In 2016, we took our first trip abroad together. Thailand. Two young people, a tight budget, and a shared passport-stamp we'd talk about for years afterwards. We didn't know it then, but that trip set the template for everything that came next.
Travelling with someone is the fastest way to find out who they really are. The version of a person that shows up at a delayed gate, or lost on the wrong side of a city, or deciding what to do with a free afternoon — that's the real one. The good news, for us, was that we liked who showed up.
What a first trip teaches you
You learn each other's rhythms. Who needs coffee before words. Who reads the map and who reads the room. Who panics when the plan falls apart, and who quietly finds the next one. We learned that we balance — that the things one of us forgets, the other one remembers, and that getting a little lost together is a lot better than getting anywhere alone.
You don't really know someone until you've been a bit lost with them in a country that isn't yours.
The start of a lifelong habit
Thailand was the first, but it was never going to be the last. That trip taught us that the world was bigger than the one we grew up in, and that we wanted to see it side by side. Everything since — the flights, the moves, the slow roads — traces back to that first cheap ticket and the realisation that this is how we wanted to do life: together, and always a little bit on the move.
We've collected a lot of stamps since. But you never forget the first one.
