Travel friendships come and go.
The unfortunate reality of moving countries as you move homes is that it’s nearly impossible to stay in touch with every friend you make along the way. But every now and then you meet someone whose friendship not only proves the test of time, but that of distance, too.
Today I want to introduce you to one such friend of mine: Micaela.
The night I met Micaela in 2008, she had her backpack on, fresh off the Eurostar from Paris. I’d moved to London for the first time only weeks earlier and quickly found myself a part of her group of hilarious Kiwi friends.
Since then, I’ve spent a year in her home country of New Zealand, we reunited in London in 2010, she’s making plans to visit my home country next year, and heck, we even liked the same guy at one point.
If we survived that, we can survive anything:
All that being said, Micaela recently left for her first extended solo trip – a Croatian sailing adventure from Dubrovnik to Split, a quick stop in the Plitvice Lakes, and a week in Greece, including five nights on the island of Santorini.
I may or may not be incredibly, overwhelmingly jealous.
I can remember the first time we brainstormed her trip back in March, searching for flights and hostels over Persian food in London. In the months that followed, there were many long Skype conversations and a flurry of emails sent back and forth as Micaela worked to put it all together.
Her questions ranged from how to find a cheap flight to Athens to what happens if she gets lonely on the road. And the more we talked, the more I thought: surely Micaela isn’t the only one asking these travel questions.
So I’ve decided to run a bit of a series here on The Great Affair. For the next four weeks, I’ll be blogging on four different questions Micaela brought up:
- Do you ever get lonely?
- What do you do when you travel?
- Do you have any travel regrets?
- How do you remember places?
And not surprisingly, I’ve titled the series, Conversations with Micaela:
I’m excited to share some of our conversations with you, so check back each Monday for the next post!
Have any travel questions of your own you’d like me to talk about?
Send me an email at [email protected] or leave a comment below!
What a great idea. I haven’t been on a long solo trip before either… with a bit of luck from my side, this summer might be the first one – and quite frankly, the question on loneliness on the road has got me thinking ever since I started playing with this idea in my head… I’m interested on knowing your thoughts on it!
Thanks, Katherina! I get the loneliness question so often from people when they find out I usually travel alone. But what I tell them is that for me, I get the occasional ‘lonely day’ no matter where I am, so it might as well happen on the road 🙂 But more on that next week! Where are you thinking of heading this summer? Hope it all works out for you!
Love this idea! I look forward to reading more 🙂
Thank you, Hannah! It just sort of hit me after a few long Skype calls with my friend, and I thought it might be a good way to tie all of our thoughts together in one place. Look forward to sharing the first post next week 🙂
Haha I’m sitting in a cafe with free wifi on the island of Stari-Grad in Croatia, SWEATING MY BUTT OFF, and I just read this with joy. I laughed out loud at the boy part. We have been through a lot! I love you dearly and am so glad you are doing this series. Looking forward to reading the rest xoxo
P.s. In 2008 my face had such a ‘young puppy fat’ look about it! Nawww….
I love picturing you in that cafe (well, minus the sweating part, of course…) – I just googled Stari-Grad and it looks lovely, the same beautiful sea and terra cotta roofs I fell in love with in Croatia. So glad to make you laugh, and I can’t wait to get this series started next week. I’m so grateful for your friendship and am excited to see where our next adventures lead us! xoxo