In July of 2017, I decided to go on a trip across the country with three other people I barley knew. I met one of them through work, but the other two were foreign to me. We would leave Illinois and stop through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Colorado over the span of three weeks. It was going to be the trip of a lifetime. I went in anticipating scenic memories, spiritual enlightenment, and kindling new friendships with the strangers I was embarking on the trip with. This was a lot of pressure to put on an excursion, but it was also a lot of money to spend as a young adult, so I expected to get some reward for my payment. Despite some unforgettable moments experiencing America, the choice to go with strangers may have been a mistake. We were not friends by the end; in fact, I cannot even remember their first names to this day.

First of all, I left all the responsibility of planning and money into the hands of my fellow travelers. For the sake of simplifying my trip, I expected them to choose the itinerary and cross my fingers that it would fall in line with what I wanted to do. I handed them two thousand dollars and said GO. Big mistake. I found myself in a picturesque canyon in Arizona taking blurry monochromatic photographs. After an hour of snapping pictures, with nothing else to do or see, I was exhausted. When I asked how much we paid to take those photos, they explained it was two hundred dollars. TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR ONE HOUR AND TEN PICTURES. I knew my money was not being spent in the way I would have chosen personally. When we went grocery shopping I picked out economical items such as cereal and potatoes.

They chose diets full of two-dollars-a-piece avocados and twenty-dollar balsamic vinaigrette. Being vegan, I could not even indulge in their expensive cheeses and chicken breasts. I’m not a frugal fairy, but some of the items they bought using my checkbook were just ridiculous. Not to mention I am not of legal drinking age and they spent some of that money in breweries where they tasted flights of beer, while I shuffled through the t-shirts in the gift shop that I could not afford to buy. When I left the vacation they explained we had gone over budget and I owed them money. I furiously took cash out of the ATM in the lobby of the Colorado hotel and decided to never speak to them again. I learned that the next trip I went on, my money would be spent by me and me only.

Second of all, we did not get along because we were very different people. I would have known this if I had spent even an hour in their presence before we had backed out of my driveway onto the open road. For example, they were not as adventurous as I had expected. We were hiking down the Grand Canyon in the pitch black of nighttime with nothing but headlamps and some water in our packs. There were spiders and mice crawling over our toes and a deep pit of fatality taunting us to our left. I was ecstatic. After about thirty minutes of walking in the direction gravity was pulling us, the two girls decided they were not fit physically or mentally to continue on. Luckily, the man that was with us wanted to venture further. We trekked down another thirty minutes and then turned back to meet with our other partners. I would have preferred to do more hiking on this trip, but I did not realize the physical limitations my companions were housing.

They also did not want to buy any weed in physical limitations my companions were housing. They also did not want to buy any weed in Colorado. Sad. Our age differences caused problems as well. They did not trust me to be responsible for anything. I was not permitted to touch the room keys to our AirBnBs because I could not be trusted. When they left to go to the bars without me at night, they locked me into my castle and I was not allowed to escape. On my journey for freedom, I found myself a prisoner.

We argued over doors being left open, who was cleaning what, and how much energy was put into packing up the car by each person. By the last day I was balling my eyes out in the bathroom of the Maroon Bells gift shop. One of them came into to beg me to come see the most beautiful mountain I had ever laid my eyes upon and apologized for upsetting me. After this exhausting, but still magical day, I bought a plane ticket home for the morning. I could not stand another day in hell. When they took their morning showers, I bought an Uber and without a goodbye I was on my way to the airport before the water turned off.

Finally, back in Illinois, I had just got into a relationship with the person who I would date for the next couple years. We were in our honeymoon phase and I was not there with him to experience it. For most of the trip, all I could think about was getting back home and giving him a hug. I look back in my travel journal where it says, “It’s crazy how you can be in the most beautiful places in the world, full of things to do and magnificent sights to see, but despite these things I would trade it all to be in a shitty little town, in a cheap little apartment holding you in my arms.”

We talked on the phone every night and I told him the horror stories and amazing moments of my trip. When I went to Chicago with him a year later, I realized that if I had brought him as a travel companion, I would have had a much more memorable time. Unfortunately, I had not planned on being in a relationship when it came around. It is not a great idea to travel when you have a fresh love budding from the soil because it is very hard to stay present. After you have been dating for a month or two, leaving each other is a lot more bearable. This happened to fall a week after we started dating. Lesson learned, not that there was anything I could have really done about it.

I think that in the future I will make sure to travel with long term friends who share similar values about money and adventure. I will also keep my money in my own pocket. Overall, I got to scale the mountains for Colorado; watch the sun rise in Las Vegas; jump off a cliff in Arizona, and meditate in a Buddhist temple; so do not get me wrong, this was an unforgettable experience. The memories have settled in my mind as more positive then negative. I think an important part of travel is enduring the misery of missing your loved ones and becoming uncomfortable in unfamiliar places. You have to accept the good and the bad. This contrast of sensations on my journey made it very simple to notice what things were most important to me. Falling in love was incredible and painful to be apart, but learned that in my sadness I could still see the marvelousness the world had to offer.