If you liked yesterday’s post on finding love abroad– check out a few more submissions to add a little cheer to your day.  If you don’t believe in the power of travel and love- you most definitely will after you finish with this post!

Edna, Expat Edna, found love in Singapore!

I met my fiancé by moving in with him.

In 2010 I graduated and moved to Singapore on a whim. Four months in, I had to look for a new apartment, and I fell in love with the very first one I looked at — a brand new flat on the 44th floor of a 50-story building, with breathtaking views over the city.

There were already two guys in the flat, they were looking for a third roommate. One was British and had just moved to Singapore a week earlier, so I immediately started inviting him to hang out as I remembered how hard it could be to find a group of friends after moving to a new city.

After a couple weeks we knew we liked each other; once we moved into the flat we hung out even more and after a month started dating. We took our first trip together after only six weeks, to the romantic island of Bali (talk about setting the bar high!). That trip went so well, we spent the rest of the year traveling all over Southeast Asia.

Living together and traveling together from the get-go was risky — the relationship could have gone incredibly bad, incredibly fast. Luckily it’s more than worked out: We’ve been doing long-distance since I left Singapore last year to pursue my career, but in May he came to visit me in Paris, where I’m currently based, and proposed on my birthday.

Now the hardest question is, after all the traveling we’ve already done, where do we go for our honeymoon?

Amanda, MarocMama, found love in Marrakech!

In the winter of 2004, I walked down a crowded street in Marrakech. At some point fate intervened and as I was walking I felt someone next to me.  I looked up and as our eyes met there was a flash in my mind…This is him, you’re going to marry this guy!

I quickly tossed those notions out of my mind and ignored the man.  But he tried to talk to me and so I did my best to communicate.  He didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Arabic.  We fumbled through on some lousy high school French I had picked up. At the end of the evening I couldn’t push this guy out of my mind and the next day we spent as much time together as possible.

As we walked down a back alley of the medina to a cafe, he turned me towards him and gave me a kiss.  It was a movie kiss.  My leg popped, my head floated, my heart was racing, (and it still does every time!).  But sadly, we had to part ways the next day and in my heart I felt that it would be the last time we saw each other.  We exchanged emails and phone numbers but I never held out hope that he would contact me again.
But we did keep in touch and in a few months, I had booked a ticket for a short visit and found myself again in Morocco.

He asked me to marry him on this trip and as fast and crazy as it seemed – I knew it was right.  After seven years, an immigration headache and two kids we’re as in love as we were at that first glance.

Rease, Indecisive Traveler, found love in America (while living in Buenos Aires!)

Pedro and I met in the summer of 2009. He came from Puerto Rico to visit our mutual friend, Jose. I found out much later that Pedro immediately developed a crush on me. Alas, I was with someone else, at the time, so nothing came of it.

In 2010, I had a messy breakup and shortly thereafter, moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the summer of 2011, I went home to St. Louis for a visit. Coincidently, Pedro had moved there only 10 days earlier. He showed up to my welcome home get together and we immediately hit it off.  After several days of hanging out together and fighting the tension, he finally kissed me. The spark was immediate.

We had so much fun together, but as my return to Argentina grew nearer, we began to worry about how much we cared about each other. My life was in Argentina. He was just beginning his life in St. Louis. By departure day, all we had decided was to keep in touch. That turned into several Skype chats a week, accompanied by sweet emails sprinkled in between. We said we weren’t a couple, but both of us knew better. Then, Pedro had a last minute chance to go visit his brother in Miami and he asked me to meet him there. We spent one glorious week and finally decided it was ridiculous for us to pretend we were not in a relationship.  For many other reasons, I decided to leave Argentina in at the end of January 2012 and move back to St. Louis.  After all that time in Puerto Rico, Argentina, St. Louis, and Miami, Pedro and I will celebrate our 1 year anniversary in New York City in August!

 

Marina, Travel Experta, found love in Latin America!

When I was 28 years old, tired of living the not-so-fun single life in Manhattan, I took my backpack and hopped on a bus going south. My original plan was to see the world, but I kind of got stuck in Latin America.

On a so-called normal traveling day I crossed the border from Belize to Guatemala and camped on the grounds of Tikal, the ancient Mayan ruins, next to a young Latino guy who spoke perfect English and who decided to make it his mission to talk to me until I caved in.

Truthfully, he was incredibly interesting and as we walked down the LONG path leading to the ruins, we had every possible wildlife encounter cross our path, minus a jaguar, we saw coati mundi’s, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, snakes, toucans, too many exotic insects, a gray fox and tons of parrots. I thought this was totally normal, since we are in the rain forest, but my new friend couldn’t contain his excitement. He said he’s been to Tikal at least 50 times and never seen so many animals in his life.

This made his mission to ‘befriend’ me even more powerful. After a great afternoon of exploring, watching the sun set over the ruins, I was amazed that I didn’t want our time to end.

The next day he returned to his ‘work’ which was completing his vet practice at one of the most unique places I’d ever heard of – a rescue center for trafficked birds and mammals. It was located in the middle of the same jungle and had housing for volunteers.

Since I had all the time in the world, with nothing but new adventures to seek out, I decided to stay and volunteer where he was working.

It didn’t happen over night, but in time my heart was won over and we are now celebrating our twelve year anniversary with our little boys. First we lived in Costa Rica and now call Guatemala our home!

Tammy, International Travel Bug, fell in love with Sorrento, Italy!

Sorrento is love at first sight. There is beauty everywhere, even the tiny train station with its flower-covered stone walls has me in awe. I arrive just after dark with no reservations and no idea where to go, luckily it’s mid-October, shoulder season, so I’m not worried about finding a place to stay.

As fate would have it, I met an American couple from California on the train ride from Rome.  We become fast friends, especially after surviving the Naples train station experience together. With no reservations and at their urging, I decide to take a chance and share a taxi with them hoping their hotel has a room for me.

The lobby of Hotel Mediterraneo looks like a little piece of heaven, gleaming white with touches of sapphire throughout. It is crisp and immaculately clean. Francesco at the front desk tells me he does have a room for me and for a “very nice rate.” He has a warm friendly smile making me like him right away. After checking in, I say goodbye to my California friends and have a glass of wine and snacks at the lobby bar. I know the hotel is on the water, but it’s too dark outside for me to get much of a view.

Thanks to the six-hour time difference, I am wide-awake long before dawn so I shower and wait in eager anticipation of the morning light. When I can finally see, I’m blown away by the view from this Cliffside hotel- Mountains and Mediterranean as far as I can see. … read more of Tammy’s story on her blog.

Can I get a big “AWE”? Such sweet stories! Thanks so much for contributing your stories!

Now, it’s your turn.

Share your story on Twitter for a chance to win a trip to Aruba or $250 dollars of Expedia Vouchers. Have you fell in love while traveling? Maybe you fell in love with a person or a city or a food (heck, you know we fell in love with tacos)? All you have to do is tweet a photo of love and include the hashtags #love and #expediafindyours and you’re entered! Contest ends July 31st, so get your fingers tweeting! Can’t wait to hear your story!