In 2008, I quit my job and took a year off to backpack around the world with my boyfriend (now husband). We bought a round the world airline ticket, which allowed us 20 flights in one year, and after months of planning and packing up everything we owned into a POD, we were off!
Our first stop was Europe, where we traveled the continent like students, staying in hostels as we moved through 9 countries in just 6 weeks! London, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest, Bern, Munich, Rome, Palermo, Barcelona and Madrid. Then it was 3 weeks in Egypt before heading to Morocco.
It had been my idea to add Morocco to our itinerary, mainly because growing up I saw the movie Casablanca almost every year, and I loved the romance of the old Bogey and Bacall classic. So when we had to decide our 20 stops, I added Casablanca on a whim without really knowing what to expect. Because we were traveling for a whole year, and to so many different places, we didn’t have our full itineraries mapped out in advance. Instead, we would decide when we arrived in each country how we would spend our time there. Often, we could find an abandoned guidebook in the hotel lobby, or we could use the internet to search and decide where to go and what to do.
Morocco was no different. We had no idea on our first night in Casablanca, where we should go or what we should do. We just knew we had three weeks to explore the country, and find some of the romance and excitement I was looking for when I added Morocco to our itinerary. So we found a computer in the basement of the hotel and started researching. We had been at it less than 10 minutes when a older couple came into the room. They were also Americans traveling around the world, but this was their second time doing it.
They told us that when they were first married, 30 years before, they had gone on a trip around the world for their honeymoon. Now, their kids were grown and they had both just retired. To celebrate the major life moment, they had decided to recreate their original milestone trip, retracing the same path they had tread together three decades before. They asked what our plans were for our time in Morocco, and since we weren't sure, they invited us to come along with them for as long as we wanted. Our new acquaintances were closer in age to our parents than to us, and it was an unlikely pairing. But we had learned already that fast friendships can be formed on the road, and their story about recreating their honeymoon had me singing "As Time Goes By" in my head. So we decided to take a chance. We threw our backpacks into the trunk, climbed into the empty seats in the back, and took off exploring.
For our first stop, we drove along the coast to Essaouira. There we spent a week together, walking along the beach, wandering aimlessly through the Medina, and eating fresh seafood every night. Then it was down the coast even further to Agadir. While Agadir is known as a beautiful beach destination, we were there in December, which is the off-season. So instead of spending time on the shore, we took advantage of the city's location as the base of the Atlas Mountains to experience some of Morocco’s other natural wonders. We took a day trip to Paradise Valley and went sandboarding at the edge of the Sahara Desert. We also spent hours exploring the Souk, haggling with local vendors for souvenirs to send home to friends and family, and for new winter hats and gloves to wear as we ventured into colder climates.
After a week in Agadir, we separated from our newfound friends. They were headed south to Senegal to continue their trip, and we had decided to spend our final week in Morocco in Marrakech. But the two weeks we spent with them on the road—hearing about their journey, both their literal journey around the world and their journey through life together as a married couple—was life-changing. They passed along advice on how to get around and on how to make a life together. They told us that travel, like life, doesn’t always go according to plan, and you have to be able to be flexible. They shared the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone and trying to see the world from someone else’s point of view. And finally, they shared that you have to stay curious and keep exploring as a team so that you grow together instead of growing apart.
We took their advice with us, and used their words of wisdom to help plan the rest of our trip, and our future together. When our trip was over, my boyfriend and I got married. We have continued to travel together, first as a couple and now as a family. We still talk often about the unlikely friendship we formed on the road nearly 20 years ago in the basement of a hotel in Casablanca. And each year we set aside money into a special fund so that years from now, when our son is grown and we’ve both retired, we can recreate our round-the-world adventures together. Who knows—maybe we’ll meet a young couple who is trying to decide where to go in life, and we’ll be able to pass along the advice we received all those years ago. Until then, we'll always have Morocco.
