Updated April 7, 2024

Recurring themes in travel groups are the inability to find a travel companion and reluctance to travel alone. Finding a ‘stranger buddy’ online is always a risk, and being paired with another traveller by a tour company doesn’t always have a positive outcome. Do any of these scenarios apply to you? If there’s no one in your current circle of family and friends who share your travel dreams, why not find a travel companion from your past?

How about tracking down a childhood friend? Do you have a gang of folks you hung out with in your youth? Did you become good friends with colleagues at work? Or perhaps you’ve shared an enjoyable travel experience with someone from your past and you’d like to recreate something similar. Did you meet someone on a previous trip and shared contact information?

Are fond memories enough of a shared bond that it’s worth the risk to travel together?

1. Find a travel companion from your past

This story is one example of reaching into the past to find a travel companion. Sandy and I had lost contact and hadn’t seen each other in forty years, yet we planned a trip to Portugal together. How did it unfold? Were we compatible as travelling companions? Was it a satisfying experience? Would I do it again (as in plan a trip with someone I hadn’t seen in a very long time)?

An earlier journey, 1974

The earlier journey began in 1974 in Israel. It was January, and one of the country’s coldest winters on record. This led to volunteering to work on a kibbutz until the weather warmed up. It was there I met Sandy, a Canadian from St. Joseph’s Island near Sault Sainte Marie. In short order, we were matched up as roommates and assigned one of the old huts reserved for volunteers. It didn’t take long for us to become fast friends.

We laughed, told stories, shared dreams, and hitchhiked together throughout Israel, and then in Canada later that year.

Soon after, we drifted in different directions and went our separate ways as our lives became consumed with studies, work, and less youthful pursuits.

Re-establishing contact

Fast forward several decades to my retirement. That’s when I dusted off my old travel journals and pondered the whereabouts of people who featured so prominently in such rich stories of the past. With Google at my disposal, tracking down Sandy was a breeze. She’d become a published author and expert in her field. After a quick email and just as quick response, we followed each other’s lives on Facebook for a couple of years without ever truly connecting.

Planning to meet

That all changed when I was planning a bike-and-barge tour to the Netherlands, where Sandy had taken up residence. We explored the possibility of getting together. With the benefit of email, a plan was hatched to meet briefly in the Netherlands followed by almost two weeks together in Portugal.

The second journey, 2014

Trepidation and anticipation

Travelling together to Portugal was a bit of a risk, for both of us. Had our lives changed so dramatically that we could no longer relate, or our interests were no longer compatible? Had our worldviews shaped by forty years of living on different continents and exposed to different cultures and ways of seeing be so radically different that our attitudes and perspectives would clash? For me, it was a risk worth taking. It felt intriguing, compelling.

Meeting again after forty years

After the bike-and-barge tour followed by a week in Amsterdam, I took the train to Arnhem, where Sandy and her partner collected me from the station. In no time at all, we started filling in some of the highlights and superficial details about our respective lives. I had a million questions that I figured would be answered in due course. After all, we would have almost two weeks in which to do so. The conversation was relaxed and fluid, and many questions were answered without being asked.

Sandy read me excerpts of her forty-year-old journal entries from Israel. She handed me forty-year-old correspondence I’d written during my first year in Canada in 1974. I was amazed the letters still existed, and had an ambivalent interest in what they might reveal about my twenty-something self.

Over the course of the weekend, we explored Arnhem by bicycle, and snacked on seafood delicacies overlooking the Danube.

We laughed and told stories, much as we had all those years ago. Forty-year-old memories were traded, sometimes drawing blanks from the other person as she reached into the depths of her recollections and came up empty. Or, we helped each other contribute the necessary pieces to create something approaching a complete picture. As the connections were made, the trip to Portugal felt more appealing than ever.

Several journeys in one

It seemed as though I was embarking on several journeys merged into one. I wondered which, in particular, would be the most interesting.

1. Visiting Portugal

Of course, there was Portugal. A visit to Portugal was long overdue. I knew I would come away with a rich appreciation of the history, people, architecture, beaches, and food, among other things.

2. Sharing youthful adventures

There was the nostalgic trip down memory lane. Just thinking about it evoked a smile on my face and warmth in my heart. I was looking forward to continuing to discover which pieces of our youthful adventures we would each remember, and laughing all over again at some of our escapades.

3. Discovering another’s life story

And there was my almost insatiable curiosity about someone else’s life journey through the forty years sandwiched in between. I knew so little about the present day Sandy. Her professional blog and Facebook page were about her work. Clearly, she had fulfilled many of those youthful dreams shared as a nineteen-year-old back in 1974. But Sandy as a person on the verge of turning sixty was a complete mystery, and that was something I was interested in exploring.

Sandy’s studies and career had unfolded much as I remember she said they would. This was so very different from my unplanned and spontaneous choices exercised in a somewhat higgledy-piggledy fashion along the way. How had the wisdom to know her career path, and the determination to follow it, influence the unfolding of Sandy’s life in other ways?

I had no idea about her marital or family status, or why she decided to settle in the Netherlands. Or, what had become of her family who had so graciously welcomed me into their home for my first ‘white Christmas’ in 1974. I pictured an exercise book with so many blank pages waiting to be filled that I couldn’t wait to get started.

4. A journey into self

But a strange thing happened. What I hadn’t planned on was the journey within, a journey into self. This was triggered by memories and emotions as we talked incessantly about our earlier travels, and the intervening years. The other revelation was the unanticipated significance of the unfolding of the travel adventure of two women who had not seen or truly communicated with each other in forty years. I had compartmentalized the trip into ‘Portugal,’ ‘memory lane,’ and finding out about ‘Sandy’s journey’ of the past four decades. But I had neglected to consider how the intersecting of both Sandy’s and my life stories after so long would have such a significant impact.

Our time in Portugal

In Portugal, our pace and schedule for each day were both leisurely and unambitious. This left plenty of space for spontaneity and conversation, and allowed our common and divergent interests determine our activities and route. Very early on, it became obvious that the trip to Portugal had morphed into a convergence of two journeys through the previous forty years.

I felt less like a traveller in a foreign land, and more like a character in a play without a script, with no idea of how it would end. Sure, we took in many of the sights of Lisbon and Nazaré and points in between, but I found myself reflecting on all that we shared. Our present-day travel adventure felt like the closing of a circle initiated forty years earlier, and it brought insights I never imagined possible.

Each day revealed new discoveries.

Oh, how different we were. Sandy is an intellectual, and I am… well, not. Sandy speaks several languages and I am boringly unilingual. Sandy’s a vegetarian and I adore seafood. I enjoy a happy hour brew, and wine with a leisurely supper; Sandy rarely drinks alcohol.

Sandy loves museums, architecture, art, hand-painted tiles, textiles, innovative designs and products, classical music, and the list goes on. I appreciate exposure to each of these in manageable portions. I love abandoning the tourist trail, and eating among locals in restaurants with names I can’t pronounce. I like to spontaneously jump on and off public transportation, walk my feet off, and get lost in old and less glamorous working class neighbourhoods. But most of all, I enjoy contemplative moments when stumbling across perfect places to allow feelings of gratitude for being where I am envelop me.

Under other circumstances, I might have suggested splitting up to explore our divergent interests. However, the glimpses into Sandy’s life and how it connected with mine were far too seductive to ignore. The more we talked, the deeper some of our conversations went. There were times I felt afforded a sacred position of trust — a place of honour when someone shares her most painful of memories or deepest of thoughts. Our conversations were sprinkled with laughter and tears, and discovering a long lost friend was powerful.

The journey within was tumultuous, like being on a roller coaster. There were times I felt twenty-something, filled with youthful exuberance and carefree abandon. At other times, I experienced it all as a journey of gratitude… for the inexplicable and unfathomable bonds of family, and the goodness of the life partner I often take for granted. It was also a time to appreciate the intense relationships possible between women, uncomplicated by the distractions of sexual chemistry or gender dynamics. This was somewhat similar to other travel experiences with women friends — experiences peppered with powerful reminders and revelations about the reasons we became and remain friends.

As the days unfurled and our relationship strengthened, I felt a need to explore why we somewhat abruptly went in different directions forty years ago. Excavating recollections and piecing together fragments from my letters Sandy had kept provided valuable clues about what I was searching for back then, and how it influenced the rest of my life. As I came to the realization of how much I had missed my friend, strangely enough, I didn’t regret the loss of forty years of friendship. I was somewhat thankful we hadn’t maintained contact as I suspected the distractions of work, relationships, and ‘stuff’ might have interfered with our ability to remain connected in a meaningful way.

This was an unforgettable journey and one I would embark on again in a heartbeat.

2. Find a travel companion from your past

The closing of one circle in such a memorable manner spurred the conception of others.

Might some of the following examples offer ideas on how to find a travel companion from your past? 

(i) Reach out to former colleagues

During my 25 years of employment with a national organization in Canada, I was fortunate to form cross-country friendships with some amazing co-workers. In 2015, we met at the Atatürk Airport in Istanbul to begin exploring Turkey through a food tour bridging two continents, hot air ballooning in Cappadocia, and a delightful blue cruise on a Turkish gulet.

 

(ii) Track down former travel companions 

Dusting off my travel journals also led to re-establishing contact with my friend Des. On a trip to New Zealand in 2017, he planned a motorcycle trip down the South Island to celebrate an earlier journey we shared through Europe and the Middle East in the 1970s.

The gang of cohorts from travelling in the 1970s is a rich source of eager and compatible travelling companions. Every two years we meet in either Australia or New Zealand for a week of fun and festivities and organize side trips in smaller groups either before or after the event. In 2023, we met on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria and organized a side trip on the Great Ocean Road.  

(iii) Look up childhood friends

On my last visit to Australia, I tracked down a childhood friend from the neighbourhood where I grew up. Circumstances were such that we were unable to meet face to face, but we’ve made loose plans to travel together when she next visits her son in Zurich. The childhood memories will be a little more difficult to mine but I’m certain we’ll have fun doing so. I’m also confident that our shared connections with the past provide a solid base for compatibility as travelling companions.

(iv) Reconnect with travellers met on the road

Vanessa and I met at a hostel in Lisbon in 2014 and we’ve since met up in Malaga, Spain and London, UK. We’ve both booked travel to meet in Pondicherry (Puducherry), India in October 2024.

 

Might you be interested in other travel stories that relate to this one? If so, check out The book that changed my life and Travel in the 1970s. What’s better? Then or now?

 

If you found this post helpful, please share it by selecting one or more social media buttons. Have you reached into your past to find a travel companion? If so, please do tell in the comments. Thank you.

 

Care to pin it for later?

SaveSave