Why you should never fall in love when travelling.

I’m going to get personal here for a post, I promise it won’t happen often, but I think my experience is unique enough to garner at least one post.

Here’s the thing: not many people set out to travel with the mindset that they are going to meet their soulmate. Heck, some of us are travelling just to escape whatever broken hearts we leave at home (ours or someone else’s). That was my case really. I was brokenhearted. I was sworn of men forever! Well, maybe not forever but you know what I mean. The last thing I expected on my two week trip to California with my best friend was to meet the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Yet, it happened.

It was our second night in California. Ali (the proclaimed best friend) and I stood at the hostel door looking out onto the front patio. The patio was divided into two sections, separated by the front walk way. We looked at both sides. There on our left were two guys chatting to each other and not paying anyone else any mind. Queue two rowdy, ready to mingle Canadian gals.

We sat down. They looked at us. Initial greetings were made. And then me, being the idiot who doesn’t think things through sometimes (or all the time depending on who you’re speaking to) says, “where do you think we’re from?”. *Face palm*. In my defence, at the time I thought I was being cute.

Without even a pause Ben in his ever-so-thick-British-accent says, “Canada”. Queue awkward silence before Ali being the linguist and party-starter that she is, quickly changed the subject.

That ladies and gentlemen, is how I met my future, and current boyfriend, roommate, life partner, soulmate, other-sappy-words-for-significant-other.

It’s funny thinking back on it. We met for one night, in which period of time I mostly decided to stalk Ben and his friends and follow them down to San Diego where we spent two more nights together before saying our goodbyes and travelling on our way. No one .. literally NO ONE thought we would ever see each other again. Yet, and here’s where the beauty of technology comes in, we started talking every single damn day.

4 months later he travelled to Canada for the first time.

4 months after that I travelled to England for the first time.

2 months after that, Ben moved his entire life, without thinking twice, to Canada to be with me. *aww*.

It hasn’t been easy. In fact, it has been one of the hardest things BOTH of us has ever done. We live together now in a cute little apartment right smack downtown Toronto with a cat (who we still haven’t named), working through Visas situations and trying to start a life together.

Folks, you really never know when you’re going to meet the love of your life. I wouldn’t recommend falling in love when travelling to anyone BUT I wouldn’t change it for the world.