Holly is my greatest good friend, and he or she is my favourite journey companion. That could sound redundant, however these roles should not synonymous. As many people have realized on trips gone wrong, being shut with somebody doesn’t imply you journey effectively collectively. But ever since Holly and I met in Paris over 15 years in the past, as two butter-bloated degenerates finding out overseas on the Sorbonne (a historical past we honor with our matching tattoos of sticks of butter), we’ve gone on a grand honeymoon-worthy trip practically yearly.
Our locations are sometimes locations I’m visiting for my work as a author—London; Ischia, Italy; southern Portugal; Park City, Utah. But she and I additionally often hire small Airbnbs within the American wilderness, a New Year’s Eve custom we’ve designed round defending my traumatized Chihuahua from fireworks. On a current Fourth of July, whereas I was present process chemotherapy, Holly got here to see me in New York City, threw me and my canine within the backseat of a rental automobile, and drove us to a farm upstate—to not shoot us, however to offer my canine respite from the crackling booms and me just a few nights of recent air.
This previous summer time, Holly married a beautiful man. She and her new husband didn’t plan a honeymoon and mentioned they could by no means get round to it; they’d different journeys already on the horizon. So shortly after her wedding ceremony, I took the freedom of planning a blowout “friendmoon” for Holly and me: I had a piece journey to Bellagio, the picturesque resort city on Lake Como, after which Milan. I was invited to carry somebody alongside; they may stick with me in my room and be a part of me for meals.