Travel Is the Vehicle. People Are the Destination.

Sometimes the best travel stories happen before you ever reach the destination.

I was on a flight to Greensboro, North Carolina, for an AmFund fundraiser when a gentleman sat down next to me. He didn’t acknowledge me — but then again, I didn’t acknowledge him either.

Still, within about thirty seconds, without knowing one single thing about him, I had already created an entire story in my head.

I had decided he was a country boy who probably didn’t like Black people.

There. I said it.

Don’t judge me.

He hadn’t said anything rude. He hadn’t done anything offensive. I didn’t know his name, where he lived, what he believed, who he voted for, or anything else about him.

I had simply made an assumption.

And then Delta brought the snacks.

Somehow, between offering each other snacks and making small talk, we started having a real conversation.

His name was Chuck.

Chuck told me about his life, his family, his love of fishing and hunting, and some of the things he makes with the venison from the deer he hunts — including chili and homemade jerky.

He also told me that his immediate family won’t eat it, so he shares his venison creations with his neighbors.

The more we talked, the more I liked him.

At some point, I laughed and told him, “I wish you were my neighbor.”

This was mostly for selfish reasons.  If you’re giving homemade venison chili and jerky to your neighbors, I’m suddenly very interested in the real estate market.

And then Chuck did something I wasn’t expecting.

He reached into his backpack, pulled out a Ziploc bag of homemade venison jerky, and gave it to me.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I’m adventurous when it comes to food, so yes — I ate the stranger-on-an-airplane venison jerky.

And neither one of us used hand sanitizer.

And you know what?

It was delicious.

But the amazing jerky isn’t really the point of the story.

The point is that less than an hour earlier, I had made up an entire narrative about a person I didn’t know.

And I was completely wrong.

Travel has done that to me over and over again.

It has put me beside people I might never have met otherwise — people who look different from me, live differently from me, believe differently from me, or come from places I know very little about.

Then something happens.

A conversation starts.

Someone laughs.

Food gets shared.

Stories get exchanged.

And suddenly, the person who seemed so different doesn’t seem very different at all.

That’s one of the greatest gifts travel has given me.

It keeps correcting my assumptions.

It keeps reminding me to stay curious, stay open, and occasionally step outside my comfort zone.

And it keeps shrinking the distance between “us” and “them.”

By the time we landed in Greensboro, Chuck wasn’t just the man who happened to sit next to me on an airplane.

He was my new neighbor.

Funny how quickly the world gets smaller when we actually talk to each other.

Small world.

🎵 Soundtrack of the Story

This Week’s Song:
You’ve Got a Friend — Mac Ayres

Why It Matters:

Sometimes friendship doesn’t begin with years of history. Sometimes it starts with a conversation, a shared snack, or apparently, a Ziploc bag of venison jerky. 😂

This song reminds me that connection can show up in the most unexpected places — even in the seat next to you at 30,000 feet.

Strangers really can become neighbors.