How We Ended Up Here

An accidental friendship, a broken compass, and a world that changed us.

They say every great adventure begins with a decision.
Ours began with a delay.

We were five strangers stuck in a layover lounge at Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris. Different flights. Different lives. One shared announcement: “Due to severe weather conditions, all departures are temporarily suspended.”

The Five of Us

There was Lana, a Brazilian chef on her way to open a food truck in Lisbon. She had a suitcase full of spices and a heart full of stubborn dreams.

Theo, a quiet Nigerian videographer, editing reels of a travel documentary he never meant to show anyone. He always sat close to a charging port, as if power could protect him from his past.

Mira, a Canadian nurse who had just quit her job after six years in emergency care. She was headed to India to find “something softer.”

Jakob, a South African backpacker on a daredevil trip to beat his brother’s Guinness World Record for most countries visited in a year.

And me?
I was just trying to run. From a relationship. From a version of myself I no longer recognized. My name doesn’t matter yet — it’s the story that counts.

The First Wrong Turn

What started as delayed flights turned into a lost bag… then a missing phone… then a spontaneous night out in Montmartre “just to kill time.”

It should’ve ended there.
But it didn’t.

Because someone probably Jakob said, “What if we don’t go back?”

We laughed. But we didn’t go back.

A New Map

We created a pact on a café napkin. No hotels. No tour buses. No plans.
Only trains, cheap local meals, and favors from strangers.

Paris became Marseille.
Marseille became a ferry to Sardinia.
Then Morocco.
Then Cairo.
Then Istanbul.

Each city rewrote us.
Each culture humbled us.

We danced at an illegal rooftop rave in Marrakesh with a retired professor who once hiked the Atlas Mountains blindfolded.
We got lost in the Grand Bazaar, only to be saved by an 8-year-old street vendor named Aylin who gave us mint tea and advice far beyond her years.
We volunteered at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Athens that was Mira’s idea. It changed all of us.

In Split, Croatia, Theo finally showed us his documentary.
It wasn’t just travel clips.
It was grief, art, and love all wrapped into moving images. We cried. He didn’t.

Falling (and Failing) in Love

Somewhere between Vienna and Prague, Lana and I kissed during a thunderstorm.
It was electric.
It was also a mistake.
We both knew it. And yet, we kissed again in Budapest.

Meanwhile, Jakob hurt his foot cliff-jumping in Albania and Mira stayed by his side for days.
They thought we didn’t notice. But we did.

We were becoming a family.
And families are messy.

The Final Stretch

We reached Kyoto by mistake. A flight deal gone wrong.
And maybe it was fate, because it was there in the hush of the bamboo forest, beneath falling cherry blossoms that we realized:

We weren’t lost.
We were exactly where we were meant to be.

Mira said it first:
“This was never about the places. It was about the people the road brought to us.”

And just like that, we knew it was time.

How We Ended Up Here

This morning, I woke up alone in a tiny cabin in Whistler, Canada.
Theo now shoots travel films for global brands.
Lana has her food truck not in Lisbon, but in Lisbon Falls, Maine.
Jakob and Mira are engaged. They live in Cape Town and run an adventure therapy retreat.

As for me?
I’m writing this because I promised I’d tell the story.
Our story.
Of how we ended up in places we never planned with people we didn’t expect and became versions of ourselves we didn’t know we were allowed to be.

No guidebook could’ve led us here.
But maybe that’s the point of travel.

Sometimes…
getting lost is how you finally come home.