Wildly Romantic Story Gives Travellers Hope For 2022

What's 6,641 miles?

Wildly Romantic Story Gives Travellers Hope For 2022

Image Credit: @sightsofsara

Can you fall in love in three days? Though Quora is usually full of lovesick travellers asking whether it’s possible to be struck by Cupid’s spell in record time, this last couple of years have been a quiet time when it comes to Travellers Falling In Love.

To that end, the default way of describing the years 2020 and 2021 has been: they sucked. But dismissing them as write-offs would be to miss some light.

Enter: the following video by traveller, photographer and content creator @sightsofsara. After sharing a video on social media talking about how she and a friend were sort of held hostage by their guest house host in Iceland, Sara recently shared with her followers one of the more positive developments in her travel adventures.

She claims to have met a guy in Iceland and then flown across the world to see him again.

“When you met a boy in Iceland last month and now you’re travelling 6,641 miles to visit him in his country.”

She then posted another video featuring a bunch of clips of them together, with the caption: “From Iceland to hopefully the whole world with you.”

This appears to have inspired a lot of her followers.

One, called Logan, wrote: “This gives me all the hope in the world for love.”

Another follower called Jessi wrote: “The wildest part about this is neither of you are from Iceland but you happened to both be there at the exact right moment.”

“This is literally the cutest thing ever,” said another.

“This makes me feel better because you don’t realise how many fish there are in the sea until you start swimming,” another TikTok user chimed in.

Another said: “AYO Universe!! THIS IS WHAT I WANT!!”

Finding love abroad is a bit of a polarising topic, with some romanticising it as the coolest “how did you meet?” story ever and other more cynical souls warning it rarely works out. 

In 2018, The Telegraph wrote an article talking about the science of why it’s easier to fall in love while you’re on holiday.

The Telegraph cited Dr Arthur Aron, research professor at New York’s Stony Brook University. The Doctor likened falling in love on holiday to meeting someone on a suspension bridge: “Many years ago, we did a study that showed if you were to meet someone on a scary suspension bridge, you were more likely to have an attraction to that person than if you were to meet that same person on a safer, less scarier bridge.”

It appears many are willing to take the risk. Culture Trip and Quora are full of stories of couples who met while travelling (and either stayed together or don’t regret the experience even if they are no longer together).

Culture Trip reports on the story of Lola Méndez of Miss Filatelista: “I met my guy in Madrid last March, but left for Italy a mere three months later in May. Neither of us ever intended (or wanted) to be in a long-distance relationship, but travel kept us together. In May, we spent a romantic weekend in Bologna, eating everything in sight. In July, we went to Venice and strolled along the canals under the moonlight. He met me in Fez, Morocco in October to celebrate my birthday and I went back to Madrid for two weeks in December for the holidays.”

“Despite the distance we’ve managed to fall in love through traveling together and exploring new cities. Our mutual curiosity and appreciation for other cultures has helped forge a deep bond between us. I am volunteering in India for six months and he plans to come visit for the Holi festival in March. It’ll be a year since we’ve met and our third continent we’ve visited together.”

The same Culture Trip article also included a story from Ben Shacham, the company’ Director of Operations: “I was on holiday with a friend of mine in Cape Town in August, and we took a drive down to Cape Point for the day to see the amazing views—looking out south, there’s literally nothing between there and Antarctica. There’s a really special spot there called Dias Beach about 10 minutes’ walk down the cliffs. The waves were enormous, and there were a few crazy people trying to surf them (bear in mind, it was the middle of winter!). The beach was empty except for a few people, one of whom was this beautiful blonde girl, and we got talking.”

“I thought she was amazing. Time was short and we had to leave, so we said goodbye and went our separate ways. It’s safe to say I was a little disappointed. On the way back, my friend suggested we stop a few miles down the road at a spot famous for wild penguins and half an hour later, by chance, she appeared once more with her friends. I wasn’t going to let her disappear again, so I ran over and got her number. We went for a date that night in Cape Town and the rest—as they say—is history! Our second date was actually in Munich, and our third in Barcelona.”

Another great story comes from Essence, which tells the story of Port Arthur, Texas, native Jessica Crook, 37, who met her now husband, Oscar Mosquera, also 37, through Tinder while she was working as a science teacher in Santiago de Cali, Colombia.

“When we went out, he’d bring me back home to make sure I was safe, even though he knew he wasn’t coming in,” Crook told Essence. “I’d never been treated like that by anybody else.”

According to Essence, “Shortly after they began dating exclusively [and] in April 2017, Oscar, a personal trainer, proposed. With the full blessing of their parents, Jessica and Oscar were married in December 2017 in Colombia before a crowd made up of two joyful families that didn’t speak each other’s language.”

If these stories have got you hopeful about 2022, have a browse of the following signs your vacation romance is “meant to last,” according to Bustle.

  • You legit love each other
  • You already feel like you’ve known each other forever
  • Your future plans align
  • Your friends get along
  • Saying goodbye was totally heartbreaking
  • You met by chance
  • You’ve taken things slow
  • You expect to meet again