel tips, educate yourself on the Black travel experience (particularly for women traveling on their own), and learn how travel brands and non-Black nomads can be better allies.

The Black Solo Female Travel Experience

1. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview! To start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure! I’m Efia. I’m the creator of the lifestyle and travel blog Effy Talks Life and the author of the solo travel e-book Girl, Solo – A Modern Guide To Travelling Alone.

Really my whole ethos is centered around empowering millennial women to live the lives of their dreams.

I started solo traveling back in 2016 and at that point, I was scared out of my damn mind and dealing with a lot internally too.

Over the past four years, I’ve really grown into myself, in both life and travel, and it’s my mission to inspire other women to do the same!

2. What is your favorite aspect of traveling solo? Any reason you choose it over other travel styles?

Oh, the freedom!

You can do whatever you want whenever you want to do it.

You want to take a nap? Go for it!

Want to gorge out on a six-course meal? Done.

That and the people you meet. Through traveling solo, I’ve made some really incredible friendships.

3. Black solo travel is inherently different than other types of solo travel. What are some challenges you have faced as a solo Black female traveler, and how have you overcome them or handled them?

There have been a lot of instances of racism. Though none have stopped me from traveling, it’s hard to forget about those moments.

When people think about racism they think white hoods and disgusting remarks, when actually it’s the day-to-day racism that can almost go undetected that is one of the biggest frustrations.

I would say there is no one way to deal with them. So each time I handle it differently.

There’s a lot of pressure on Black travelers as you become the representative for your entire race. Even if something does hurt or offend you there’s this feeling of needing to be careful.

You don’t want to be branded as the angry Black woman, because then that will mean the same for every Black woman that comes after you.

4. What is one thing you wish non-Black solo travelers understood about the Black solo travel experience?

Just how varied they are. Often when I share my experiences of Black solo travel I’m met with remarks like, “Well, how do you know it’s because you were Black?”

We’ve been experiencing racism since the moment we were born. We know. We always know.

So even if you can’t relate, just acknowledge and don’t downplay someone’s experience.

Traveling solo as a woman has its challenges, and traveling as a Black woman has an extra layer. It’s important to acknowledge that.

When I was writing my solo travel e-book it was really important for me to shine a light on some of the things Black women may experience and how to deal with that because that’s something that isn’t generally discussed.

But it’s crucial to prepare all women for what they may experience when they travel solo.

5. What destination(s) have been the most welcoming to you as a Black solo female traveler? Why?

Hmm, I think that’s a challenging question. It’s easier to identify the ones where you feel uncomfortable.

6. What destination(s) have been more challenging for you as a Black solo female traveler? Why?

Well interestingly, I live abroad in Australia, but I do find that I’ve experienced many many racial microaggressions.

People telling me I’m hot (for a Black girl), that I speak good English — or they might ask where I learned to speak English — as well as that I can’t be from Scotland because I’m Black.

Hearing that repeatedly is frustrating because it feels like my identity is being scrutinized; that no matter where I go there will always be someone who thinks I’m out of place.

7. What is something you know now that you wish you’d know before taking your first solo trip?

Just how easy it is to meet people. I spent a lot of time stressing that I would be alone the whole time and that I wouldn’t meet anyone.

Actually that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

On my first solo trip, I made a friend within my first 10 minutes at the hostel.

Funnily enough, we bumped into each other around the world a few more times over the following two years, too!

8. How can the travel industry better support Black travelers?

How much time do we have?

The travel industry is falling extremely short:

• Equal pay for Black creators,
• diversifying press trips,
• hiring Black models,
• not just using one token picture on Instagram and social media,
• hearing the frustrations of Black customers and actioning them,
• hiring Black employees at the top levels of their organizations,
• marketing to Black travelers…

Not just using performative allyship on social media but stepping all the way up.

9. How can non-Black nomads be better allies to Black travelers on the road?

I think it starts with having the difficult anti-racist conversations with family, friends, and other travelers.

Also examining their implicit biases. Ask:

Where can I do better?

If you don’t know, don’t go to a Black person and ask.

If you’re in the travel industry, look around. Do you only see faces that look like you? How can you hold companies and brands accountable?

Are you willing to do that even if it means potentially losing out on some of your own work or followers?

10. What advice would you give to Black women considering taking their first solo trip, but who may be on the fence?

There are always going to be people who don’t appreciate you. Who will hate your beautiful Black skin. I’m so sorry you will have to deal with this.

But please:

Don’t let it stop you from seeing the world. It’s just as much your right as it is anyone else’s.

Though I’ve shared some uncomfortable situations, the good has by far outweighed the bad.

If you get the opportunity to go take it with both hands while keeping your eyes open.

11. As a solo traveler, what are some of your favorite travel brands or apps? Why?

I love the Maps.me app and also the XE Currency app.

These are absolute lifesavers and make solo traveling just that little bit easier.

12. Can you share a solo female travel tip that can help make this style of travel easier for others?

I think for me it would have been comforting to know that all those feelings of fear of traveling alone are normal.

But feeling the fear and doing it anyway was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I urge you to do the same!

13. Let’s chat about future travel. What’s on the horizon for your solo travel plans?

Next year I want to go all out and do a Eurotrip for two or three months.

No holds barred! Island hopping. Pizza eating. The works.

Despite being from Scotland when I lived in the UK I really didn’t see enough of Europe and this is a bucket list trip for me!

14. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share?

There are many considerations for traveling as a woman.

On top of that, there are the nuances of traveling as a Black woman.

Despite all of these things, it’s really important for me to encourage women, especially Black women, to see the world anyway.

Become A Savvy Solo Traveler

Now that we’ve dove into this enlighting guide to Black solo travel, I want to invite you to grab access to my free Savvy Solo Traveler e-course — a must for anyone hitting the road on their own for the first time.

The six-day email course will take you from trip planning to execution so you can travel the world solo with confidence, whether you’re heading to New York, South Africa, or anywhere else.

Together, we’ll work through common solo travel fears so you can feel confident traveling the world on your own.

Moreover, we’ll cover:

• how to choose the best places for solo travelers,
• breaking the news to loved ones,
• mentally preparing for your journey,
• staying safe,
• and even how to take amazing photos when nobody else is around to hold the camera.

While traveling solo can take you out of your comfort zone, it can also be the best thing you ever do!

Do you have any stories or tips to share about the Black solo female travel experience?

Continue learning about solo female travel. Read about:

• 50 Essential Tips For The First-Time Solo Traveler
• 11 Amazing Destinations For Curious Solo Female Travelers (one of the best travel guides on the site!)
• Mastering The Art Of Solo Travel
• How Solo Female Travel Changed My Life (And How It Can Change Yours, Too!)

PSST, DON’T FORGET TO PIN THIS POST FOR LATER! 

Tourism Industry Issues: Inclusive Travel Q&A Video

How Can We Make Travel More Diverse & Inclusive? (Text Interview) 

Chantel in New York City

Chantel exploring street art in Providence

Chantel living her best life through travel

Chantel enjoying the street art of Austin

Chantel in Thailand

Chantel in Monaco

Chantel & Steph

Chantel enjoying nature while traveling

How do you think we can work to make travel more inclusive?

And are there other tourism industry issues you think we need to tackle?

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The Fear Of Flying Treatment That Cured One Traveler’s Aviophobia [Video]

How I Overcame My Fear Of Flying

1) There are many fears of varying intensities that may keep people who want to travel from actually booking a trip. For you, it was a debilitating fear of flying. When did this fear begin?

2) For some people with a phobia, they may just deal with it and live with it. What was it about travel that made you want to put in the work to cure your fear of flying?

3) We spoke about hypnotherapy as being the fear of flying therapy that eventually help you, but before we discuss that I’m curious what other strategies you tried to overcome your fear of flying and how these may have helped or not helped.

4) Ultimately it was hypnotherapy that helped you get over your extreme fear of flying. What is hypnotherapy and what is the experience like?

5) What was your first flight experience like after using hypnotherapy as a therapy for your fear of flying?

6) Do you have any rituals or strategies for making flights a more relaxing experience, particularly for those who feel anxious in the air?

Sarah exploring Narvik, Norway.

7) What advice would you give to someone who wants to travel, but hasn’t been able to due to a fear of airplanes or from feeling anxious about flying — or even something else?

8) How has your life changed since overcoming your fear of flying?

9) When it comes to travel, what is your “why”? 

10) You mentioned that since overcoming your fear of flying you’ve explored 114 countries across all seven continents. Can you share one of your most memorable travel experiences and why it was so special? 

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Do you have any additional tips for facing a fear of flying?

Or even on how to enjoy flying?

That’s exactly what Melissa Berry did after the near-death of her father, a traumatic experience that led to the realization that life is short and precious.

She decided to travel with no regrets, planning a big camping trip that was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

Keep reading to learn more about why Melissa booked the trip, how she planned it, and how it ultimately changed her and influenced the trajectory of her life.

Note: This post is part of the Jessie on a Journey Inspiring Travelers series. It contains affiliate links to trusted partners.

How The Near-Death Of A Parent Led One Woman To Say Yes To Travel [Video Interview]

Prefer video?

Watch the Facebook Live interview replay above!

The video serves as an extended interview to the below written one.

How The Near-Death Of A Parent Led One Woman To Say Yes To Travel [Written Interview]

1. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. To get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure, and thanks so much for having me! My name is Melissa Berry and I run the local travel blog, Everyday Spokane.

In my previous life, I worked in emergency management and preparedness planning, but worked hard to become a blogger. Now I am a full-time editor and blog manager.

I started Everyday Spokane in 2018 when my husband and I moved to Spokane because, while I’ve lived here before and knew how to navigate the city, I watched my husband have questions and thought, “I could answer these for people!”

The city has grown so much that new people to Spokane can have a hard time adjusting, and I wanted to make that transition easier for them so they love the city as much as I do.

2. People say yes to travel for different reasons. For you, it was the near-death of your father that pushed you to book a trip. Can you share more about that?

Basically, my father and I have always bonded over a love of travel.

He was in the military when he was younger and traveled all over the world, and in fact, we both celebrated our 21st birthday in the same country — Morocco! Just, obviously, many decades apart.

One thing he regretted was not traveling more. Life just sort of happened and traveling with a child and a spouse who had her own job was difficult. We did plenty of camping, but the epic trips he did in his youth were just not feasible.

In 2016, he had some pretty serious health scares and I was already worried. Without going into a ton of detail, his health isn’t good now and every year we get with him is a blessing, and I was wrestling with how to be a good daughter and see him more often with the thought that life is short and I didn’t want to have as many regrets about travel as he did.

Travel was in the back of my mind, but a few things really spurred me forward.

One thing was my job situation changed, and I became a full-time freelancer.

Second, I was turning 30.

Third, I simply didn’t want my life to end up like my dad’s, endless working to provide for the family but always full of stories of travel and “missed opportunities.”

I know that we all have obligations and you can’t just jet off when you have a spouse and responsibilities, but I decided that travel was a priority to me — and my husband agreed — and we needed to make some changes to make travel feasible, not burdensome.

While my Dad was in the ICU, we planned our hiking/Airbnb trip; as in, we interspersed camping with staying at Airbnbs so I could get reliable WiFi, since I was now full-time freelancer!

By the way, if you’ve never stayed in an Airbnb you can click Jessie’s referral link here for $55 off your first stay!

While we were planning, my Dad recovered, and we made the decision that not only would this trip be for travel, but also an opportunity to find a new place to live — aka moving away from our hometown!

Without spoiling the rest of it, Dad was incredibly supportive of the whole trip and our decision to move. He and I studied camping tents together, we went to REI — Dad really came to life while we planned the trip.

Of course, he had regrets that he couldn’t do any of it anymore, but he was still excited for us. He’s even happier we ended up in a city we both love. He actually visited Spokane when I lived there and absolutely loved it.

Spoiler:

My husband and I visited Spokane on our epic travel trip and luckily my husband fell in love with it, since I already loved it!

3. The trip you decided on was an epic three-week camping trip up and down the West Coast — and even into Idaho and Utah — which is something you mentioned you would have never done in the past. What made you decide on this trip itinerary?

Primarily, this was a chance for us to see what cities we liked! We had an idea that we wanted to move from Phoenix — I knew it, but had to convince the husband — and we knew we wanted to stay on the west side for our families. We decided to plan much of our trip around cities we thought we’d like to move to, including Portland, Seattle, Spokane, and a few others.

From there, we thought about what things would be enjoyable to us — and pet-friendly.

Yes, we brought our little camping buddy and family member, our dog Molly! This meant making sure we visited pet-friendly beaches (like Dog Beach in Southern California), stayed on the approved pet-friendly trails in the Redwoods, and always stayed in pet-friendly Airbnbs when we weren’t camping.

We decided to do a loop instead of going up and down the West Coast simply because the route through Salt Lake City is faster than the West Coast/California route. We knew on our way back from Washington state, we would have visited all the places on our list and would want to hustle back home!

Plus, we were excited about visiting Utah as we hadn’t really been before and wanted to get in some camping there on our way back to Arizona.

4. What was the biggest pre-trip challenge for you, especially as someone who was new to traveling?

While I had camped with my family growing up and traveled to Europe before, I was very new to planning such a long, epic camping/road trip with my new husband.

We had never done something this long, time-consuming, or stressful before. I had us stay at a tiny home in Seattle, for instance, and hadn’t thought about how the truck, which we’d borrowed from my Dad, would fit into their equally tiny parking space. Let’s just say that led to some fighting (“cover your dog ears, Molly!”).

So planning was definitely the biggest pre-trip challenge.

I had in my mind certain ways this trip should go, and my husband had his own thoughts of how it would go. We disagreed a lot, but compromised… and we both learned a ton about each other and what our travel needs are from this trip.

Honestly, I would recommend people dating or engaged do a trip like this before they get married because the experience was illuminating into how we behave under stressful conditions, how we plan, how hard-working we are when things were going horribly wrong, and more.

5. Did this trip change you in any way?

Oh yes!

One, I learned how incredibly cool my parents were to do camping trips like this.

We never did a three-week camping trip when I was growing up, but we camped every weekend in the 1990s with no cellphones and no reliable internet maps. It’s kind of insane to do a trip like this, and even crazier if you think about not having emergency cell service to look up “what’s that plant that my dog just ate” or “omg where is the nearest gas station.”

Also, my Dad and I definitely grew closer. It t took him a long time to fully recover from his ICU stay, and he wasn’t fully “back” until we returned from our trip later that summer.

I took a million pictures though, and even FaceTimed my parents while we were traveling. He’s seen me go from a spacey teen — I was not the greatest camper as a kid, although obviously I never drowned in a lake or anything — to a disciplined traveler who plans within budgets, and I think he’s felt a lot better about the type of person he raised.

Also, my husband and I learned there are some trips we take together that should never be three weeks long!

6. In terms of traveling after experiencing trauma, did this trip help or make things harder — or both? How?

That’s an interesting question because I think both!

On one hand, it made things better because I felt more connected to the people my parents were when they were younger.

I thought, “Oh wow, I wonder if these are the feelings they had when experiencing X, Y, and Z. No wonder they loved camping so much, look at these stars! No wonder we’re all so close as a family — there’s nothing to do but hang out in the middle of nowhere!”

But on the other hand, it was hard.

With all of my Dad’s health events, he’s lost a little more of himself, and I can’t right now have conversations with him that I could have five or 10 years ago. I can’t ask him camping or traveling questions too much anymore, because his memory isn’t great and he gets mad at himself.

I feel like I understand my parents better, but sometimes it’s sad because I wish I had known them when they were younger. I think we would have been friends, for sure!

7. What were some of the biggest highlights of the trip?

So many!

The Redwoods in northern California are definitely something we still talk about — and want to return to since much of it is understandably off-limits to pets and so we were pretty constrained on where we could hike.

Seattle, one of my favorite US cities, was a huge highlight because my husband fell in love with it too. Honestly, there are so many things to do in Seattle, and now we make at least one annual trip and sometimes more frequent visits.

Another trip highlight was Yachats — a tiny town on the Oregon coast where we got an incredible deal on an Airbnb because it was brand new so they were trying to get reviews.

We had direct beach access, it was pet-friendly, and there were killer views. We still talk about that place all the time!

8. After the trip, you decided to fulfill your dream of moving to Spokane, Washington. What was holding you back from doing this before, and what made you finally decide to take the leap?

Definitely the thing holding me/us back was fear of the unknown!

Who in the world quits their secure and fulfilling job to just move to a new city? Although I had gone to college in Spokane, no one expected me to move back. After all, our families live in Arizona!

But it really was me looking at my parents and their lives that made me take the leap. They both ditched Pennsylvania — where they’re from — in their 20s, both they moved separately and actually met in Arizona.

It took pretty huge leaps of faith to move thousands of miles away to a state they’d never even visited. Neither of them had jobs. They did have one family member each, but no one particularly close.

I just felt like if I didn’t do something like that, I would look back and have regrets. I see the regrets my dad has had and thought, “We can financially afford to do this right now. I have a job freelancing that I know I could take full-time. My husband’s job is flexible teaching. Let’s… do this?!”

And we did!

But the camping trip was key to getting my husband on board. If we hadn’t done it and he hadn’t visited Spokane, we wouldn’t have moved.

Truly, this has been the best thing we’ve ever done so far. Almost every day we look at each other and say, “I can’t believe we live here!” We have to pinch ourselves because we feel so lucky!

'Who in the world quits their secure and fulfilling job to just move to a new city?' Read one woman's #TravelStory about planning a trip out of her comfort zone and then being inspired to relocate! #Travel Click to Tweet

9. What would you say to someone who wants to say yes to travel and make it more of a lifestyle, but is afraid to take the leap?

Sans husband, I would say just do it. Pick a place on a map, find a flight or use your car, and just go check it out.

However, now that I have a husband who is more cautious and more of a planner, I’d say:

Identify a few places that sound interesting to you. Determine a budget. Figure out which one of those places fits your budget — flying vs. driving, Airbnbs vs. hotels or Bnbs.

Make sure you have the time off work or can re-arrange your schedule to do it. Make sure there are some fun things to do so you’re not bored!

Basically, make an itinerary and budget and then just go do it.

By having a plan and a cost estimate, hopefully, that will make it easier to explain to yourself/others if you’re afraid to make the traveling leap!

10. Building on that, what could this person do to make the transition easier?

In our case, setting a budget and making sure you have the time to do it.

For my husband, it’s all about asking, “Is it in our finances and do we have enough time to enjoy ourselves?”

It definitely will take a trip or two to learn how much time you personally need to visit a place — my husband can check off a place in two days whereas I like at least five to feel like a local; but once you do, your transition will be easier because it will work for you and your personality.

Have you had a “say yes to travel” moment?

Other Inspiring Traveler Stories:

How To Start A New Life Abroad

How One Woman’s Cancer Journey Led Her To Sell Everything & Travel

Kilimanjaro Trekking: A Healing Experience Summiting Africa’s Highest Mountain

How To Sell Everything You Own And Travel The World

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Wondering how to start a new life abroad?

Are you curious about how to quit your job and move abroad?

Then you’re in the right place!

In this post, I’m interviewing Janine DeVault of Janine in the World, a Canadian traveler who moved to the USA and then decided to quit what many would consider a dream job to move to Mexico and become a blogger and freelance writer.

In this interview, she shares her story of starting a new life abroad and living in Mexico as an expat, while providing advice for others who want to do the same.

Warning:

You may get the serious itch to pack up your bags, quit your job, and travel forever after this interview!

How To Start A New Life Abroad [Video]

Prefer video?

The above is an extended version of the text interview below.

Hear straight from Janine exactly how she moved to Mexico from the US to start a life abroad and chase her dreams.

By the way, I go live regularly with travelers who have inspiring stories to tell.

If you’d like to get updated on future Facebook Live events, click here to join my email list.

You’ll snag my #BeyondTheGuidebook newsletter — full of stories and ideas for having unique travel adventures — as well as updates on fun online and offline events for travelers.

How To Quit Your Job And Move Abroad [Interview]

1. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. To get started, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

My name is Janine and I’m originally from Vancouver Island, Canada.

I’m not sure if it was my parents’ travel stories, our family subscription to National Geographic, or just my inherent Sagittarius nature, but I’ve always longed to travel and live abroad.

After graduating college I moved to Los Angeles, where I lived for five years before I found myself feeling restless again. By the way, traveling to LA alone is a fun experience.

About three years ago I quit my life, or at least somewhat spontaneously quit my job at an L.A. startup and moved to Mexico.

Now I help women travel Mexico safely and confidently on my blog, Janine in the World.

2. While many people love to travel, we all get into it for different reasons and have different travel styles. For you, it wasn’t a quick vacation that was calling to you, but a complete lifestyle change and an itch to start a new life abroad. What were you feeling, and what was going through your mind?

Wanting to move abroad was not a new feeling for me. Honestly, I was feeling pretty restless in my life prior to making the change.

In theory, my job offered me “unlimited” vacation days; but, after multiple people were fired just days after returning from trips my excitement over that “perk” quickly waned.

I’m sure I sound like a typical millennial when I say this, but I really found the corporate culture at my job kind of absurd.

I felt like my talents and skills — and those of my coworkers — were always overlooked and I really wanted to find a way to work for myself doing something that would be both challenging and fulfilling.

Additionally, I was approaching 30 and wanted to feel like I was working toward something career-wise. So, I started doing some soul searching to figure out what kind of lifestyle I would ultimately like to have long-term.

I knew I wanted to travel more and potentially live abroad. That being said, in my opinion leaving family to move abroad isn’t an easy decision, so I also wanted the ability to visit my family — who live across Canada and the United States — more than once a year.

I was aware that many people have location independent jobs, so I started doing some research to figure out what types of jobs would allow me to do that.

I’d operated my own pet-sitting business in the past, and it was really successful. That experience kind of gave me the courage to pursue another form of entrepreneurship since I’d already proven to myself in the past that I could do it successfully.

I began devouring all the information I could find about remote work, blogging, and working abroad and started weighing my options. Eventually, I landed on persuing professional travel blogging and freelance writing.

3. You moved from Canada to California for work, and then quit your job to move abroad to Mexico. Why Mexico?

In terms of wanting to move abroad, there were so many reasons why I chose Mexico!

I studied abroad in Mexico in college and loved the experience. I have always been really drawn to the culture and the food, and really, since returning from my study abroad, I was always looking for an excuse to go back there.

Plus, I have a Bachelor’s degree in English Lit and Spanish. I was really proud of my Spanish fluency when I returned from study abroad year…

…but that was in 2010.

I’d forgotten a lot of it by this point, and I was a bit bummed about that.

As I began researching location independent job options and thinking about where I’d like to travel or live, I thought moving abroad would be the perfect opportunity to brush up on my Spanish.

At the same time, I was also really eager to leave my 9-to-5 job. I thought moving somewhere with a lower cost of living would enable me to build an online business without needing to balance a full-time job at the same time.

Naturally, Mexico was top of mind.

I was still in touch with a few of my Mexican friends who I’d met while studying abroad there, so I felt like I’d have a little bit of a community upon arrival.

4. When you were deciding to move abroad, how long did it take to ultimately make the decision? Was there some kind of tipping point?

I began my investigation into remote work in February of 2017 and by April 2017 I’d decided to move to Mexico and in July I was there. So it didn’t really take very long. I’m a pretty determined and impulsive person. Once I set my mind to something I make it happen.

That said, there was a series of events that made this decision particularly easy:

In March my job granted me “unlimited” vacation days, so I immediately booked a trip to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a week. The trip was partly a recon mission to see if I wanted to make the move, and partly just a vacation.

When I booked the trip I reached out to my now-boyfriend, Héctor, who I’d met during my study abroad and remained friends with over the years, to see if he was around and wanted to join me.

He informed me that he was, in fact, moving from Mexico City to Playa del Carmen (which is near Cancun) at that very moment and that he’d happily join me.

Long story short, we’d had feelings for one another during our student days and they hadn’t subsided, even after so many years.

We didn’t want to sacrifice our relationship again just because of geography, and I was already seriously considering moving to Mexico, so I decided to just go for it and moved overseas. This made deciding to move abroad a lot easier!

By the way, if you need help deciding where to explore next, take my fun and free travel personality quiz. It provides unique trip suggestions based on your answers to 10 visual questions!

5. What were the biggest challenges you faced with making the move to Mexico?

Making the move abroad was pretty easy, but a ton of challenges came up after I arrived.

To quickly summarize, these included:

• Logistical details that come with being an expat
• The language barrier
• Cultural differences
• Expat isolation issues

Starting A New Life Abroad Challenge #1: Expat Logistics

One of the hardest parts for me initially was figuring out little logistical details of moving abroad. Things like where to send my mail from the US, how to deal with banking, voting, and other tedious things.

Digital nomads and expats are all over the world, so there are solutions to these problems but it’s tough to figure them all out, and many of them are handled differently depending on where you are in the world as well as your home state.

I’m still trying to figure out how to vote and the clock is ticking!

Starting A New Life Abroad Challenge #2: Spanish Struggles

Even though I’d once been very fluent, I’d forgotten most of my Spanish by the time I moved to Mexico.

This was frustrating and kind of isolating. I definitely went through a kind of grieving period when I realized how much of my ability I’d lost.

Even though I could kind of “get by ” with my Spanish, I couldn’t really make jokes or express my true personality. This left me feeling kind of isolated because it was harder to make friends and bond the way I normally would.

Starting A New Life Abroad Challenge #3: Cultural Differences

After living in Playa del Carmen for a year, we moved to Héctor’s hometown of Xalapa, Veracruz, where we live now. This is the same city I lived in during college but moving here with him brought on a whole new world of struggles that I didn’t have in Playa.

Namely, because his entire family lives here, so we’re more integrated into a community of people, and there are all kinds of social expectations that come with that. None of which are bad, but it’s been a big adjustment for me since I’m not from this culture.

For instance, I’m super independent and love to travel and don’t think twice about traveling as a solo female, but for a lot of people here, it’s kind of bizarre that I would go on a trip by myself.

Nobody really hassles me about it that much, but sometimes it can be exhausting to feel like I have to justify my life choices.

Starting A New Life Abroad Challenge #4: Expat Struggles

Once I moved overseas, I realized that being an expat can be isolating at times, even for a total introvert and quasi-misanthrope like me!

When we lived in Playa del Carmen there was a big expat community but there are virtually no expats in Xalapa. While I’m not lacking for social interaction, sometimes it’s refreshing or comforting to be around people who have a similar lifestyle to me, or come from my culture and share my mindset about certain things.

I definitely think my move was made significantly easier by the fact that I had lived in Mexico before and was already familiar with the culture.

And, of course, having Héctor to help me through everything made it so much easier, especially in the beginning when my Spanish was so terrible.

Plus, now that I’ve had the chance to get to know his family and friends I feel like I have an entire army of people behind me, ready to help out if I ever need them.

6. What were some ways you overcame these challenges?

My Spanish struggles subsided with time and practice.

Once we moved to Xalapa there was no excuse to speak English anymore at all because most people don’t speak it — or prefer not to — so that did wonders for me in terms of learning the Spanish language, which in turn did wonders for my confidence.

In the beginning, I was nervous/ashamed to speak Spanish because I was so terrible, but once I got over that my whole world opened up. I still make all kinds of mistakes, but I don’t care because I can actually converse now!

One of my biggest current struggles is feeling isolated because of the lack of expat community here.

I’m dealing with it in a couple of ways:

Firstly, I have a friend back home who is super supportive and I’ve filled her in on all my expat gripes and issues, and she’s always there when I need her which is wonderful.

Over the past few years, I’ve also found a ton of value in building connections through Facebook and Instagram.

I’ve befriended expats in other areas of Mexico, digital nomads, freelance writers, just all kinds of people who lead lifestyles similar to mine. That’s been super helpful in making me feel like less of a weird loner.

7. Before moving to Mexico, as you were planning your trip, what was the life you envisioned for yourself before the move?

When I was preparing to move abroad and envisioning my dream life, I realized that I really wanted to build an online business that would give me the freedom and financial flexibility to travel Mexico — and the world — and also visit my family and friends back in the US and Canada more than once a year.

I also wanted to do something that I really enjoy — writing!

I’ve lived outside of Canada since 2013, and one of the reasons that I wanted a location independent job was so that I could have the freedom to visit my family and friends more than once a year.

In my job, I always had to decide whether to use my vacation days to go somewhere new, or visit my family, and family usually won. I knew if I ever wanted to actually be able to travel I needed a major work/life balance adjustment.

At the same time, I wanted to find a peaceful spot in Mexico where I could set up a comfortable home base, integrate into a community, and just enjoy the simple life when I’m not traveling. Like, go to my local coffee shop to work, buy fresh produce at the market, eat amazing tacos at the taquería, and go for a walk in the afternoons.

Another aspect I really looked forward to, was having a place where my family and friends would feel welcome and comfortable to visit me.

8. Once in Mexico, what steps did you take to make this vision a reality?

I started my blog with the intention of using it as a portfolio to land freelance writing gigs, and it turns out that was a super smart idea as it helps me land lots of gigs.

Initially, I didn’t really think I’d be able to turn my blog into anything more than that.

As I began to learn more about blogging — largely thanks to Travel Blog Prosperity — my vision towards what my location independent business could look like completely changed. I realized that my blog was the perfect opportunity for me to create a community and resource for women like me, who wanted to travel to (or move) to Mexico.

Freelancing is still my primary source of income. In the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing.

I didn’t know anything about pitching but I joined a bunch of Facebook groups for freelance writers and digital nomads and soaked up all the advice I could find. Then I learned about SEO writing through reading blogs and ebooks and soon that became my signature offering for clients.

This type of work has proven to be really awesome because it allows for incredible flexibility schedule-wise. Most of my work is assigned a month ahead, so if I want to go on a trip for two weeks I just finish all of my assignments before that!

As for my daily life in Mexico, my vision basically came to life upon landing, but it’s also different — and in many ways, better — than I expected.

I hadn’t really expected to become so integrated into Héctor’s family, but that has been a really fun and fulfilling bonus to life in Mexico.

I travel pretty frequently throughout Mexico — more often than I had expected really. There always seems to be a vacation, or a friend to visit, or some sort of trip that comes up and keeps me on the go.

My favorite thing is when friends and family from back home come to visit me because I get to show them around and help them fall in love with all of my favorite things about Mexico.

9. Now, in Mexico, you actually fell in love with a local, Héctor, who you’ve now been dating for three years. How did you meet?

Our travel love story actually began 10 years ago.

Héctor and I met way back in 2010 when I was part of a study abroad program in Xalapa. We had a really strong connection but naturally, things didn’t work initially because I went back to Canada.

We reconnected when I came to Mexico on vacation prior to moving here and it was like no time had passed. We talked about it and decided we’d both really like to give our relationship a try if I moved to Mexico. So I did!

10. How has being in a relationship with a local affected the transition into expat life?

Having Héctor by my side through the transition has definitely been super helpful. It has been so helpful to have him translate for me and help me navigate cultural situations that I wouldn’t have understood without his insight.

For example, he has helpfully explained to me what all the crazy noises in the street mean:

• The cowbell means it’s time to take the trash out
• The guy ringing the triangle is selling bread
• The scary whistle sound in the middle of the night is from a security guard

On top of that, if Héctor and I weren’t together I probably wouldn’t have moved to Xalapa, and I definitely wouldn’t have gotten to know his family and been exposed to all the same experiences that I’m having as a result of being together.

Things might have been way harder for me, or I might have played it a little safer and only moved to areas with thriving expat communities.

Being so close with Héctor’s family is super helpful, too. Now I have a huge community of people here who have my back. Whether I need help finding a doctor, a dentist, a restaurant recommendation, or something fun to do on the weekend, someone is always there to help — and not just in Xalapa, but all over the country!

11. What is the biggest challenge of living in Mexico?

For me, the biggest challenge that comes with living in Mexico is safety. But, not so much my literal safety as much as the culture around it.

I don’t feel unsafe in my daily life here, but there is always someone warning me that it’s unsafe to walk alone in the streets or travel alone as a female.

It’s such a conundrum because I don’t feel unsafe, but I know, intellectually that bad things could happen. And having people consistently warning me against doing things alone just breeds my own paranoia. I know that they are just looking out for me, not trying to scare me, but I hate hearing this.

Back home in Canada, I would never think twice about walking alone in the streets, day or night. Well, at night I might worry slightly about wild animals, but that’s about it.

For someone who is fiercely independent, it has definitely been a big adjustment to realize that I do need to be watching my back, taking precautions, and adjusting my travel style to ensure I’m not putting myself at risk.

I still walk alone and travel alone within Mexico, but I definitely take more safety precautions than I would back in Canada. I’m less likely to walk at night here or wander off down an empty street, or a back road by myself.

12. What is your favorite thing about living in Mexico?

Pretty much everything!

I really love the warm and open culture. I’m an introverted Canadian but Mexico has definitely brought me out of my shell. I love that the culture is so community-oriented. Everyone is always willing to lend a hand, even to perfect strangers.

For instance, one of my dogs is an escape artist.

He runs away at least once a week and someone always calls us to go pick him up. Not only do they care for him while they wait for us, but they send texts days and even months after to check in on him after returning him.

I also really admire how upbeat everyone is.

There’s always something to mope about in life if you are creative enough, but in Mexico, people tend to look on the bright side. And if there’s something to celebrate it is celebrated with gusto, and I love that.

And then, of course, there’s the food. Everything is so amazing. I’m pretty much in a constant food coma.

Do you have additional tips on how to start a new life abroad?

More Inspiring Traveler Stories:

How One Woman’s Cancer Journey Led Her To Sell Everything And Travel

How The Near-Death Of A Parent Led One Woman To Say Yes To Travel

Kilimanjaro Trekking: A Healing Experience Summiting Africa’s Highest Mountain

How To Sell Everything You Own And Travel The World

Enjoyed this post on how to start a new life abroad? Pin it for later!

Photo via Unsplash/Pixabay

Helga Estby: A Feminist Pioneer

Helga came to the USA on a ship called Order in 1871 when she was 11 years old. Photo via Unsplash/Pixabay.

Tough Times

Helga & Clara Estby. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

The Answer: Walking Across America

Troubles & Triumphs On The Road

Victorian Pepper Box Pistol, similar to what Helga and Clara would have carried on their walk across America. Photo via Hatchetfish/Wikimedia Commons.

Reaching NYC

Clipping from the “Cleveland Leader”

Finding Their Way Home

Helga’s Influence

Thank you Helga, for the paving the way for solo female travelers like me! Here I am hiking solo at Vail Mountain in Colorado.

What do you think about Helga and Clara’s walk across America? Please share your reactions in the comments below! 

• Genealogy Bank
• SUNY Albany
• Norwegian American
• Los Angeles Times

Recommended:

As in, booking a flight in search of your very own Eat, Pray, Love story.

Just to fill you in on how this project came to light:

A few months back I sent out an email to my community sharing my personal tips for balancing my relationship in NYC with my trips. The response was incredible, as people wrote me back sharing their own advice and romantic accounts.

With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to compile a list of romantic stories from other nomads. To do this, I reached out to some of my favorite bloggers to roundup a selection of incredible narratives, from passionate trip flings to underwater engagements to Couchsurfing marriages and beyond.

Honestly, this was a really fun post to read and edit! I think you’ll agree.

After reading the following 38 love and travel stories, let me know in the comments if you’ve got one of your own to add.

And if you’re not sure where to go on your next trip, this free 10-question travel personality quiz can help you discover unique places tailored to your interests!

Psst, don’t forget to pin this post for later!

Come Travel #BeyondTheGuidebook

Before we dive into this incredible list of romantic stories from the road, I want to invite you to join my inner travel circle via my #BeyondTheGuidebook Newsletter.

It gets sent out once per month and features quirky travel news, inspiring adventures, conscious travel brands, and tons of fun content for curious nomads.

Once you sign up, reply to the welcome email and let me know where you’re heading to next or where you’d like to go. I always love connecting with people in my community.

On that note, let’s dive into the love and travel stories!

1. Love, travel and overcoming long-distance

“Long-distance relationships are not easy. After cutting ties with my crazy ex who stalked me from overseas, I tried my best to stay away from long-distance relationships.

But they say love will find you when you least expect it. Never would I have thought I’d meet the love of my life shortly after moving back to my home country, Taiwan.

It all started in the summer of 2011. A Canadian friend with whom I went to school in Vancouver paid me a visit in Taipei. She brought along her fellow classmates who came for a summer exchange. Among them was my now-husband, Kev.

No, we didn’t hit it off right away.

Actually, it was quite the contrary. I had no impression of him whatsoever; he just wasn’t my type. The turning point actually happened when his friend misdialed my number and invited me out — I guess to make up for the fact that he mistook me for someone else.

It was at that second meetup that his personality really shined through – I had never met a guy who was so witty and caring!

Because he doesn’t speak Mandarin, I volunteered to be his tour guide. We went out several times during his time in Taiwan. From the trendy XiMenDing district to the old town of Jiufen, we explored many parts of the country and made new memories together.

One month had passed and it was time to say goodbye. As much as I despised long distance, I was reluctant to end the friendship there and then.

‘Maybe this time will be different,’ I thought to myself. After all, this is a different person.

So, I decided to give it a shot and made our relationship official on the day he left.

Two years of long-distance.

10,080 km apart.

For 730 days, we fought through 15 hours of time zone difference – thank goodness for modern technology!

Yet the feeling of loneliness was inevitable.

In 2013, I made the bold move to relocate to Calgary, Canada – a city I had never visited before.

Despite having to deal with some serious culture shock, I am glad we could finally put an end to our long-distance relationship.”

-Cat from For Two, Please 

2. A romantic date via Instagram

“While in Thailand, a trip to the 7-Eleven is a must, am I right? I was entering a 7-Eleven in Koh Lanta when I saw this handsome guy looking at me.

‘He must think I’m cute.’

Yes, he was actually staring at me. He paid for his yogurt, gave me another look and, just before he drove off, he looked at me one more time. I was hoping he would say hi, but he didn’t.

Later that day, I got a reply to my Instagram story. Being a blogger, I try to share some travel experience stories on Instagram when I can.

It was a message from him saying, ‘Haha, I thought you looked familiar today at the 7-Eleven. Up for coconuts at the beach?’

He knew my blog.

In fact, he had known A Broken Backpack for several years. We found out later that he even invited me for a coffee when I was in Prague a couple of years back. He had left a comment on a photo where I was announcing I was going to Prague next.

Fun fact:

I had declined his invite publicly on Instagram.

In February, we are going to celebrate our first year together. We’ve traveled to several countries since we met. We are both full-travelers and we both work online so the transition was smooth.”

-Melissa from A Broken Backpack

3. Overcoming language barriers

“In 2017 I was staying in a small town on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast. On my last night there, right before I was scheduled to catch a bus down south, I met a very beautiful local girl.

The irony is that she only spoke Spanish and my Spanish skills were limited at best.

On the night we met, I said that I wasn’t fluent and that she would have to excuse my numerous mistakes. She laughed and didn’t seem to mind at all. We had a lovely evening together but I had to leave the next morning. Like, for good.

We ended up saying goodbye after having met only a few hours beforehand and it was a rather sad ordeal. I was really beating myself up over the circumstances.

Two days later, once I finally arrived and settled into my new destination, I decided to blow off all of my prearranged plans just to go back to that same town and spend more time with her.

Over the course of the next day, I canceled a tour, got a refund on my hostel, booked a new shuttle, and turned right back around for the five-hour return journey. I had been away for about 72 hours by the time my shuttle dropped me off in this town for the second time.

At that point, I had four full days left before flying back to the United States. As you might imagine, I spent almost every waking moment with my new friend.

I took her on a sunset sail tour and she drove me around on her motorcycle. On our last day together, we visited a nearby beach and spent the entire day lounging under the sun and drinking cheap Costa Rican beer while howler monkeys moved along the trees above us.

Although our travel romance only lasted for a few days, it was an extraordinary experience and I’m very lucky to have met her.”

-Michael from Passport Explored

4. Nurturing a relationship in South Korea

“Sitting at a bar rolling silverware at the end of my shift, a shy yet cute guy came up to me and asked to buy me a drink.

A couple of weeks later we started dating and Carl almost immediately asked me to move to South Korea with him. I barely knew the guy, so I told him no and broke up with him.

Carl showed up at my apartment and told me he’d rather have me than Korea and asked if we could try again. While I was hesitant, I said yes and we continued dating; however, six months later I was tired of living in our hometown in West Virginia — so we packed up our bags and booked tickets to South Korea!

We lived in Korea for five years together in one-room apartments and often sleeping on a twin bed. Learning to navigate life in a new country is hard enough, but our relationship wasn’t even a year old when we packed our bags.

In Korea, we started documenting our lives and fell into a community of bloggers and the rest is history!

Korea taught us how wide the world is and my life wouldn’t be the same if Carl hadn’t been bold enough to ask me to move with him.

Ten years after a boy asked me to move to Korea we have a two-year-old and blog about our new home state of North Carolina full-time!”

-Christina from NC Tripping

5. Meeting my soulmate in a hostel in Edinburgh

“When I went backpacking in Europe back in 2011, I expected to meet a handsome foreigner and have a whirlwind romance. Instead, I met a sweet southern US boy who swept me off my feet and became my soulmate.

My husband and I first met in a hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland. We had both chosen the same one because:

A) it was the cheapest one in town, and

B) it was housed in an old church which we both thought was very cool.

We happened to be put in the same dorm room. We had an instant connection and spent a few days exploring Edinburgh together, enjoying whisky, joining in the hostel pub crawl, and so on. It was amazing.

We kept in touch after that — thank you, Facebook — and eventually met up in London.

Eight years and a lot of countries later, we’re married, running a couples’ travel and relationships blog together, and happy as can be.

We’re forever grateful for that fateful meeting in Edinburgh.”

7. Enjoying a travel fling in Europe

“I absolutely love tour groups because they are the perfect way to meet new people.

The excitement of a fling while traveling is similar to the concept of summer love. It is fast, exhilarating, passionate, and because you know it is eventually going to come to an end there is no reason to hold back.

When experiencing a traveling fling, carpe diem — or seize the day — is key.

This past summer, I went on a 16-day tour from Rome to Lisbon. I was 25 at the time and living in the United States when I met this incredible Australian guy on my tour.

We hit it off right away and would spend hours talking with one another while traveling through the Mediterranean countryside. About halfway through the trip, in Barcelona, we realized that our friendship had developed into something more and wanted to continue traveling together.

We both pushed our flights back to continue our travels and spend more time with each other. We traveled to the beaches of Cascais, explored the gardens of Sintra and danced multiple nights away together in London.

As solo travelers, it was delightful to enjoy this beautiful world with each other and we still talk frequently!”

-Jill from Robe Trotting

8. Traveling with the one you love

“On a trip to Europe with a friend, we were invited to join a table of German guys for a drink. I hit it off with one of them after being intrigued by the tattoo of Argentina on his ankle and we talked about travel, culture and languages between tequila shots and German bars.

The next morning I left on a train to Switzerland and we vowed to keep in touch. Which we did on and off for the next few months when he asked if he could come and visit my new home in Italy. We hired a car and spent a week road tripping Italy and in the end, made our relationship official.

After six months of long-distance, I made the commitment to move to Frankfurt on the condition that we go traveling as soon as he finished his studies.

Two years later we embarked on a 20-month backpacking adventure, which involved a road trip through Eastern Europe, a month Couchsurfing Iran, attending the World Nomad Games in Kyrgyzstan, five months in India and Nepal, a couple of trips back to Germany and finally ended in my home of New Zealand.

We’re currently building our own tiny house on a trailer and planning our next travel adventure!”

-Rohan from Travels of a Bookpacker

9. A Southeast Asia love story

“I left everything behind in Canada to go to Australia solo for a year, ended up meeting my partner — he’s from New Zealand but was living in London at the time and was home visiting family when we met — and he moved back to Australia and we stayed in Australia for five years together!

We then moved to Bali together to start a new adventure, and have been based in Bali for two years with our rescue dog (our baby) Suka. Right now, we’re enjoying slow travel in southeast Asia together.

We are now engaged and planning our Bali wedding for early 2021.

Next stop for us will be to move to Spain for a few years to enjoy the slow travel life in Europe with our little Bali rescue dog!”

-Tia from The Caffeinated Expat

10. Unexpected romance in Cuba

“We didn’t intend to fall in love in Cuba. In fact, we hardly intended to say hello to each other.

We were there on a brief mission trip to host a sports camp for local area youth. Our focus was on the kids and the joy that we could bring them. Yet it seemed like at every meal as we sauntered in to eat, the last two places at the table were always next to each other.

Then there were the times when we were free to wander the streets and we kept running into each other taking pictures of the colorful doors and beautiful people.

It didn’t take long for me to ask her out.

On the last night in Cuba, while the rest of our team headed off for an early bedtime, I asked her to the rooftop bar overlooking Santiago and we shared mojitos together. There was something there. I could feel it. And I sensed this was just the beginning.

The next nine months passed like a blur as we courted, were engaged and then married on New Year’s Eve. We had met in the midst of a traveling adventure, so it would only be fitting that we marry on one, too.

The small island of Utila, 18 miles off the coast of Honduras, had a special place in my heart. And as my bride-to-be knew of this endearing place, she chose it as the place to exchange our vows.

Despite the late-afternoon rain, our pastor forgetting his notes and strangers who wandered into our wedding ceremony — because it happened to be at a seaside bar with the best view of the sunset — we were married as the sun sank into the Caribbean Sea.

The next morning we celebrated our marriage with a dive.

We now live full-time on the road, having just celebrated our sixth year of marriage. What began on the road now continues, for as long as the road will stretch before us.

-Chris and Lindsay from Called to Wander

11. Bonding through travel and photography

“Our love story began at a busy bar in Melbourne on a Monday night in 2016 — perks of being a traveler, Monday night parties!

Yet, it wasn’t until six months later that we started dating.

When we first met, it didn’t take long to realize we liked each other; however, Adam was traveling onwards to travel solo in New Zealand soon after and I was planning to stay in Melbourne. These were plans neither of us was willing to change.

Both Adam (from Oregon, US) and I (from London, UK) had been traveling solo for several years and loved the freedom that came with it, something we were both reluctant to give up.

But fate brought us back together; six months later we both found ourselves in Cairns, Australia, and arranged to meet immediately. We knew instantly that the connection we’d had was still there.

While we had loved traveling independently, we knew these feelings were something we didn’t want to give up. As our visas both reached their expiration in Australia at the same time, we realized we wanted to try this crazy travel life together.

We packed our bags and set off from Cairns to Bali together. We bonded through our passion for photography and love of travel. As we continued on from Bali to Singapore then to England and the USA — where we met each
other’s families — we fell in love with each other.

Since then, we’ve traveled to around 15 countries together and across four continents.

Neither of us had expected to fall in love on the road, but that’s exactly what happened.

Without traveling, we would never have met each other or have developed the passion for photography which helped us bond at the beginning.

It hasn’t been without its difficulties, as with all relationships, but having similar interests has meant we’ve rarely had to compromise. Now, we couldn’t imagine traveling any other way.”

-Sophie from We Dream of Travel

12. I fell in love with a stranger through Couchsurfing

“Love crazy short stories? I met my now ex-boyfriend on the second day I’d been in Santiago, Chile. He was a local, and, thanks to a mutual friend who had stayed at his place a few years previously, was letting me CouchSurf in his spare bedroom for the weekend.

I only stayed there for two days, but we immediately clicked.

It’s quite impressive to find yourself not running out of conversation with someone new — particularly when you’re speaking in a second language that you only have a cursory grasp of.

After that weekend, I headed down into Patagonia for a month, but we stayed in touch and he promised me there would always be space in his spare room if I needed it.

I passed through again on my way out of the country and what was meant to be a week-long stay evolved into a three-year relationship with both him and a country I now see as my second home.

Because of him, I became fluent in Spanish and was even commissioned to write the new Moon Chile guidebook, thanks to my knowledge of the country.

While we eventually broke up amicably — having learned that we didn’t want the same things in life — everything about my life changed because of that decision to take a chance on Couchsurfing with a stranger.”

-Steph from Worldly Adventurer

13. Meeting through Instagram

“Our love story is a bit of a modern one as we actually met via Instagram! I was drone- and travel-obsessed and Boyan (@boyanoo) is the best drone photographer from the Netherlands.

I saw his Instagram and was immediately in awe of his drone photos.

Fast forward and he was coming to London, so he sent me a message to see if I could show him around. I had never even seen his face at this point and had no intentions at all!

I had already booked a trip to Amsterdam not long after this and this is when we had our first date, as the London meeting had gone so well we spent the whole week together.

On our first date, we sat in a restaurant for hours while it poured with rain outside. After this, he asked me whether I’d like to travel around England with him in December. I hate the cold, and despite this, I had such a good time.

I knew he was special.

By March, we had both quit our jobs to travel full-time. Being a full-time nurse and Boyan’s video jobs abroad, it was hard to see each other and I had already started blogging part-time.

We now run the travel blog together, as well as a business doing videography and photography for worldwide clients.

We have escaped the European winter for Bali this year, which has been a dream of mine my whole life. It was amazing to finally find someone with as much energy and passion for travel as I do.

With our two suitcases, we now travel from place to place and every now and then pop back to see our families.

Since we met a year ago we have traveled to over 20 countries in Europe and Asia. He even convinced me to go to the Faroe Islands!

For someone who considers themselves solar-powered, a week in the Faroe Islands with nothing but rain and still enjoying myself says it all!”

-Hanna from SolarPoweredBlonde

14. Falling in love in Cuba

“Cuba will always have a special place in my heart. I don’t know if it’s because it was the first vacation I took sans parents, if it was the amazing weather and beaches, or (most likely) because it was where I had my first vacation love. Maybe a combination of them all!

When I arrived in Cuba, I didn’t expect to find love, but it happened.

I was on the beach when two gorgeous men walked by and started talking to my sister and me. Well, they tried to talk to us because they had very limited English and we didn’t speak much Spanish.

I really hit it off with one of the men. The language barrier wasn’t enough to stop us from hanging out together and we spent the rest of the day getting to know each other with my broken Spanish and his broken English. It was the first time I really realized that you don’t need to speak the same language to communicate with someone, and that body language is more than enough.

We spent the rest of our short five days on vacation together, exploring places in Varadero we would have never gone to without a local guide. It remains one of the best vacations I ever went on.

We exchanged emails, but our relationship eventually fizzled out. It was fun while it lasted and I’ll never forget him either.”

-Naomi from Eat Love Explore

15. Becoming digital nomads together

“When Couchsurfing just outside of Gibraltar in September 2015, I looked in a digital nomad Facebook group for my next host in Tarifa, Spain.

A German guy named Jonas answered my request for a piece of floor to sleep on for one night in a matter of minutes. I hitchhiked to Tarifa and met Jonas.

We fell pretty hard for each other over a game of durak and sharing our travel lore. I ended up staying with him in Tarifa for two weeks. After that, I hitchhiked to Portugal alone — but we kept in touch.

A week or two later, he decided to travel to Lisbon to meet me. As scary as that was, that’s where we admitted our feelings and decided to try to be together.

Two days later I was on a plane to Berlin with him and one month later we were in Gran Canaria waiting for our repositioning cruise to take us to Brazil. Essentially, we directly moved in with each other via our full-time traveling lives.

That was a whirlwind time.

I taught Jonas how to hitchhike, and he taught me how to become a digital nomad.

We started Digital Nomads Guides together and hitchhiked around South America — sometimes together, sometimes apart; I was too stubborn to get on a bus or plane, and Jonas didn’t always want to hitchhike. We never wanted to stop each other from realizing our own goals and dreams.

In 2017 after kayaking on lake Guatapé in Colombia, I shared my big dream:

To kayak down the entire Danube River in Europe.

Jonas happened to have a similar dream:

To do a long-distance kayak trip.

We would do it after I got out of student debt in 2019. We decided to paddle from the source in Donaueschingen to Budapest in 2019 and finish the other half to the Black Sea in 2021, spending the intermezzo in Asia, where we are now.

For four-and-a-half months, from spring till autumn, we were happily stuck together on the Danube River in an inflatable canoe named Zucchini.

Kayaking together and working on moving us downstream was really challenging, but something that brought us together even closer. The trip went so well that we continued paddling beyond Budapest and paddled 1,253 kilometers (779 miles) in total.

I’m thrilled to share more dreams and journeys with Jonas. Together we can do great things.”

-Iris from Mind of a Hitchhiker

16. From Jerusalem to Vietnam

“It was December 2016 in the Old City of Jerusalem. I’d just gotten back from my trip to Bethlehem, which I was evaluating as part of my job in the hostel I was working at.

I was sitting at the tour desk when a guy walked up and asked about the Bethlehem tour. I’d just had such a great time on the tour myself, so I confidently took over and told about my experience.

This guy was very engaging and I could see he was interested in booking the tour. After 30 minutes of him asking questions, which I eagerly answered, he simply gave a cold ‘I don’t think I’ll do the tour.’

As you can imagine, I was not happy. But I managed to tell him it was no problem, and that if he changed his mind the tour desk would be there.

From then on, this guy would come over to say hello or have a drink in the common area with me for a few minutes. We weren’t really hanging out but we would often greet each other around the hostel and in the bar area.

About two weeks later, he told me that he was leaving Israel to continue his trip towards Turkey. Since that day we would message each other to keep in touch once in a while. I even told him my next travel plans for June.

One day he told me that he’d like to meet me in Malaysia. I didn’t believe him but he showed up — flying all the way from Lithuania.

We then traveled for about a month through Thailand, parting ways in Chiang Mai about two weeks later.

Then I went to Cambodia, and a few weeks later he flew from China to meet me there.

After ten days, he left for China again as he was trying to see if he could make it his new temporary home.

A month after we parted ways, I was in Vietnam building my own new home base and, you guessed it, he flew to Vietnam to meet me.

That was September 2017. Two and a half years later, we’ve been to four continents and fifteen countries together. We are still traveling the world and working on our individual dreams together. “

-Mary from A Mary Road

17. A romantic story that began on a mountaintop 

“My partner and I met on top of a mountain in the Austrian Alps almost ten years ago. We were both snowboarding in Mayrhofen during the end of season festival called Snowbombing, which is a huge party.

We bumped into each other in an apres-ski bar and our groups ended up snowboarding — and drinking — together for the remainder of the festival week.

Hailing from Australia, when I first heard his accent I was hopeful for just a holiday romance, but then it transpired. He lived in London too, having moved there a few years earlier.

So after the trip, we met up and the rest is history.

Except not quite.

After 18 months together in London we decided to go traveling and become nomadic in the process. My partner already had a location-independent business but I started freelance writing work and also growing my travel blog.

During our two years traveling we spent a summer in Amsterdam house-sitting because it seemed like a fun place to live, with good Internet for our work, lots for me to blog about, and the chance to just stay put for a little while.

That summer changed our lives as we fell in love with the city and the way of life there.

We returned to Amsterdam a year later after more nomadic travel, putting down some roots in the form of signing a six-month rental lease for an apartment, which seemed forever at the time after staying in places only a few weeks or months.

Fast forward six years and we are still living in Amsterdam in a house we own and with our two young boys living there, too!

Having kids has absolutely changed how we travel — we definitely prefer to have a home base and long-term travel just doesn’t suit us — but we still enjoy discovering new places together. It’s just more likely that we go on a luxury family vacation.

Of course, we still make time for snowboarding trips in Austria — that’s where it all began — but we also really enjoy exploring the country we now feel so lucky to live in, the Netherlands.”

18. A holiday romance in Uganda

“When I arrived in Kampala, Uganda, for a four-month volunteering stint in 2018, I was definitely not looking for love. I was, however, keen to make friends, and I thought one good way to meet people would be to go on Tinder.

Since I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, it didn’t really matter if I fancied the guys; they just needed to look fun to hang out with.

So when I spotted James (not his real name), it didn’t matter that he wasn’t my type. He was the same age as me and said he was also new in town. Maybe we could check out some of the amazing things to do in Uganda together!

On a Friday we met after work for a drink. He greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, smiled a dazzling smile, and BAM! I was smitten.

That one drink turned into drinks, dinner, and dancing until late. The next day we met for lunch…

…and I didn’t go home until the end of the weekend.

We were both infatuated. We exchanged dozens of WhatsApp messages a day, both incredulous at our luck to have found each other so soon after arriving in a new country.

We made plans to go away the following weekend and spent an idyllic two days in Entebbe on the shores of Lake Victoria.

I’m a travel blogger and photographer, and James took to the role of Instagram husband like a duck to water, grabbing my camera to fire off shots at every opportunity (the photo attached is by him).

We started to talk about me extending my stay in Uganda. He invited me to visit his home country, South Africa. He sent a photo of us to his mum.

But like most whirlwind romances that start with fireworks, the spark burned bright but it also burned fast. James started to feel crowded:

It was too intense, he was a free spirit, he didn’t really want a relationship. When he finally ended things I was devastated.

It made the rest of my trip rather difficult. Kampala is a very small ex-pat community, everyone hangs out in the same few bars and restaurants, and by now we were firmly in the same friendship group.

Everywhere I went, there he was, flirting with other girls. Our group had even planned another weekend away, and since I was determined not to let this breakup limit my chances to explore the country, I went anyway, even though he would be there too.

I spent most of the trip trying not to cry.

I did have a wonderful time in Uganda and love the country, but I’m more cautious now. Something like that can really color your experience, and I wouldn’t want it to happen again.

That said, I’m passionate about travel, and am still hoping to meet someone like-minded on another trip.

Maybe next time I’ll be luckier.”

-Bella from Passport & Pixels

19. Love at first sight in South Korea

“When I took up a teaching job back in 2009, I never would have guessed that I would fall in love and find my wife. In 2009 I left my home in South Africa to embark on a three-year journey to Seoul, South Korea.

The reason for going was to get my second degree through correspondence and I needed money to support myself. South Korea beat my original choice of Japan due to many factors, but the biggest factor was that it paid more.

I had never been to Asia before and had no idea what to expect.

Six months into my stay in 2010 I went out with a friend on my birthday. She invited a mutual friend and when she walked into the room, time stopped and all went in slow motion, just like a cheesy RomCom. But for real.

Over the course of several years, our relationship grew from a spark to a flame, and that growth was instigated by traveling the country.

They say that you know if you are compatible with someone depending on how well you travel together. It’s the real proof that the relationship will last.

We would venture out to the far-flung corners of South Korea discovering the many islands, cultural differences, and foods of the country.

We lived for another year in Los Angeles, cultivating our relationship and finally getting married six years later, in 2016.

We still move between Cape Town and Seoul — and everywhere in between — and see travel as an integral part of our relationship. We always come back new, utterly refreshed and invigorated, after a stint of travel.”

-Cal from Once in a Lifetime Journey

20. Meeting the love of my life on the other side of the world

“I met my now-boyfriend pretty much exactly four years ago on a night out in Sydney. He is from the UK, I am from Germany, and it was only a few weeks before I had to leave Australia to start my working holiday year in New Zealand.

I never imagined anything serious to come from this, but after that first night, we spent every day together until I had to leave.

He dropped me off at the airport and saying goodbye was incredibly hard. We had no idea whether we’d ever meet again and I really did not want to leave.

He promised he was going to visit me in New Zealand but I didn’t know if he meant it or just said it to make the goodbye easier.

Only two weeks after I left though, he actually came to New Zealand to visit me. We spent a wonderful week together before he returned to Australia to rejoin his friends that he was traveling with.

Which meant we had to say goodbye. Again.

At this point, we decided to make it official and were committed to a long-distance relationship.

We were planning to visit each other and figure out everything else along the way. What I didn’t know was that he would come back only two days after he left to start his working holiday year in New Zealand with me.

He basically just went back to Australia to get the rest of his luggage and apply for the visa in New Zealand. You can imagine how happy I was when he told me.

From then on, we have been together literally 24/7. Don’t ask me how we are still getting along!

Two years into our relationship we started an online business together so that we could keep traveling. Which we did.

We have been to about 30 countries on five different continents together. We have had the greatest adventures and a life I could only have dreamed of before we met.

Now, four years later, we are in the United Kingdom planning to buy a house.

I never expected meeting the person I would end up with on a night out on the other side of the world only a few weeks before I had to leave the country. But that’s exactly what happened and I could not be happier!”

-Valerie from Valerie’s Adventure Time

21. Falling through a bridge on a first date in Thailand

“If you like short funny travel stories, here’s one for you:

I kind of sort of met Garrett in Thailand, but also kind of sort of met him online.

It’s a very weird and long story involving a creepy mutual friend who forced us to become Facebook friends “because we both liked traveling.” Little did I know Thailand and this creeper would have such an impact on my life.

Fast forward a year or so later, Garrett was living and working in New Zealand and I was happily chilling in Thailand working online. He was going on vacation to Thailand and since the creeper dude a year prior forced us to be friends online, he knew I was there.

He asked me a few typical questions and I told him to let me know when he came through so we could meet up.

And he did.

And we literally haven’t been separated since! (Okay, fine, we both have some random solo travels, but you get the point.)

The day after we met we went strolling along the bridge in Pai, Thailand. Kind of a first date, I guess?

I had literally just spoken about how funny it was that you always had to look down in Thailand because there’s always some obstacle — when I fell through a hole in the bridge!

I was rustling through my purse instead of looking down. Luckily, the hole was only big enough for one of my legs to fit through.

I still have a dent in my leg in that spot to this day and for some reason, Garrett’s still with me. He always makes sure to point out potholes, bumps, and cracks in the road for me now. How sweet.

So that’s how I met my boyfriend in Thailand and fell through a bridge on our first date.

It’s been over four years with countless adventures in between and more to come.”

-Nina and Garrett from Oregon is for Adventure

22. A Peruvian love lust story

“It all happened when I was solo backpacking in Peru. I had been in South America for close to two months at that time and had just recently arrived from Ecuador.

One of my favorite things to do while traveling is to meet locals and get a perspective on their daily lives and culture. Naturally, I was on one of those horrible dating apps to meet some local Peruvians. I am not going to say which dating app specifically but let just make up a name.

Let’s call it Tinder.

So I was on Tinder in a small city in Peru called Trujillo. Trujillo is the home of the magnificent archaeological site known as Chan Chan, the biggest city from the pre-Colombian period. I matched with this girl and we started talking.

Let’s call her Maria. Things were going great.

Then one day I decided to eat some Anticuchos, a Peruvian street food of cow hearts on a skewer.

Well, the next day I was properly ill. Puking, nausea, fever — everything.

I thought I was going to die; but Maria took care of me for the whole week I was there, taking me to the hospital, to the blood tests, and everything. She even made me traditional Peruvian cuisine and that was when I knew I had something for her.

After I got better we started traveling Peru together, trekking up the Andes, visiting Machu Picchu, and walking down the cobblestoned streets of Cusco.

We were together for over a month until the day came when I had to leave Peru. Even though we said our goodbyes we planned to keep in touch.

But sometimes distance doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder.”

-Sean from LivingOutLau

23. Getting engaged underwater

“Alya is from Russia and I am a South African. We met in a small surf town in the Philippines, sleeping in neighboring beds in a dormitory and were together 24 hours a day since the day we met.

Both of us were traveling around Southeast Asia for a couple of months and came to San Fernando in the Philippines to surf.

We shared a tuk-tuk to a surf beach every morning and day trips evolved into traveling around the Philippines together for two months.

It was an amazing time. Both of us love hiking and diving and we were always searching for amazing mountains and beaches.

After traveling together for more than two years I asked Alya to marry me underwater while scuba diving from Nusa Penida island in Indonesia. While on the road, I had a couple of traveling jobs as a scuba instructor and Alya did some English teaching.

On a trip down the Amazon River, we decided to start a travel blog.

It has been four years and our successful travel blog, Stingy Nomads, allows us to work together while traveling full-time and doing things we love.”

-Campbell and Alya from Stingy Nomads

24. Finding love in Argentina

25. An around the world travel romance

“When I decided to move abroad, I put my dating life on a shelf.

I figured I’d worry about my single status when I got back, though, in the back of my head, I couldn’t help think that at 28, going abroad for a long period of time was only going to prolong the long journey of finding love.

But…I wanted to travel.

After nearly 15 months of being abroad, I landed on the island of Koh Phi Phi, Thailand for the last four days of my trip.

I didn’t know a soul, so I booked myself into a notoriously social hostel. I happened to join a flip cup game on the beach when I noticed the tall, handsome guy next to me.

When I told him I was from the US, he replied cheekily, ‘I know. There’s only one place in the world that does dental work like that.’

And what can I say? I fell for him.

He was from The Netherlands and we spent the rest of the night talking. We mentioned meeting up the next day but unfortunately, my phone had suffered a casualty on a boat trip and the only thing I could give him was my Facebook.

By the afternoon, I hadn’t heard from him so I sent him a Facebook message inviting him to dinner with a group of people and still never heard back.

I ran upstairs 10 minutes before dinner to check my computer, only to find that he still hadn’t responded. I was a little dejected, but when I got back down to the beach, there he was, waiting for me.

We were inseparable for the next three days and then I finally flew back home.

Two months later he came to the US to visit me and we decided to do a long-distance relationship. We met up in Italy, vacationed in Croatia, introduced our families, found a ring in Ireland and got engaged in The Netherlands.

About a year and a half after meeting, we got married and he moved to the USA. We’ve been here ever since!”

-Ashley from Jetset Jansen

26. A Roman love story

“My husband and I first met in the ancient ruins of the Roman Forum in 2001. I’d picked up a job as a tour guide there, and he was a tourist on one of my co-worker’s tours.

We chatted briefly, and a few days later he showed up to follow one of my tours. He’d been captivated by the city just like I had and decided to stay and become a tour guide.

So, we became colleagues and good friends.

Our mutual love of travel was what we initially bonded over. Both of us were pretty new to travel but dreamed of exploring the whole world, and we would spend hours in bookshops poring over guide books.

We even planned a three-month overland trip through the Middle East together, just as friends. I was a bit nervous about visiting that part of the world as a solo female traveler, so I invited myself along on his trip from Cairo to Istanbul.

It was just a couple of months before we left for that trip that our relationship took a romantic turn.

And for the first few years, we spent more time together traveling than staying in one place. In between trips, we did a few more stints as seasonal tour guides in Rome to save up money, and six years after we met we returned there to get married.

It was a small, intimate wedding with 30 or so of our closest friends and family, and it was the best day of our lives. We arrived in Rome just 10 days before the wedding and managed to throw it all together in time, even if some aspects were a bit unconventional.

Instead of the usual wedding reception with cheesy music and dancing, we all had dinner together at our favorite Roman trattoria.

Over the past 20 years or so we’ve traveled to more than 100 countries on all seven continents, and we still make it back to Rome as often as we can.”

-Wendy from The Nomadic Vegan

27. Falling in love on a semester abroad

“When I was in college, I took my very first plane ride to my first international destination:

Studying abroad in Costa Rica for my last semester of university.

I had never been abroad before, but I was excited and open to new experiences in this beautiful, lush, tropical country — and little did I know it would eventually become my heart’s home.

I stayed with a local Costa Rican family and spent much of my free time getting to know them, practicing my Spanish and learning about the way Costa Ricans lived and connected.

I often invited the youngest son who still lived in a nearby house on outings and trips with us, and we usually ended up being the only two who didn’t cancel. We grew closer, spending a lot of our time together, and as you probably expected, eventually had a fling.

At the end of the semester, we both decided we could probably not continue to date long-distance from abroad; but as soon as I got back home, we would chat on Facebook and Skype nearly every day and eventually we could not keep up with the rouse so we gave in and started dating.

That winter, we traveled together to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, then took a bus to the border of Panama, walked across the bridge over the river of Sixaola, and spent the weekend traveling around the islands of Bocas del Toro.

We traveled well together, which doesn’t always work even with friends no matter how much you enjoy each other’s company. To stretch our money further we stayed in hostels, cooked in the kitchens, and took public transportation.

It was gritty and authentic and we absolutely loved it.

We dated for nearly two years like this, visiting each other in our home countries, traveling around and enjoying every moment of it.

Eventually, I landed an internship in Costa Rica, and after living only an hour away from each other for a few months, we knew this was what we wanted. So, we got engaged and planned our wedding in Costa Rica.

Now we have been married for nearly four years, going on a lifetime. Our favorite thing to do together is travel; how fitting for a marriage formed out of it!

I never expected for travel to change my life, but it did in many ways. I met my lifetime partner, and fell in love with travel itself while on the road.”

-Michele from Adventures Abound

28. Meeting my fiance on a press trip for travel bloggers

“I met my now fiancé on a trip to Menorca, Spain. The trip was a conference and press trip for travel bloggers and influencers, and we were both invited to participate. It wasn’t until the end of the trip that we really began to talk and realized that we had much more in common than our jobs.

We continued to date after the trip. I was living in London at the time and he had already been nomadic for several years.

Our early relationship involved meeting up in random places — including Estonia, Scotland, and London — when he had breaks from assignments and I could convince my boss to let me work remotely.

Around five months later, I quit my job in London to take my own blog full-time and we have been traveling together ever since.

We’ve now been together for nearly three years, living nomadically in countries such as Georgia, Mexico, Greece, and Japan.

Last year, we decided to set down some roots and bought a new-build apartment in Portugal. I’m from the UK and he’s from Canada, so it’s nice to find a place to make ‘ours’ after traveling so many countries together.

We’ll be moving to Portugal to start the next chapter of our life together this summer and we’re getting married just down the road from our new apartment next spring.”

-Jodie from Ala Jode

29. From Europe to the United States to the world

“Our love story began back in 2013 in the horse capital of the world in Lexington, Kentucky.

My husband, who is Russian, and I, being Ukrainian, were destined to meet not in our neighboring countries in Europe but on the opposite side of the world in one of the least touristy cities in America.

At that time, I (Anya), while living in Washington DC, was looking for various jobs that could help me relocate, let me travel and pay well. Mark (my husband) was living in Kentucky, working in the hospitality business but wanting to have a change, move somewhere new and experience other parts of the US.

My desire to move to another state brought me to Kentucky for one year where I came to work for Marriott Hotels and where I met Mark. Not much time passed after our first acquaintance, as we realized we wanted to travel and try to live in other states.

We took a leap of faith, packed our bags and moved together across the country to Los Angeles to spend three and a half years there just to understand that we actually wanted to see the world.

So we took another risk and packed again.

We left part of our life behind and set off on the most adventurous journey both of us could have ever dreamt about.

Today, two and half years later, after we left the United States to travel the world, we are location-independent and working online, living in different countries around the world, constantly traveling and exploring one region at a time.

Is it easy?

No.

But this is the life we would never trade for anything else.

We are grateful to the United States for bringing us together, letting us catch this travel bug and helping us understand what type of life is best for us.”

-Anya from Road is Calling

30. Love in Bangkok

“At the age of 22, I booked a one-way ticket to Bangkok, Thailand and embarked on my very first solo travel trip through Southeast Asia and Australia. I never imagined that this trip would change the course of my life and that I would meet my current partner one fateful night in Bangkok.

I was enjoying an evening with other travelers in a small bar on Bangkok’s bustling Khao San Road when Rick and I crossed paths for the first time. We didn’t exchange each other’s numbers that evening, but as fate would have it we bumped into each other in the busy streets of Bangkok the next day!

Rick told me of his plans to travel to the beautiful island of Koh Tao the following day and invited me to join him. Unfortunately, I declined his invitation due to already having the train tickets for my solo trip to Malaysia booked for the next day.

He still held out hope and told me exactly where to meet him if I happened to change my mind.

To this day, I still don’t quite know what made me go and cancel my train ticket to Malaysia and meet him at the bus station. His face lit up as soon as he saw me walking toward him and that’s when I knew I made the right decision.

We spent one week together on Koh Tao and then due to pre-arranged travel plans, went our separate ways. We sporadically kept in touch via Facebook and a full year passed before we saw each other again.

My travels eventually brought me to his home city of Perth, Australia and that’s when he invited me to stay at his house and the rest is history. I found myself applying for a partner visa so that I could stay in Australia and telling my family back in Canada that I wouldn’t be coming home!

Fast forward eight years later, we recently got engaged in Tallinn, Estonia on our summer travels through Europe and we are now planning our wedding for 2021 in Canada!”

-Ann from TheRoad-IsLife

31. House-sitting across the world together

“I’ve met and become friends with many people thanks to my travel blog and social media.

I met Mark through Twitter over three years ago and learned we had a lot in common. We both loved to travel and it turned out we were both nomadic house sitters.

Over the years we ended up meeting a few times while house sitting in the same city. Twice for lunch and once for breakfast. We also chatted here and there as we moved around; we exchanged stories of the pets we were caring for and talked about the city we were staying in at the moment.

Then last summer we were both going to be in Miami for a few weeks.

We ended up spending more time together and we realized we really liked each other. We knew that a relationship together would have to start off as a long-distance relationship because we both already had a few things scheduled.

However, we wanted to give it a try. We talked every day and eventually, we were able to start house sitting together.

We have been on the road together now for a few months and already have house sits scheduled together through most of 2020. We’re so happy that our love of travel brought us together and are excited to continue to travel and explore new places together.”

-Vicky from Buddy the Traveling Monkey

32. Discovering a new road to travel

“I met my husband when I was on vacation in New York City. I was on a long multi-month trip around the world, catching up with friends, traveling and eventually making my way to Rio, where I was planning to stop and get a job teaching English.

Instead, two weeks before I left the United States for five months in Canada, I met Kevin.

We spent those two weeks wandering through the Met, having brunch at Balthazar’s, lazing around on the Hudson River, and having dinner in the East Village. New York is an easy place to fall in love!

In my five months traveling the width of Canada by rail, Kevin came to vacation with me three times.

A week soaking up the breathtaking scenery on the Rockies, another week kayaking and cycling around Salt Spring Island near Vancouver, and a final week freezing together in a Montreal winter!

Well, in the end, my journey south to Rio never happened. Instead, when I left Canada, we both moved to Australia for three years, then eventually back to New York, where it all began.

Since then, we got married and celebrated by playing tourists in our favorite city, drinking champagne at sunset on a sailing boat in New York Harbor.

We still live in NYC and I still travel, but I’ve substituted a nomadic existence for twice-yearly trips with my husband, sampling different locations all around the world.

So, I fell in love on the road, ended up down a different road altogether, and now travel a new one together with my husband.”

-James from Travel Collecting

33. Getting together through Couchsurfing

“It was a rainy rainy day in January in the mountains of Vietnam and I had just left my motorbike partner behind in Phong Nha after riding with him for 15 days as I needed some me-time.

Partway through the ride to Ninh Binh, it struck me that I wanted to keep riding and find some nightlife and enjoy myself.

It was a 330-mile ride and it was raining hard, so I couldn’t read the signs and was on a car-only highway. The police forced me to stop and turn around and get off the highway to go back to the regular roads, meaning I had to stay in Ninh Binh for the night.

The next morning I was up bright and early again, peddling through the rain until I finally reached Hanoi midday. Full of energy and eager to explore the city, I found myself on one of the best travel apps:

Couchsurfing.

Little did I know that by getting on the app that day it would forever change my life.

There was a group of 12 Couchsurfers from all over the world getting together for drinks and food and sharing travel stories. Inna and I were seated across from one another but not saying much, though we couldn’t help but feel a connection so strongly and deeply to one another.

After we left that spot the group got smaller, and continued to get smaller after each stop on our night out. Inna and I got to know each other a little more each time — until we ultimately ended up walking around Hoàn Kiếm Lake until the sun came up.

Unfortunately, she was scheduled to leave Vietnam two days later to go back to Ukraine and I was leaving Vietnam in two weeks to start my tour through Europe. After the longest week of our changed lives, we decided Inna would join me traveling, as well!

Two years later we are still traveling together. We’re engaged, fully in love, and still treat each and every day as though it’s our last!”

-Jim & Inna from Executive Thrillseekers

34. What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas

“Travel brought me and my now-husband together.

We were living in separate cities in the United States — I was a college student in Chicago and he had just moved to New York for work — and had both traveled to Las Vegas with friends to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

I was playing the slot machines at the casino at the hotel we were both staying at. He sat next to me and we talked and gambled for about an hour until I had to leave.

A few hours later and shortly before midnight we ran into each other again at the casino and shared a kiss at midnight on New Year’s.

We hung out and talked for a few more hours until we said goodbye since we were leaving Vegas the next morning. We did not make plans to see each other again, but we exchanged phone numbers.

We kept in touch by phone until he came to visit me a few months later and we decided to start dating long distance. Since we both were living with roommates and loved to travel we found it more convenient to meet in different cities in North America for weekend getaways.

Eventually, after a few years of dating long distance and traveling to see each other, we got married with a destination wedding in the British Virgin Islands.

We have been married for over 10 years and now live together in Chicago with our two kids and beloved yorkie.

They say “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” but for us, that was definitely not the case!”

-Matilda from The Travel Sisters

35. A Mexican romance

“When I first met my boyfriend during a study abroad program in 2010, romance was the last thing on my mind.

I was determined to spend my 10 months in Mexico becoming fluent in Spanish so I could travel Mexico worry-free while simultaneously gaining enough college credits to graduate on time.

Meeting Héctor was not part of the plan.

We first met at a party I was hosting with my study abroad cohort (how else do you meet people in college?). We had an immediate connection and while the people around us shotgunned beers we fell into a conversation about one of our shared passions:

Music.

I know it sounds super cheesy, but I felt something inside me shift. He was different than anyone I’d ever met before. Maybe it was just because he laughed at my dumb jokes? I can’t say for sure.

Naturally, I was bummed to discover that he was moving away to Mexico City to study music in just a few weeks.

We kept in touch, IM-ing about our favorite bands and discussing whatever poetry I was reading for my literature classes, and I regularly begged him to play me Enrique Iglesias songs on his guitar. He refused.

Soon, an opportunity for me to visit Mexico City presented itself, and we went on our “first date” — a Shakira concert at Foro del Sol. It was amazing!

What followed was a whirlwind, semi long-distance (I lived five hours away) romance that ended when my study abroad program did.

Over the years we kept in touch as friends, and each of us had relationships come and go. For years, there didn’t appear to be future for us.

Then, in 2017, I finally had the chance to return to Mexico. I asked Héctor if he wanted to join me for a beach vacation in Playa del Carmen and he agreed.

From the minute I stepped off the airplane it was like no time had passed. We fell into conversations about music, making taco puns, and me requesting that he sing me Enrique Iglesias songs. At the end of the trip neither of us could deny that the feelings were still there.

Within a few short months, we’d both quit our jobs and relocated to Playa del Carmen to be together for real.

And now, three years on, we’re living back in Xalapa, Veracruz where we first met 10 years ago. We still talk about music, we still make taco puns, and he still won’t play me an Enrique Iglesias song.”

-Janine from Janine in the World

36. A Nigerian princess meets a Wyoming cowboy

“If you think this is a fictional story, you will be wrong. It is a true-life account of how I met the love of my life.

My twin sister and I left everything we knew in Nigeria and journeyed to a little town called Laramie, Wyoming, in the United States.

We knew no one in the town or neighboring state, and with a population of about 28,000 people, it was a huge culture shock for us since we had lived in a town of over 1 million people. Quickly, we got acclimated though, frankly, we had no choice.

I started working and taking college classes and made new friends. One of my coworkers, Zeb, used to think my sister and I were the same person and would complement how hardworking I was since I “worked all the time.” Until he realized that there were two of us.

Zeb was a nice guy, but I didn’t really think much of it.

Then I realized we had the same major when we met in class the next semester in a smaller class size. We worked on a group project together, and a good friend, Noelle, kept saying, “I think Zeb likes you!” She was great at reading people, and she was right.

Zeb had finally summoned the courage to ask me out on a date. I was clueless about dating, as my academics were my main priority, but I decided to give Zeb a chance.

As the saying goes, “The rest is history.”

I had asked God for three things in the person I was going to marry:

• The person’s family has to love my family and me as we are (the good, the bad, the ugly),
• he must have faith in God as Christians,
• and he has to be an excellent cook since I dread cooking.

Every day, I thank God for giving me the best gift I have ever received, my husband, Zeb.

Like in all relationships, it is not always smooth sailing from cultural differences to personality, but it has been worth it.

Now, we are on a quest to journey the world together, starting with traveling in Africa. “

-Lydia from Africa Wanderlust

37. Finding love in India

“Some places that we travel to leave their mark more than others. We like to think that every place we visit changes us in some way, but in some countries that change is much more profound.

In the case of my travels to India, they have completely changed my life.

Before my trips to India, I would get nervous. Family and friends were never particularly understanding of why I insisted on journeying halfway across the world to solo travel India.

But once I settled into the chaotic peace, I would find myself more and more at home in India, learning to live by the moment and surrender just a little bit of that hard-wired need to be in control.

In 2017 my travels took a turn for the unexpected as I experienced what would become one of my favorite stories of India to share.

A day before I was due to leave after a month of traveling there, I met Ravi in his hometown of Mumbai. Over chai and wandering around Colaba, posing for touristy shots in front of the gateway, we discovered a connection we knew we wanted to grow.

I didn’t see him again for another four months.

Fast forward two years and we’re living on the other side of the world in Toronto, Canada. We’ve traveled many places in India and around the world that are new to both of us, and we’ve been able to see places differently through each others’ eyes.

Finding love in India has shown me that the typecasting around gender roles in patriarchal societies — which India is considered — are not always true. Both of us are a long way from home — in many senses — which has taught us to be kinder, more flexible, and more understanding.

I have learned a lot about what it truly means to be close to ones’ family, even at the end of a phone, and Ravi has learned to make the perfect poha (a flattened rice dish).

I have learned that far from trying to scam people — which is the traveler stereotype — most Indians are incredibly kind.

Back in India we have been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who accept us openly as a mixed ethnicity couple, vs the number of people who judge for breaking the mold.”

-Ellie & Ravi from Soul Travel Blog

38. Falling in love in Barcelona

“In 2015, a good friend from university and I decided to have a little trip to the south of Europe during our semester break.

Since we were working full-time during most of our time off from university, we only had two weeks before our classes would start again, and we wanted to make them count.

So we booked several busses and flights starting from Madrid. After we visited Porto and Lisbon, we planned to stay three days in Barcelona before heading to Paris and returning home to Germany from there by bus.

Since we were students at that time, we tried to travel as cheaply as possible using Couchsurfing in most of the places we visited.

While my friend went to bed earlier during our first night in Barcelona, I stayed awake for hours talking to our host, Eduardo, in the living room of his flat. From the beginning, we felt a great connection sharing the same stupid kind of humor and a passion for traveling.

When we left Barcelona two days later, I was sure I would never see him again, even though we promised each other to stay in touch.

Little did I know that just 10 days later, he would take a flight to visit me in Germany, spending a whole week with me. Since I had classes to attend during the week, we went on a memorable little weekend trip to Amsterdam which became the first of many trips together.

The next three months we spent visiting each other once a month; however, for my last semester of university, I had a semester abroad coming up in which I had to spend three months in the Maldives.

It wasn’t easy not being able to see each other for three months in such an early stage of our relationship, and my WiFi-connection was awful, which made it almost impossible to video chat.

Anyway, when my internship was finally over, I flew right to Barcelona to live with Eduardo in the same flat where we first met.

Fast forward to today, after exploring more than 15 countries together, we are currently traveling around South America on a seven-month honeymoon!”

-Vicki from Vickiviaja

Romantic Travel Video

A note from Jessie:

While I personally didn’t meet my fiance traveling, we did say “I Love You” for the first time during a trip to Savannah, Georgia.

You can see the video from that special trip above.

Seriously, the atmosphere combined with the many things to do in Savannah makes it such a romantic trip!

Do you have any inspiring love stories from the road to share?

Bonus Short Travel Stories

Looking for more of the best travel stories? Check out:

20 Embarrassing Travel Stories That Will Make You Laugh & Blush

25 Crazy Travel Stories You Need To Read To Believe

23 Inspiring Travel Stories Sharing The Kindness Of Strangers

16 Short Funny Travel Stories That Will Make You Laugh Out Loud

Sexual Assault Stories From The Road (& What I’ve Learned)

8 Crazy NYC Subway Stories That Will Make You Hail A Cab

A Host’s Perspective: My Worst Airbnb Horror Stories

17 True Short Adventure Travel Stories To Inspire Your Next Trip

11 Epic Travel Fail Stories From The Road

18 Scary Travel Stories From Haunted Hotels To Creepy Cabins

Enjoyed this post? Pin it for later!

• How her cancer journey changed her life for the better
• What happened when she decided to be “selfish” for once
• What the preparation looks like to sell everything and travel
• The truth about traveling after chemo and radiation
• Her strategy for traveling around the world for free and super cheap
• How she handles traveling with cancer, including her #1 tip for those traveling with chronic illness

How One Woman’s Cancer Journey Led Her To Sell Everything And Travel [Video]

Don’t Wait To Live Your Life & Travel [Q&A Interview]

1. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. To get started, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

When I was diagnosed with cancer we already had a trip to South Africa planned. My doctors said go, so we did. I had surgery to install a port a week after we returned.

2. While many people love travel, we all get into it for different reasons. For you, it was a cancer diagnosis that pushed you to book a trip. Can you share more about that?

3. For many, getting cancer would be a reason not to travel. What was going through your mind that made you land on travel as your next step?

• Start a business
• Travel a lot
• Run for office

On a plane heading to Missouri to pick up our RV

4. Building on my last question, you even went so far as to not just take a trip, but to leave everything behind, renting out your house, paying cash for an older RV, leaving your career along with your husband, and setting out to travel with $10,000 as long as you could. How did you decide on this adventure, and what was the planning process like? Curious, too, if there is travel insurance for travelers with cancer?

5. One interesting aspect of the trip was that you learned how to travel, quite often, for free, and actually have more money in your bank account than when you left. What are some of your favorite tips for others who want to do this?

Leaving our house behind and hitting the road in our RV for the first time.

6. What were some of the major challenges you faced along the way?

7. What was the most rewarding aspect of the trip?

Camping for free near Mesa Verde National Park.

8. How did you manage having cancer while traveling? Are there any tips for making traveling with cancer easier for those who may be going through something similar?

9. What advice would you give someone wanting to travel, but who is scared or hesitant?

Would you sell everything and travel?

Would you like to share how your own cancer journey impacted your life?

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