Friends along the way…

Writing this blog is so wonderful as it not only lets me share the adventures I’m having now, it also enables me to reflect back on trips I’ve had in the past.  When you travel, you take so much in and what you’re left with – outside of some cheesy souveniers and digi photos – is your memories.

I’ve done a lot of travelling on my own.  I used to honestly prefer this as I loved to go to museums and visit historical sites.  I found if I went with really close friends we would all have different priorities and one of us would have to compromise on what we wanted to see/do. When you are travelling, it’s not really fair to have to compromise as you want to leave feeling like you’ve seen what you wanted to see.  This was my personal opinion at the time.

Me in Ibiza with an Aussie friend - 2003

My thoughts have changed slightly over the years and because I now enjoy relaxing holidays a bit more than I used to, I like having a travel companion.  I still enjoy the adventure and am quite comfortable travelling on my own but now I like to have someone I can talk to and share it with.

Back when I first started travelling, there was no facebook.  People you met and wanted to keep in contact with you exchanged numbers, snail mail addresses and emails.  Most likely you would never hear from or see them again.

I’m fairly good at keeping in contact with people (or so I’m told) so I’ve had a couple special experiences that I’d like to share.

Roommate for a week – friend for life

My friend & I at the Hoover Dam

When I first went to Spain in 2003, I went on a tour organized by Contiki, which arranges land-only trips for people between 18-30.  The one thing that drew me to them was that they offer single travellers the option to be paired with someone and you don’t have to pay a single supplement.  I went for it!

The first stop on our Spanish tour was Madrid and I met my roommate a couple hours after I arrived.  As soon as we met, I knew she’d be a good friend for awhile.  During the 6 nights we were hanging out together, we had such a great time.  She was from Ohio in the US and we exchanged emails and phone numbers.

Once I got back to Canada, we kept in touch almost every month and committed to try and meet up once a year to see one another.  The following year, we met in New York City for 4 nights and then the year after that we met in Las Vegas for nearly a week.  In 2008, she met me in Niagara Falls for a visit too.  It’s been a couple years since I’ve seen her but I’m hoping to visit her towards the end of this year.  So, over 7 years on from our Spanish vacation, we’re still in touch and good friends.

Our friendship is something I treasure as we’ve both made the effort to keep in touch and see one another.  This is something rare in this day and age, in my opinion.

Jenolan Caves - Australia

An Italian journey that led me down under

At the end of 2003, I went on a trip to Italy through another tour group called Trafalgar.  I booked this trip extremely last minute as I wanted to get away over the XMAS break and use my points.  Italy it was and a tour where I didn’t really need to plan much sounded good to me.  Also I got a pretty good deal and the tour hit all of the hotspots I wanted to see.  I’ll talk more about my time in Italy another time but on this trip I had a hard time meeting people.

I travelled on my own again and was hoping to be paired with someone.  When I arrived, they didn’t have any other lone travellers so I was on my own.  The trip was aimed at an older crowd and most were couples.  So I felt a bit out of place – which is rare for me.

Quickly I became friends with 2 couples – one from Boston and the other from Australia (who were both good fun).  I was considering a trip to Oz for awhile and after meeting them I decided to go for it!  It was about a year between the time I was in Italy and I got to Oz for my 6 week holiday but we managed to keep in touch over email throughout the year.  When I got to Oz, they welcomed me into their home and I ended up spending about 3 nights with them.  They were so hospitable to me – taking me out to the Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves.  It was really amazing to see places I don’t think I would have seen otherwise.  Since then, we’ve kept in touch here & there but it is tough sometimes to stay in contact.  Their friendship is special to me as it really shows how open people can be and I remember their hospitality when I’ve had similar requests from people I’ve met along the way.  I think I’ll always open my door to people when they need a place to stay while exploring somewhere new.

So…what am I getting at?

The point of this post is really to communicate my experiences with travelling.  Sites like Facebook make keeping in touch a lot easier – which is great.  To me, though, I think what it shows is how friends and people you can connect with could be anywhere in the world.  A lot of us often put boundaries around where we will meet our friends, colleagues and lovers.  I honestly have never been like that.

I’ve been lucky enough to see that making friends around the world really can make you friends for a lifetime.

That’s just how I feel – what do you think?