I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
—MARK TWAIN
I LIKE TO GROUP PEOPLE into two camps: those who have stayed in a hostel and those who have not. For me, it’s as revealing as knowing where you grew up or what your favorite movie is, because it reveals a lot about your character.
There you are. You enter your hostel or guesthouse, strike up a conversation with another traveler, and just like that you’re best friends. You hang out, eat, drink and sightsee together for days.
For that time and place, you two (or three or four) do everything together and joke as if you had been friends forever. You’re besties.
There is no past or future. Nothing about who you were back home, how old you are, what you do for work, your last relationship, or where you’re from matters. You accept each other for who you are right there because that’s all you have.
But then, as quickly as it started, it’s over. You go one way and they go another.
Vague promises of meeting up and staying in touch fade away as you get further and further from the moments you spent together. Emails and messages begin to slow to a trickle. There’s no ill will, no fight that splits you up—just the sobering truth that in a specific time and place, you made a connection, but now that time and place are gone and so are they. You were strangers in a strange land and, with necessity being the mother of all invention, you gravitated toward each like celestial objects caught in each other’s orbit for no other reason than that you both existed.
As a backpacker, you get good at saying good-bye.
Prague was the first place where I had one-city friends. I met five amazing people there and, when it was all over, they were gone. Off to various parts of the world on their own adventures.
During my next stop in Florence, I struck up a conversation with a Canadian named Peter at our hostel. He was WWOOFing (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) around Europe, working in exchange for free room and board, in hopes of learning about food so he could be a cook. Tall, with long hair past his shoulders, glasses, and a goofy expression welded to his face, he, too, was traveling solo.
We spent five solid days sightseeing, taking day trips through the surrounding area, and partying our nights away. He was my best friend in Florence. Nay, for that time and place, he was my only best friend.
But, when it was time to move on, he too was gone.
“See ya later!” we said.
At the time, I thought we really would. I was new to the road. You don’t make connections like this every day! We were besties now. Of course, we would see each other again.
But life got in the way as it always does. People move on, settle down, get jobs, find new friends, get married, and have kids.
It’s a cycle that repeats itself a thousand times on the road with everyone you meet.
From the folks in Prague to the couple I met in Panama to the people on my tour around New Zealand, to the CouchSurfing hosts in Europe, to Dutch guys I camped with in Australia, to those really freaking awesome folks I road-tripped in the United States with, the two guys I backpacked Thailand with, my friends from Ios, Bulgaria, and to the thousands of other people I’ve shared magical moments with over the decade, life simply got in the way.
For a time, we were each other’s best of friends, partners in crime, and sometime lovers.
Yet, as we all wander further along life’s path, they begin to fade in our memories. Their names get buried deep down the text message queue on our phones. Every once in a while they will pop to the forefront of our mind, usually because of something we just encountered reminds us of them, and we wonder with a sense of longing:
What are they doing? Do they still travel? Did they make it all the way around the world like they hoped? Are they happy? Married? Do they like their jobs? Are they healthy? Are they even alive?
There’s no bad blood or animosity. Just the truth that they were in your life for that moment and then their part in the play of your life was over and it was time for new characters to appear.
It was a truth I learned to deal with. Our paths may not intersect again but my friends’ effect on my life will remain with me forever. They taught me to let go, laugh, love, be more adventurous, push myself, and so much more.
This all sounds incredibly romantic and tragic, I know, and probably also fantastical to someone who has never had the privilege of these intense experiences. But this happens all the time to people whose interactions are compressed by time and space. The same thing happens at summer camps, for instance. You come from an entirely different world than the kids assigned by chance to your cabin, and barely a week later you’re brothers from another mother, sisters from another mister.
Travel compresses relationships.
In its fiery forge, travel strips away the outside world and, with nothing but the now, amplifies the intensity of all your experiences. With no past or future, you get to know people as they are in that moment. We may ask basic, vague questions about the past when we meet each other initially, but it’s really just a different way to talk about the weather. It’s a placeholder until we figure out what else to say, to get us closer to what we really want to know: do you want to go sightsee, get a drink, or head to the beach? With the unspoken understanding that you have limited time together, you focus on the here and now.
But, sometimes, you meet people who will be more than just a temporary friend for a day. Sometimes, when travel filters out the noise, you form deep and powerful bonds with people that no time or distance can pull apart.
THE FIRST TIME THIS MAGIC happened to me was in Thailand at the end of 2006. While emailing my parents to let them know I was okay, I saw a message in my inbox:
“Matt, I’m stuck in this placed called Ko Lipe. I’m not going to meet you as planned, but you should come down here. It’s paradise! I’ve been here a week already. Find me at Monkey Bar on Sunset Beach.—Alice”
I was on the island of Ko Phi Phi, in between the mainland and Phuket. Alice, a friend from myspace, was supposed to meet me in Krabi, a tourist destination famed for its limestone karsts, rock climbing, and kayaking. I had never met her before. We had found each other in a group for travelers. In those long ago days, Southeast Asia didn’t have hostels. You had cheap guesthouses. I was worried that without the forced connection of a hostel dorm, I wouldn’t meet anyone. I’d be alone again. Seeing our itineraries overlapped, I messaged Alice to meet up. At least, I’ll have one friend if all else failed, I thought.
I looked up Ko Lipe. There was only a small mention in my guidebook. It was really out of the way and would require a solid day of travel to get to. But, as I looked around the bustling internet café and out onto the busy street, it was clear that this place was not the tropical island paradise I had come to know Thailand as. It was crowded, the beach was filled with dead coral, boats seemed to ring the island, and the water was polluted with a thin film of … well, I didn’t want to know. A quieter, calmer paradise held great appeal.
Two days later, I took the ferry to the mainland, a long bus to the port city of Pak Bara, and then the ferry to Ko Lipe, where I wandered to the top deck to find a guy playing a guitar. His name was John. He was meandering around Asia with his girlfriend, Sophia, until they were ready to move to New Zealand, where they planned to work, buy a house, and eventually get married.
“Where are you guys staying?” I asked as we lounged on the deck.
“We found a resort on the far end of the island. It’s supposed to be cheap. You?”
“Not sure. I’m supposed to stay with my friend, but I haven’t heard back yet. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
The ferry neared the island and came to a stop. There was no dock on Ko Lipe. Years before, a developer tried to build one, but the project was canceled after protests from the local fishermen who could see the end of their lucrative business shuttling tourists from the ferry to the shore if this dock came to pass. Then the developer mysteriously disappeared and that was the end of that.
John, Sophia, and I went to their hotel, joined by Pat, an older Scottish guy, who was also looking for a place to stay. The hotel overlooked a little reef and the small Sunrise Beach, which would become our main hangout spot during our time on the island.
As we walked to the other side of the island to Sunset Beach, where Monkey Bar and Alice were located, it became clear very quickly that she was right: Ko Lipe was paradise. Lush jungles, deserted beaches, warm, crystal-clear blue water, and friendly locals. Electricity was only available for a few hours at night, there were few hotels or tourists, and the streets were simple dirt paths. This was the place I had been looking for since the islands around Thailand jumped out of the pages of my guidebook.
We found Alice quickly. Sunset Beach was not big, and Monkey Bar, a small thatch-covered shack with a cooler for drinks and a few chairs, was the only bar on the beach.
After a few days, I moved into a bungalow in the middle of the island. Nestled behind a restaurant that served the best squid around, this hardwood structure painted red, with a white roof, small porch, and near-barren interior—a bed, a fan, and mosquito net—seemed to be built by the family for a wave of tourism that had yet to come.
Our days were spent playing backgammon, reading, and swimming. We rotated beaches, though we mostly hung out at the beach by John and Sophia’s. Within swimming distance was a rock outcrop with a sheer drop that provided excellent snorkeling. We’d occasionally leave Ko Lipe to fish, dive, and explore the deserted islands in the nearby national park. At night, we’d eat and drink at Monkey Bar with Alice, Pat, a German couple, Bill, the British bartender who was there all season, a few locals, and whoever else joined our motley crew, until the power went out.
There wasn’t much to do, but in simplicity we found joy.
The days passed by endlessly.
“I’ll leave tomorrow” became my mantra.
It was great to get the chance to hang out with Alice, but it was John, Sophia, and I who formed a mini-group within the group.
“What are you guys going to do when you get to New Zealand?” I asked them one night over drinks and under the fading incandescent lights of the Monkey Bar.
“We’re going to work for a few years and build a life there. We have nothing that’s pulling us back to England,” said John.
“I’m going there on this trip so I’ll visit. It’s my last stop on the way home,” I replied.
“You can stay with us. Wherever we are,” said Sophia as she passed a joint to me. (Another thing we did to pass the time.)
It was only when Christmas decorations appeared on storefronts and families flooded the beach—like magic they all appeared in a single day—that we became aware of time again.
Christmas meant I would have to leave soon. My visa was only valid until just before New Year’s. I’d have to head to the nearby Malaysian border to renew it so I could have more time in the country and keep traveling. There was no way to extend it from where I was.
John, Sophia, and I decided to have our own Christmas together. We wore our best clean shirts and wandered over to Coco’s for its luxury Western Christmas dinner.
“I got you guys a gift,” I said as I handed Sophia a necklace I saw her eyeing a few days before and John a ring he had admired.
They were deeply touched, and is so often the case with great, new friends out on the road, they had the same idea.
“We got you something, too,” John said.
It was a hand-carved necklace with a Maori fishhook on it, the symbol of the traveler.
I loved it.
After I left, I ran into John and Sophia a few weeks later walking down Bangkok’s Khao San Road. Shocked at such a random event, we hugged, talked about where we had been and what we had seen, and spent the next few days picking up like we had never left Lipe.
Years later, when I finally went to New Zealand, I spent Christmas and New Year’s at their home in Auckland. I had never made it on my original trip around the world but when I made it, they were the first people I wanted to see. They were working jobs—and I was still a traveler. Life had moved on for both of us. We had new friends and lives but we still laughed at the same jokes, had the same sense of humor, and got on like we had known each other for several lifetimes. Everything else that had happened in between melted away and we were back on that beach talking about things only travelers discuss when there are no other cares in the world.
IN THE TINY TOWN of Buñol, Spain, tens of thousands of people gather every year for the famous La Tomatina festival, the largest tomato fight in the world.
La Tomatina has its roots in the carnivals and harvest festivals that have enlivened European towns for centuries, but this particular festival started in 1945. A parade was scheduled in Buñol that day, and one of the participants got so angry when his giant costume head fell off that he trashed a tomato stand and sparked a huge food fight. The next year, on the same day, kids came back with a stash of tomatoes and reenacted the food fight, and it’s been a Spanish tradition ever since. It hasn’t always been observed, though: For several years, it was banned, and would-be food fighters were even arrested for tomato possession. In 1957, they held a satirical protest of the ban, putting a giant tomato in a coffin and burying it to the sound of funeral marches. Ultimately, the government relented, and La Tomatina has been a tradition ever since.
When I think of all that history, so rooted in the experiences, stories, and food of one particular place, it’s hard not to feel like an outsider when you go. In 1945, I imagine, the thrill of a wild, spontaneous food fight must have been tied up with the joy of World War II having ended that very summer. In the 1950s, protesting the tomato ban must have been a covert way of protesting Spain’s Fascist government. You don’t have to know any of that history to show up in Buñol, buy your ticket, and pick up a tomato, of course. The town welcomes the tourist money, but seeing a local tradition turned into a global fixture must be the source of some complicated emotions. It certainly was for me. Would I be turning a special tradition into kitsch by partaking? Was I not taking La Tomatina seriously enough? How does one even take a tomato food fight seriously in the first place?
The year I went to La Tomatina, I stayed in a six-bed dorm room with a Alex, a Malaysian man from Paris, Jessie and Joel, twins from Portland, and Claire and Nick, two Australians backpacking around Europe.
The day of the event we took a train into Buñol and jostled through the crowds until we made our way to the town square. The crowds got thicker as the streets grew narrower. Eventually, we found a plaza to stand in and took position in the back. People climbed up ledges, trees, and positioned themselves from roofs. Everyone searched for the high ground.
The bell rang and the mayhem started. Big garbage trucks overflowing with tomatoes rolled through the town. Soon everyone was covered in red, tomatoes smacked off your head, and the rivers ran deep with tomato juice. Being in the back is not a prime tomato-picking position, but I did my best to pick up half smooshed tomatoes slick with juice and let fly at anyone nearby. I was having so much fun, laughing and shouting through it all, that I often got tomatoes in my mouth. Above us, a Japanese tourist had climbed a doorway for a better vantage point only to get pegged with dozens of incoming red missiles that knocked him off the edge into the crowd below.
And then, as quick it started, it was over. The one-hour festival felt like it went by in thirty seconds. As the last of the tomatoes splatted to the ground, we all lined up to be hosed down by fire trucks. I’ve heard that Buñol’s main square is especially shiny, because the acid from the tomatoes has polished it over the years.
Over the next few days, our group explored Valencia. We were bonded by our shared experience and spent all waking hours together. In them, I found compatriots. It was as if we had known each other our whole lives and the universe conspired to bring us together for this festival so we could realize we had been friends forever—we just didn’t know it yet.
Two weeks after La Tomatina, Claire, Nick, and I were in Barcelona together. Alex had returned to Paris and the twins, after spending a day with us, had to continue on to Venice. As the remnants of our group walked down Barcelona’s Barri Gòtic, joking around and busting each other’s chops, our new friend Michelle could sense our closeness.
“Did you guys go to school together? I think it’s pretty cool that three people from different places have been friends for so long.”
“Actually, we’ve only known each other for two weeks,” Nick said.
“Wow! Really?” a shocked Michelle said. “You have so many inside jokes and act like you’ve been friends forever.”
To be fair, two weeks together is a lifetime in backpacker time. But even so, we acted like we had known each other since childhood because in many ways we had. We didn’t have the adult world to get in the way of our friendships. We just had playtime. And, like kids at playtime, we found the childlike sense of friendship that knows only joy, not judgment.
Because the other thing travel helps you do is confront your judgments and perception of people.
People like Dave and Matt.
DAVE, ALONG WITH his close friend Matt, were two Canadian oil workers I met in Thailand during the Full Moon Party.
Now, months later, they were hosting me in Perth for a few days. As travelers, we are always saying good-bye and promising to let someone crash on our couch when they are in our city. Sometimes these promises become a reality.
When I posted on Facebook that I was heading to Australia, Dave offered up his couch and I accepted. But, as I looked at these two surfer dude oil workers sitting up front in the car on the way to their place from the airport, I wondered if we’d still get along. When you live in the travel bubble, getting along is easy. There’s just the fun you are having right now. You can be whoever you want to be and if some people don’t like it, you know they are probably leaving soon anyways.
The real world is different. You have bills to pay. Responsibilities. Jobs. Commutes. Things to worry about. You aren’t on the move anymore, rather you are now firmly planted in one place, building a life.
What were these guys like back home? Were they clean? Messy? Drinkers? OCD? Early risers? Politically opposite? Do they read books? Does the day to day of being at home make them irritated? Actually, why did they move to Perth? As I began to wonder about these questions, I realized I didn’t really know anything about them. When you travel, you don’t ask these kinds of questions. For all I knew, they could be members of a cult.
Fortunately, my fears of personality clashes were unfounded. Dave and Matt proved to be gracious hosts, taking me to the beaches, local bars, restaurants, showing me Australian movies so I’d be able to know pop culture as I traveled the country. It was as if we had never left that beach in Thailand. I actually think it was that Thailand beach mentality that never left them. They brought it home with them in their carry-on, from the duty free shop that is the nomadic experience.
At home, we judge people right away. By their dress, their phone, their style, their posture. We see the Goth going down the street and think “weirdo.” We see kids skating in parks and think “punk.” We see white guys in dreads and think “hippy.” We gravitate to people like us and rarely venture outside our homogenous social circle.
But, when you are on the road, you hang with all types of people. Your desire to make friends trumps everything. You don’t know people’s history or past. You don’t know what “group” people fall into. You don’t care because it doesn’t matter. A friend is a friend.
That forces you to expand your mind, tear down your barriers, and toss out your judgments, which is how I ended up bonding with two tatted surfers so much that I ended up at their weddings.
Because I didn’t judge them when I met them. I didn’t bring my prejudices with me to Thailand. I accepted them for the nice people they are. The real world clutters our mind with prejudices and stereotypes so much that it keeps you from enjoying the rich relationships that a variety of people can bring.
Travel is an antidote to that.
Travel friendships are snapshots in time. When you meet up again, it’s as if you are being transported back to those moments. You’re again carefree children exploring the world. Life hasn’t got in the way for you.
Time has stood still. You lived two separate lives—and none of the drama or problems from those lives bleeds into your friendship. You reminisce, drink some beers, and laugh at the same dumb jokes. It’s never awkward.
That’s why I put people into two groups. Those who have spent their days in hostels, forced to turn strangers into friends, and confront their prejudices tend to be more open minded, relaxed, and friendly. We’re used to being alone. To not have a support system. To have to take a deep breath and ask that group of ten if that seat is free.
We’re ok with a wide range of people. We learned that people are people and to never judge a book by the cover. We’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what “group” you fall into. All that matters is how you act.
Travel creates opportunities to meet people you wouldn’t give a second thought to walking down the street. It strips away the artifice and lets you walk away with some of the best friends you’ll ever have—friends who will be there your whole life, ready to pick up right where you left off whenever you happen to meet up again.