Full disclosure, I’m 30.  And it’s really hard to meet new people and make friends.  I’m sure that will get easier when a little nugget comes into the world (no, this is not an announcement), but I’ve found that traveling is a great way to take the social anxiety out of trying to meet new and wonderful people.

Travel is a bond.  Doing study abroad my junior year of college has forever intertwined my life story with a group of girls forever.  The memories you make when trekking through cities without a map, or the skills to adequately read one (the elusive Duomo) are those that you’ll never forget and laugh about 10 years later, like we still do.

In the past few years, Scube and I have met some really incredible people. Ones I haven’t necessarily kept in touch with although I should have, like the young woman who lives in Scottsdale whose parents live down the street from us, the famous fashion blogger and her husband from Melbourne (#WCW), the young accountant from New York trying her hardest to see as much of the Amalfi Coast as humanly possible, the young mom who lived down the street from us (and had us over for a lovely brunch), the wonderful couple from Yorkshire who own a tea and flower shop, and finally, the woman from LA who’s day I ruined when I told her Joan Rivers had died (whoops).  Run-on sentence complete.

So what’s the point of this post?  There are many reasons to travel but one that I put a lot of stock in is opening up yourself to new people where you otherwise wouldn’t.  Maybe others have an easier time with this in their day-to-day lives, but I find that traveling is an easier segue into new relationships then say killing someone with kindness over raw meat at the grocery store.