Sometimes you lose one friend who turned out to not be a friend at all and you gain a friendship that you cannot imagine life without.  I do not miss that friend, she did not deserve a place in my life but I am at the same time grateful to her because without her I would not have met my soulmate best friend. I don’t know if you are lucky enough to have a friend in your life that just fits like they were always meant to be there but I hope you are.

This post is about how 6 years ago Jacs and I began our travel adventure.   Our first trip was in 2012 to Puerto Vallarta.  I booked us on an excursion that involved ziplining, walking on wires across a canyon, repelling  and freefalling down a cliff.  Jacs wanted to know what happened on the freefall…where do we land…how do we stop…my answer was I don’t know but I am sure it will be fun and surprisingly she said ok. I think this was the moment I knew that this was the true beginning of our friendship.

Our next trip was on a cruise to the Mexican Caribbean.  Stops in Belize, Costa Maya and Cozumel.  This was the second time we had each been to Cozumel on a cruise but we had no idea that it would be the start of a tradition and the beginning of our love affair with this island.  On our next cruise there we would learn to scuba dive (once again Jacs agreeing to my crazy ideas). We came back to Seattle and did our book and pool work and then we hopped on a plane back to Coz to do our ocean dives and have been coming back to the island regularly ever since. We have a few must do’s when we visit…we always stay at the Grand Park Royal, we drink delish frozen beverages at the swim up bar, we eat dinner at El Moro for their grouper, a trip is not complete without a peanut butter chocolate margarita and queso fundido with chorizo at Wet Wendy’s and of course truffles from Chocolataria Isla Bella.

Over the next few years in addition to many trips to Cozumel we have also been to Playa del Carmen where we swam with sea turtles and went cavern snorkeling,  Costa Rica – had an amazing day racing around the jungle in an ATV, Thailand – playing in the mud with elephants, Cyprus – my birthplace and the warmest water I have ever been in, Greece – Naxos was our favorite, it was a lovely city with beautiful beaches. This year we are going to Hurghada Egypt to dive the Red Sea and see the pyramids in Cairo.

I am so lucky to have found not only a BFF but an amazing travel partner.  I cannot wait to see where our journey takes us.