Our first date was a rainy stroll through the familiar woods of our shared Vancouver suburb. Just three weeks later, we were hiking together along the sun-drenched coast of France.
When Colin and I connected on a dating app in spring 2024, I was about to leave for a month in Nice — a solo trip on which I had planned to flirt with Frenchmen. But I was dazzled by sparkly feelings the moment we met, and I quickly started to rethink those plans. Colin happened to have a week of vacation time coming up that perfectly overlapped with my trip abroad. I invited him to come along after knowing him for just seven days. We both knew it was crazy, but he took the leap and booked the flight.
We got to know each other walking 30,000 steps a day in Nice’s narrow streets, hiking up into the hills and jostling for space on crowded trains as we ventured to Italy and Monaco. In the two years since, we’ve been to more than a dozen countries together. The experiences and insights gained through those travels have become our shared history, the foundation of our love.
We started planning our next trip together as soon as I got home from France. We were both interested in Southeast Asia, and Colin suggested we look at what G Adventures had to offer. I bristled a little at this, not really thinking of myself as a group travel kind of person. The mere mention of a tour transported me back to 1997, when my best friend and I camped our way through Europe on a wild Contiki adventure. At 19 years old it was great fun, but the thought of repeating that travel style seemed highly unappealing as an adult.
But Colin, an experienced G Adventures traveller, trusted the brand, and truthfully, I liked the idea of letting go of some of my obsessive trip-planning research.
Why small group travel changed the way we explore together
Six months after that first walk in the woods, we started our 9-day Cambodia Experience tour with a walk through Ho Chi Minh City. I was still hesitant about the group element, so we ducked out of the optional dinner that first night. We found ourselves wandering in the rain, waffling over where we should eat — until we gave up, exhausted with jet lag – and scarfed down some mediocre pho.
The initial hesitation faded quickly as we plunged into the experience with the group for the rest of the trip. We exchanged great conversations over local curries, and even roadside insect snacks. I leaned into the ease of not being in charge and Colin expanded his palette with the help of our wonderful Chief Experience Officer (CEO). By the time we said goodbye to our group in Bangkok, we were already talking about which G Adventures trip we should do next.
In spring 2025, we embarked on a Jane Goodall Collection tour in Malaysian Borneo, departing from Kota Kinabalu one month after our first anniversary. From a quiet night bonding with our travel mates over rice wine at a homestay in Kota Belud, to an impromptu karaoke session over local whisky in Sepilok, this was the experience that really cracked me open to the joy of travelling with others. It wasn’t just about the ease of planning.
It was the wild joy of spotting an unexpected herd of wild elephants along the shore after boating through torrential rain. It was the laughter at how completely soaked we got on that boat ride and how close to tears Colin came when telling the group what it meant to him to release the baby turtles that hatched during our stay on Pulau Libaran.
From Southeast Asia to the Sahara: building a shared history through travel
In November 2025, we decided to tackle Europe on our own – mostly. In between our surf town vacation in Portugal and exploring the Christmas markets in Germany, we slotted in a four-night Moroccan Sahara Discovery tour with G Adventures. We flew from Lisbon to Marrakech and joined our group for a long trek into the Sahara — about as different as you can get from the humid, wildlife-rich riverbanks of Borneo.
This place in particular was meaningful for us. Colin had read Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist shortly before we met. This beautiful book, set in the Sahara, primed him to listen to signals from the universe and say yes when a near-stranger invited him to visit her in France. Here, Colin and I walked out into the dunes and stared into the vast distance, feeling so grateful to have found each other and reflecting on how much we have grown together through our travels.
As we approached our two-year anniversary, we felt pulled to explore more of Southeast Asia and chose the Classic Lombok tour. After a couple of nights in the charming port village of Padang Bai, we headed to Kuta Lombok, where we strolled through a local fishing village, watched the sunset on the beach, and delighted in sharing a cob of grilled corn from a vendor on the shore. A couple of days later we swam in a waterfall in Mount Rinjani National Park, then got caught in an absolutely torrential downpour while walking through rice fields, huddling with our group under a tin-roofed shelter, soaked to the skin.
On our final night, as our travel companions shared their favourite memories of the trip around the table, that very moment came up over and over. It was that wild joy again, perfectly encapsulated: being drenched in the warm rain, on an adventure in a stunningly beautiful place far from home, with people who feel just as lucky to be there as you do.
Now, back home in Vancouver, we’re already planning our next escape. We have plenty of rain here, but it’s not warm and it does not spark that kind of joy. So, we dream of Botswana, or Tanzania, or wherever our next journey takes us, and the new memories we will make there, together.
