14 Years Ago Two Travelers Met at Airport. Then Everything Changed.

Two strangers decide to live together after spending a few hours together at an airport—a fun fling or a recipe for relationship disaster?

For travel bloggers Lauren Juliff and Dave Dean, who moved in together on the day they met for the first time in person at an airport in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, it was neither, but rather the start of a 14-year journey of partnership, adventure and building a home together.

Juliff and Dean initially set out on their travels with a singular focus—adventure. Romance was never part of the plan, but fate had other ideas. Their love story, which began in 2011 and has now spanned dozens of countries, resulted in an unconventional life built together on the road.

In 2011, Juliff, the 36-year-old behind the travel website Never Ending Footsteps, made the "bold decision" to quit her job, sell everything she owned, and "travel the world for as long as possible."

"My one rule? To remain single. I didn't need any distractions, just adventures and building my website," Juliff, from the United Kingdom, told Newsweek.

New Zealander Dean, 48, had a nearly identical mindset.

"He was a travel blogger too, who had just left his job to travel to Thailand and focus on his website, What's Dave Doing? full-time," Juliff said. "Like me, he was all in on travel and had no interest in romance."

The travel blogging community was relatively small at the time, and paths often crossed naturally. When Juliff learned that Dean was heading to Chiang Mai, she decided to reach out.

"When I heard that Dave was heading to Chiang Mai, which happened to be my next stop, I sent him a message [online]," she recalled. "We started chatting and immediately hit it off. Hours would fly by as we talked on Facebook Messenger; the kind of effortless connection that made us both excited—and nervous—to meet in person."

Their online conversations became a daily occurrence, often lasting for hours. By the time Juliff boarded her flight to Chiang Mai in November 2011, she already felt she knew him.

"We had been talking for a month at that stage—often for as many as six hours a day," she told Newsweek. "I already felt as though I knew him before I arrived in Thailand."

When she landed, Dean was there waiting.

"We had our first kiss at the airport, then that same day, we moved in together," she said.

"Over the next 14 years, we built a life that neither of us had planned for but couldn't imagine any other way," Juliff said.

Falling in Love on the Road

The decision to move in together wasn't entirely impulsive.

"It was something we'd talked about in the days before my arrival," Juliff said. "We decided to meet at the airport and spend a few hours together to see if we had the connection—we thought we might. If we didn't, I would have booked a hotel room for that night instead."

For Juliff, the connection was immediate.

"I already knew that Dave and I had a lot in common, but when we finally met, it felt like I'd known him forever," she said. "I was instantly comfortable around him in a way I hadn't been with anyone before. He made me laugh, supported me, and shared my obsession with travel, which was rare to find."

While moving in together so soon might seem reckless to some, Juliff explained that relationships often progress quickly in the travel blogging world.

"The travel blogging community was small and tight-knit. We had plenty of mutual friends who vouched for us, so it wasn't as risky as it might seem from the outside," she said. "In the backpacking world, relationships move fast—when you meet someone you connect with, you naturally end up traveling together, since neither of you have a home to live in."

Despite her original commitment to staying single, Juliff knew she had found something worth holding onto.

"More than anything, he made life on the road feel easier. Long-term travel can be exhausting, but with Dave, it felt effortless—like I had a home, even without a fixed address," she said. "At that point, staying single for the sake of it seemed pointless. I'd found someone who made my life better, so why not see where it led?"

A Life Built Through Travel

Over roughly the next five years, from November 2011 to May 2016, the couple explored the world together, visiting over 60 countries across Southeast Asia, Oceania and Eastern Europe.

"Our relationship grew in hostel dorms, on long-haul bus rides and over street food in cities we'd never heard of before arriving," Juliff said.

Their travels were filled with extraordinary experiences.

"We watched the sunrise over the desert in Namibia, the sunset over Angkor Wat, and marveled at the Taj Mahal and Chichén Itzá," she said.

"We climbed a volcano in New Zealand, walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and learned to surf in Bali. We flew in a hot-air balloon over Slovenia, dove in the Great Barrier Reef, rode a scooter through the Vietnamese countryside, and chartered a yacht in Greece."

Juliff said the couple has not married, noting that "we've always lived our lives unconventionally and never really got around to doing it."

However, they have "celebrated anniversaries in an overwater bungalow in the Maldives and a hotel without walls in Mexico—both memorable for entirely different reasons," she said.

Shifting Priorities and Finding a Home Base

By 2016, the couple started to feel the strain of full-time travel.

"Constantly planning, packing and adjusting to new environments—while trying to run our businesses—became something we dreaded," Juliff said. "After five years on the road, travel was no longer as fulfilling as it once was."

Their nomadic lifestyle also affected their health. "We both started experiencing minor health issues due to limited access to healthy food and the challenge of maintaining a regular exercise routine," she said.

Loneliness also became an issue.

"Our life began to feel like an endless cycle of goodbyes, and our constant movement made it nearly impossible to form deep, lasting connections," she told Newsweek.

Eventually, the couple decided to establish a home base. "We swapped constant movement for a home base in Portugal, then the U.K., and finally Australia, where we could have the best of both worlds—stability and adventure," Juliff said.

Their move to Portugal was a spontaneous one.

"We were both craving stability and routine, so we wanted to try settling in one place, to see if it made a difference," she said. "We arrived in Lisbon, immediately fell in love with the city, and started discussing whether this could be our home base."

Though they loved their time in Portugal, the pull to be closer to family eventually led them to Bristol in the U.K. However, making friends proved difficult, prompting another move.

"After struggling to make friends, we decided to give Melbourne, Australia, a try, since we had family there too," Juliff said. "Three years later, we're still in Melbourne, and for the first time in years, have no plans to leave."

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