Our Story: To Travel is to Fall In Love
One thing we know for sure: everyone who had a 2020 wedding date is connected by a common bond: that special rollercoaster of emotion that comes from plans made, plans changed, and the healthy dose of uncertainty this year just keeps throwing our way.
We experienced our fair share of changes when it came to our big day — from the date, to the size, to the addition of masks as part of our wedding attire. But overall, we’re incredibly lucky.
On August 14th, 2020, we officially tied the knot in front of our immediate family and closest friends. The day turned out to be beautiful, so special, and everything we imagined.
Our friends and family gave the sweetest speeches, and a common theme throughout them was travel and adventure — the way it’s meant so much to our relationship, and to the friendships we’ve built together.
So we figured, now that we’re officially hitched, what better time to tell the story of how we fell in love, and how our love has been bookmarked, tested, and strengthened through travel.
It all began in 2009.
We met at the University of Colorado. We both grew up in CO, but Boulder felt like a faraway land. The natural beauty, the freedom, the interesting people, the college town vibe — every day brought an exciting new adventure. We were close enough to buzz home for the weekend anytime we wanted, but far enough away that we experienced our first taste of true independence.
We lived on the same floor of the same building freshman year as part of a program for business school students. I had a boyfriend at the time. I’m not sure how, but Ray says he knew he liked me from the first time he saw me, and was even more sure the first time he heard me speak in class. I knew him as the cute guy who lived down the hall and was always getting in trouble for playing sports in the hallway and blasting Andrea Boccelli from his dorm room while classes were in session a few doors down :)
One of our first pics together. First of many Rockies games…
2011
It was Valentine’s Day. In an incredibly nerdy progression of events, we were both members of the business school student government, and we got assigned to the same shift to sit at a table and sell roses and candy.
We were having so much fun chatting and getting to know each other, making stupid haikus out of those nasty Valentine’s heart candies. I ended up getting a rose delivered to me that day, and at the time I had no clue who it was from. At that moment, Ray realized I was now single. I secretly hoped the rose was from him.
It wasn’t, but we started dating two months later.
From the moment we got together, we wanted to spend every moment by each other’s side. Ray lived in a hot, stale beer-smelling apartment on The Hill with three other guys, so he started spending every night at my relatively clean, air-conditioned room. Over the summer, I’d pack picnic lunches almost every day and would bring them to share in the park when Ray was on break from his internship.
Just three months after we started dating, I joined Ray’s family on a weeks-long road trip out to Sequoia National Park, making the 18-hour trek in the tiny back seat of his dad’s truck with their German Shepherd / Husky mix in between us. It seems super weird, but at the time it felt like the most natural, fun adventure. We just loved being together no matter where we were or who we were with.
But all along, something was looming on the horizon. I had been accepted to a study abroad program in Seville that would begin in January, 2012.
2012
As the date got closer, we got sadder and sadder about the prospect of spending 4 months apart. Back then, that seemed like an eternity. It’s crazy to realize what a strong connection we had just nine months in.
Before I left, I hid little notes all over Ray’s bedroom for him to find while I was gone.
The day of my flight, Ray came to the airport with my family to send me off. My parents and sister, not the emotional types, happily waved goodbye while Ray fought back tears the whole car ride home.
That next four months really opened up my eyes to the world of travel. The feeling of boarding a flight alone, landing thousands of miles from home in a place where you don’t know a soul, and resolving to make that place your home is something I wish everyone could experience at some point. The highlights:
My luggage arrived days late, and I agonized over all the other students in my program seeing me makeup-less and cute outfit-less as their first impression. Shocker: no one cared and I had to get over it.
I moved in with a host family who didn’t speak English at all, and learned how to communicate without words, eventually getting better and better at Spanish to the point where I was conversational — especially on late nights in a plaza somewhere where wine made the words flow easily.
I learned the streets of Seville in and out, comfortably wandering the tiny cobblestone alleyways and vast parques, bookmarking my own favorite bakeries, espresso shops, tapas restaurants and bars I swear I could still find without a map.
I loved my classes — History of Spain, Politics of the EU, International Business, Spanish. The vast majority of what I gained those four months happened outside of the classroom, but I still remember taking the metro to campus every morning so invigorated and excited just to be there.
I made a group of four girlfriends and we did everything together. We used every break we had (and we had a lot of breaks) to travel to places like Paris, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Morocco.
Every morning, I’d start my day by emailing Ray one thing I loved about him. Yeah...for 150 days. I admire my own dedication.
Every afternoon when I got home from class, I’d Skype Ray as he was up early studying.
Every time I traveled and he didn’t hear from me for a couple days he’d worry until I came back online to send my next daily email.
And then Ray came to visit. He spent his spring break in Seville with me, and he even got stuck there for a few extra days because of airline strikes.
RayRay visits Seville.
We’ll always remember that 10 days as one of the best times in our lives. I had made a home for myself halfway around the world, and introducing it to the man I loved, seeing him love it just as much as I did, was an incomparable joy.
My time living abroad and Ray’s visit kicked off our addiction to new and novel adventures.
The summer after I finished study abroad, Ray and my mom came out to Europe again and we toured Malta, where my grandma grew up.
Then, Ray took a volunteer service trip to build houses in Ecuador.
Then, he graduated early, and we were separated again.
2013
One of our first photos in SF.
It’s really crazy to look back on now...when we were in our senior year together, we both decided that we wanted to move out of state to try something new, basically just chose San Francisco without ever going there first, and never had any question in either of our minds that we were going to move there and live together.
No question. We literally restricted our job searches exclusively to San Francisco. Ray moved out there in December 2012, and I followed in June 2013.
The serendipitous decision to move to SF defined the trajectory of our next 8 years up until now, and beyond. We met dozens of lifelong friends, most of whom all live in Denver with us now. And our jobs afforded us the opportunities to continue traveling about once a year, if we wanted to.
2015
Budapest — on the Danube
Our first big trip that we planned together. We met up with friends in Budapest, then continued on our own to Bratislava, Vienna, Prague, and Berlin. We even got stuck for an extra day in Oslo at the end which we’re still thankful for because we probably wouldn’t have made it up there on our own for awhile!
If there was ever any doubt, that trip proved to us that we travel well together. We generally enjoy doing the same things, we like fast and efficient jumping from spot to spot, and we like to pack our days from start to finish to see as much as we can in a short time.
Then came Punta Cana the same year.
I still have no idea how we pulled this off, but we rallied 20 friends to pull the trigger and book tickets to the same kinda wonderfully shitty all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic. I don’t think we’ll ever pull off a trip that huge again.
2016 - 2017
The next couple years brought plenty of domestic travel: Oregon, Chicago, Philly, all over California, and many trips to what we came to know as one of our favorite states — New Mexico.
Those years also brought international adventures with friends (Vietnam) and on our own (Mexico City).
The Vietnam gang
Back at home, every weekend in the Bay Area felt like an adventure. In the 5 years we spent in SF, we made a point to explore every single neighborhood, nook, and cranny of the city and the surrounding areas. Though you could never run out of restaurants, bars, scenic drives, foggy park days, hikes, wineries, etc...at some point we looked at each other and realized we finally felt satisfied.
Everything was leading up to…
2018
The company I was at got acquired. Ray was ready to move on from the job he’d had since college. And we were finally ready to move back home to Colorado.
But first, we wanted to have the adventure of a lifetime. After all, we never knew if we’d both be between jobs and between homes at the same time ever again. Yet again, we had come to a seemingly huge life decision without putting *that* much thought into it. Funny how life works that way — when you know it’s right, you just know.
We packed as much as we could fit into our Subaru, drove back home to Colorado and piled it all at Ray’s parents’ house, and set off on a 4-month adventure: New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Japan, and South Korea.
Our most epic adventure yet
2019 & 2020
And here we are. We live in Denver, and while we can feel at home practically anywhere in the world together, Colorado is the truest home we’ll ever know.
We still try to travel at least once a year if we can. November 2019 brought us to The Philippines, and while 2020 has been a doozy for international travel, we’ve seen some new spots in the U.S. that have been simply magical.
We’ve even got one international trip up our sleeves for the end of this year (if things go as planned) and our bucket list is ever-growing.
So, that’s our story, and we’ll leave you with this.
To travel is to fall in love...
...with striking landscapes, with cultures different from your own, with new and novel experiences, with the people by your side, and with yourself.
Travel is the truest test — and the deepest strengthener — of any relationship. It forces you out of your comfort zone to contend with who you are at your most raw, your most uncomfortable, your most invigorated, your most stressed AND your most relaxed. It takes off the blinders we subconsciously wear to manage our day to day, opening our eyes to all the different ways people get by, and all the similarities in the human experience waiting to be uncovered where you’d least expect them.
Travel has been a privilege and a gift to us that we wish everyone could share, and if we’re so lucky, we’re not slowing down any time soon.
Happy travels,
