I Went on my Honeymoon With my Dad…
I found myself waking up in the most romantic place in the world…with my dad. We were staying at a wine lodge in Mendoza, Argentina. We had our own private villa with a pool, rooftop with a fireplace, and of course plenty of wine. It was supposed to be my honeymoon, but all that crumbled when my then fiancé said he wasn’t ready to marry me less than three months before our wedding day.
It’s a long story, but after being together for 6 years, engaged for 2, and going through a few months of couples therapy, I knew when he said he thought we needed to postpone the wedding, he was just afraid to break things off. Instead of putting myself through more heartbreak with him, I walked away. It was not a decision I ever imagined making and not one I took lightly.
I was broken, and I knew I needed to do something extraordinary for myself to get through it. I decided to prioritize the one thing that always made me feel more alive than anything else and spent the following year healing through travel.
I had been dreaming of the trip that became my “honeymoon” long before I met my ex. I had studied abroad in Mar del Plata, Argentina when I was 18 years old and had longed to get back to see more of the country ever since. I knew I had to still go, wedding or no wedding.
That’s how I found myself in the most romantic of places with none other than my father. Obviously, it wasn’t the dreamy honeymoon I had envisioned, but it was still a dream of a trip. We spent two weeks traveling around Buenos Aires, Mendoza, and Patagonia, and I spent a month afterwards working as a digital nomad in Buenos Aires and exploring more of the country on weekends.
If you take anything away from this, I hope it’s this: that you should take that trip no matter what. If your soul is calling you to go, if you need to do something special for yourself to heal, go. Do everything you can to make it happen, even if that means going by yourself or taking someone unexpected. Life is short, and every missed opportunity may be a chance you never get again.
Happy Father’s Day and thank you to my dad for always following along with every step of my travel itineraries, drinking all the wine, eating all the foods, and hiking up mountains with me.
