It was the kind of travel chemistry that doesn’t happen all the time, and it all happened because I lost my passport and my plan. If I had gone on the trip I originally booked, I would have been with older, rich, married couples. It was a reminder for me that reinforced my travel rules — don’t overplan, and don’t book expensive trips if you want to meet fun, single people. The experience also illuminated another fact: regardless of how you travel, as you get deeper into your thirties you might be the only person your age out on the road at all, whether it’s in the hostels with the twentysomethings, or on the fancy cruises with the sixtysomethings. In your fourth decade, your compatriots are mostly at home, working, raising humans, getting husbands through rehab, living for someone besides themselves. Suckers. That’s what I told myself.
— What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding (Kristin Newman), Loc. 1471–7
Oct 27, 2026 comment:
Yeah, basically that’s the summary of this book, if you’d care to read it.