On my dating site profiles, the headings usually read something like “Single woman loves to travel”.  “Looking for my next adventure”.  What I am looking for tends to emphasize my obsession with “wanderlust”.  Everyone loves to travel right? This should be a piece of cake.  It should be easy to meet someone  because with “travel” as your keyword, the number of potential matches is endless.  As I searched through countless profiles looking for someone who might be a potential date and hopefully a companion on my next journey,  I came to one conclusion.  I learned  that people like a lot of things and we all know that a dating profile is much like a resume.  It’s the best version of your real self. It gets you the interview, but not the job.  If you only knew the number of people I have met that “love to travel” but their job, their financial situation or their family life makes it virtually impossible for that to be a reality.  To a few,  travel consists of a trip to the Keys, or visits to family in New York.  They might speak about their annual trip to Orlando or that one time they used their uncle’s time share for a ski trip.  To some,  spending ten hours on an airplane to a destination where you needed to use “google translate” to order dinner  was a foreign concept to them, no pun intended.  I once met a guy who on a moment’s notice can fly off to some exotic destination. Although I longed to be able to do that, a little bit of planning and saving was still necessary on my part. Travel means different things to different people. The “adventure scale”  for people falls somewhere between 1 and 10 and I was looking for more of an 8.

I was married for ten years.  We met when I was in college and started dating after I graduated. My ex was born and raised in South Florida but  was a former Air Force sargeant and spent a great deal of time living in England and Italy as well as California.  During our marriage, my ex and I did our share of traveling, but most of it in the Caribbean. Living in Florida, we are a short plane ride to many Islands making that an easy and somewhat affordable vacation. Back in the day, to travel to the Bahamas, Mexico or the Dominican Republic, all you needed was a license and a birth certificate.  No passport even needed.  We went on a couple of cruises.  Cruises are great, everything is included and it is a great way to see many places in a short period of time, but not much time to really get to know the country or city that you are visiting. I think on a cruise you sometimes miss out on the “experience” when only given 8 hours at a particular destination.  When we were younger we visited Cancun and partied  like it was spring break.  We had our honeymoon in Jamaica at one of those all inclusive resorts.  In Jamaica, although it was against the advice of the resort staff, we ventured off the grounds a couple of times to really “see Jamaica”.  We did our share of travel in the US as well.  Some was to visit friends, others were to do sight seeing. One of our favorite trips was to the Blue Ridge Mountains where we stayed in a cabin.  We hiked, kayaked and enjoyed the nature around us.  We had an annual beach house vacation with a group of friends that we did every year before school started.

During our marriage, I had often talked about wanting to go to Europe.  When discussing travel destinations,  his response was usually “now is not a good time to go to Europe”.  I never quite understood what he meant by that.  Was it the exchange rate?  Was it because the “French did not like Americans”?   Maybe it was the potential violence that might plague us on our trip?  No offense but Miami had a far worse reputation for crimes on tourists at that time than any place that was on my bucket list.  We even went to Hawaii, a bucket list item of mine, on our ten year anniversary. That was a trip I talked about for years with my ex. Living in the tropical paradise that we do, he was sure that a vacation in Hawaii would be like vacationing in our backyard and not something he was really excited about. He was pleasantly surprised that it was in fact completely different than Florida, the warm climate really being the only commonality.

Our flight to Hawaii was a long and adventurous one.  Hurricane Katrina was hitting landfall and although we were on standby until it was determined that South Florida would not be hit, Katrina would  cause an unimaginable level of damage and casualties in New Orleans. I remember turning on the TV in our hotel room and feeling guilty for enjoying a five star vacation while thousands of people lost their homes and lives.

We left Fort Lauderdale on a rainy morning in September, 2005.  Our connecting flight to Honolulu was in Dallas.  We did not have enough points for both of us to fly first class so we were lucky enough to get the first row in coach.  My ex was tall and had long legs, so the additional leg room was a plus.  During the flight we watched the movie “Tommy Boy” on our portable DVD player.  During the “Fat guy in a little coat” scene the man to my right laughed and told me that was one of his favorite scenes from that movie.   My seatmate was a man in his mid 30’s.  He was from Connecticut but had lived and worked in New York City for HBO.  While I thought that seemed like a pretty cool job compared to my job as a logistics manager,  he shared with me how hard the job was and how much stress he was under and how unhappy he had become.  He was traveling alone so I asked if he was visiting friends or family in Hawaii.  My new friend had quit his high paying job in New York  and booked a flight to Hawaii.  His plans were to live in a small apartment and learn to surf while he waited tables. At the time, I thought he was crazy to quit a high paying job to do something he dreamed about.  Little did I know that nine years later I would be doing the same thing.

In 2008, I saw the movie Mama Mia.  It was based on the Broadway Musical with the entire score compiled of ABBA’s greatest hits.  I loved singing along with the movie, but one vision of the movie that stayed with me was that it was filmed in Greece on the Island Skopelos.  I had never been to Greece and I knew there were many Greek Islands but seeing how beautiful Skopelos was, I was determined to visit Greece one day.

I desperately wanted to start traveling, Greece being one of the first places on my list. I am single with no kids making it easy to do what I want  or go where I want on a vacation.  I only have to make arrangements for a dog sitter while I am gone. Most of my friends are married or have kids making it hard for them to take vacation alone. For some of them money is an issue. Some of my friends just don’t share the same passion I do. I am no longer married and after my divorce, except for one trip to Spain in 2008, most of my travel plans were solo.   When I brought up traveling to Greece, none of my friends were interested or able and I there I was still, “A single woman who loves to travel”. In 2010,  I joined a travel website to meet other single travelers.  I never met anyone.  Although it was not a “dating site”, most of my emails were from lonely men who were looking to meet a woman, the traveling piece was optional.  I joined a group from “Meetup.com” in this area that catered to single travelers.  I met a woman who was a couple years older than me who was married but her husband hated to travel. She was a real estate agent working part time and had a lot more time than I did to travel. Although it seemed that we wanted to visit some similar places, I learned that she was looking more for a friend and not so much a travel mate since she constantly called and texted me and always wanted to “do lunch” when I was working.  I just wanted to find someone to travel with.  I felt pretty comfortable planning the trip myself but ten days traveling solo just did not sound as fun.  My next step would be researching singles travel groups.

I came across BestSinglesTravel.com through an internet search.  They were one of many travel groups that offered a “Greek Island Hopping” vacation that catered to singles.  I knew I wanted to be in a group that was close to my age. I like to party but did not want to relive my college days again and did not want to be with a group who called it a day at 9pm either.  I looked at prices and itineraries, checked dates and narrowed my search down to just a couple of groups.  BestSinglesTravel.com also had a Facebook page where they posted photos and stories from other travelers from different trips.  I found a couple of people that had taken the most recent Greek Island Hopping Tour and messaged them asking their opinions and feedback about using BestSinglesTravel.  I already had put a deposit down but paying the remaining balance seemed like a big commitment without doing my homework.  I got mixed reviews, but most were positive so I took my chance and booked it for May of 2011.  When I told my friends and co-workers about booking a trip to a foreign country  where I would be rooming with someone that I never met , they looked at me as if I was crazy.  To many people, that was a big adventure, something they could never do. I am not a shy person and feel extremely comfortable meeting new people but I  admit I was a bit nervous.   I told myself whatever happened, it was all part of the adventure.

Greece by far was my best vacation ever.  I am not sure if it was the destination, the group of people I met, the travel host or the liberating feeling that you stepped outside of your comfort zone and did something on your own for the first time.   Maybe it was all of the above.  I think the biggest lesson this trip taught me is that you don’t have to wait to do what you want, whether it is waiting for the right time or the right person.   There is a saying that goes, “there is no time like the present”.  There is a lot of truth in that.  Don’t wait for what you want, Just do it.  Whatever happens, it is all part of the adventure.