January 2025 After an early morning flight from Charlotte, I met up with my friend Jackie in Houston, and we flew together to Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, a charming duo-city on Mexico’s Pacific coast. From the airport, we took a cab about 30 minutes to Cala de Mar, a stunning cliffside resort where our friend Brielle was set to get married in a couple of days. Brielle, Jackie, and I met as random roommates during a semester abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and our friendship stuck

March 2023 Although Timmy and I had finally graduated from spring breaks (having completed law school), we still traveled during spring break—this time coordinating with my mom’s schedule as an adjunct professor at Randolph-Macon. Our destination was a popular tourist hotspot we’d long wanted to visit: Costa Rica. This was the first trip where my brother and I brought partners along, so the four of us, plus my mom and grandma, ventured south from our various cities for a week

December 2010 I say “ironic” for a reason. Our Christmas vacation to the Dominican Republic was all set—Mom had orchestrated everything, and the group included my brother, then-stepdad, and me—until about 48 hours before departure, when Mom realized her passport had expired. After panicking and triple-checking the date, it became clear: she couldn’t go. With parental consent notes in hand, TK took Timmy and me, and we arrived at our picture-perfect Punta Cana resort, walled o