Travel Is Back So Go Visit Your Friends

As leisure travel returns to pre-pandemic levels and the CDC updates its guidance based on today’s lower COVID-19 risk levels for many, now is the time to put down your phone and go see your friends for real.

It’s no secret that maintaining friendships gets harder as you get older. Life happens.

Sure, technology makes it easy to stay in touch but a text thread can’t replace those in-person experiences that build a unique bond. As obligations such as work, appointments ranging from the dentist to pet grooming and growing families threaten to swallow our schedules entirely, it’s important to push back and dedicate some time to physically be with those people we spend much of our lives communicating with and relying on for important advice on a tiny bright screen.

Maybe they live within driving distance just one town or state over or maybe they live on the other side of the country or even halfway around the world. Travel is back so start planning.

At the moment, my girlfriend, Kim, and I travel quite often, allowing us to experience new destinations over just a few weeks during her brief travel nursing contracts. Most of our friends and family remain back home in Maryland but some have ventured out to new places due to work and lifestyle and have still made the effort to drive or fly out to visit us in places we’ve been and raved about incessantly such as coastal North Carolina, Phoenix and Southern California.

For more than a year I used the excuse that we were so busy moving from place to place that we couldn’t possibly return the favor. But the truth is that there’s always a time when you choose to make it. And planning travel is not only fun and an incredible mood-booster if your day is dragging but super easy, especially when you choose to work with a trusted and certified travel advisor who can save you time, money and unforeseen headaches.

If your buddies have the room to accommodate you that makes it even easier and cheaper, of course. However, visiting your loved ones will inevitably tap into your bank account.

Trust me, it’s an investment worth making.

It was with that mindset that last month, Kim and I set aside some time and money to visit two of our best friends in New York City. The destination was an obvious draw but, also, these two people had already spent precious time and money of their own visiting us across time zones.

It was our turn to make the trip and their turn to play host and tour guide.

That’s the other thing about visiting your friends, especially in new places you’ve never been, the trip comes with a built-in tour guide and someone who already knows exactly what you’re into. The thrill goes both ways as you get to see and experience something brand new and they get to build an itinerary based on their knowledge of your interests and their surroundings.

It should come as no surprise that this three-night trip was a blast. We got the chance to see some iconic sites that even our friends were experiencing for the first time as well as visit some of their favorite, lesser-known sites, restaurants and bars, only making our bond stronger.