It’s the typical love story many dream of: Travel to a foreign land, meet someone who sweeps you off your feet, and either he or she moves back home with you or you live overseas. You both live happily ever after.
For some, this fairytale is reality.
Danielle Stevenson returned home a year and a half ago from a year-long trip where found the love she always hoped for.
Stevenson went to Australia not knowing what to expect. She remembers the first few weeks as a blur of visiting major tourist spots, hanging out on the beach and experiencing Australian nightlife. She came to love the Australian lifestyle and was satisfied with the first few months of her trip. She was meeting a lot of people and travelling around the country as much as she could.
“I was in this new world in Australia and I was able to become a new person and I think this is what opened me up for the possibility of finding the right guy,” Stevenson said.
Although Stevenson didn’t go to Australia in hopes of finding the right man, somehow it happened.
“It wasn’t until about halfway through my trip when I met Mike and after that I was hooked,” she said. They met at the beach and from that day on spent every day talking. They even took a short road trip down the Gold Coast for a couple of weeks.
Stevenson believes that if she hadn’t gone travelling, she would still be in school and feeling lost. There is a group of people who insist everyone should experience a year in a foreign place.
Traveller Bryan Dewar is one of them. “Travelling seriously pushes your envelope and while you go through challenges during a trip you find pieces of yourself,” he said. “It’s hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it.”
Stevenson knows what it’s like to be captivated by being in a new country and choosing to be whoever you want to be. The feeling many people get when visiting a new city gives you the courage to step out of your comfort zone.
“I feel like I can be really shy around new people, but in Australia I actually became a new person who was able to go up to strangers and start conversations,” she said.
It was a last-minute decision for Mike to come to Canada with her, but the risk to acknowledge they wanted to be together has paid off.
A year and a half later I am sitting with the two explorers talking about their next adventure. They’re headed off to Asia in a few months and as of now they’re unsure when they will return. Stevenson jokes: “Who knows maybe it’ll be 10 years before we come home again.”
