Woman smiling on a hiking trail with mountains in the background

After a Broken Engagement, I Found Healing Through Travel

ByMikala Whitaker Posted on Updated on

It should have been my wedding day at a winery in Virginia. Instead, I found myself strolling through the streets of Palermo Hollywood in Buenos Aires with my father. Yes, that’s right, my father, not the person who should have been my husband.

Broken Engagement

Let’s rewind a mere three months prior. I was blindsided by heartbreak. The person I envisioned I’d spend the rest of my life with said he wasn’t sure if he was ready to marry me after all.

It felt like my world had shattered all around me following the broken engagement. I lost my life partner of the prior six years. I moved home to my parents, losing Arlington, Virginia as my home and leaving my friends behind. Since I crossed state lines into North Carolina, I even lost my therapist. Thank god I got to keep my dog!

Woman hugging a greyhound while in the woods
My best guy, Carson! Photo credit goes to Libby McGowan Photography.

Healing with Travel

So what did I do to get me through it? I traveled. It’s always been the thing that sets my soul on fire more than anything else in life. I knew I had to give myself something extraordinary to make up for the pain of the broken engagement. In less than two years, I visited nine countries and fulfilled three massive dreams: hiking the month-long Camino de Santiago in Spain; summiting Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania; and returning to Argentina to explore Buenos Aires, Patagonia, and Mendoza.

I’m so thankful for prioritizing those experiences for myself, for taking advantage of the time while I have it. If going through this breakup taught me anything, it’s that there are no guarantees in this life. When it comes to travel, we always say, Oh, I’ll go to X destination one day. And then the years tick by and we still haven’t gone.

I felt that way after the breakup. I always said travel was my number one priority, but it took a broken engagement for me to realize that I hadn’t been prioritizing it like I had hoped. In the years since my college graduation, I had only been to Iceland and Mexico.

Beyond just traveling to get over the heartbreak, I realized I needed to take charge of my life again and put my priorities first. I needed to make a bigger change for myself to get back to who I am. With that realization, I didn’t just plan one trip but a series of them throughout all of 2023, taking advantage of the opportunity to work remotely abroad.

Female hiker holding hiking poles and smiling in front of a deep valley and mountains
Smiling through the pain somewhere along the Camino de Santiago, Spain.

Starting This Journey Again

I started this travel blog back in 2015 while anticipating studying abroad in Sevilla, Spain. I kept up with it off and on for a while, but now I’m very excited to be bringing it back after my experiences the past few years. Here, I’ll share not only destination information and travel tips but also insights into resilience after heartbreak, solo travel, and embracing unconventional living—whether that’s traveling as a digital nomad or moving abroad.

Stay tuned for at least one blog post a week from me and feel free to follow me on Tik Tok and Instagram.

Woman smiling in front of mountains with text, "After a Broken Engagement, I Found Healing Through Travel" and "www.unanchoredpassenger.com"
Sunrise over a path in the mountains with text that reads "Healing From a Broken Engagement Through Travel" and "www.unanchoredpassenger.com"

Mikala Whitaker is owner and founder of The Unanchored Passenger. She focuses her blog on providing information and inspiration to help others travel more. She provides tips for solo travel, resilience after heartbreak, and unconventional living. When she's not writing, she's traveling and enjoying time with her greyhound, Carson.