One of the most important things that travel has taught me is how important it is to stay in touch with the people you connect with.

It makes the world a little bit smaller and reminds me that — however ordinary they may seem at the time — some friendships are eternal.

I don’t know if this is fate or just a coincidence of living an interesting life, but thinking about it brings me joy.

While living in a car in Australia, I went to the wedding of a close friend from high school back in Canada. On that same trip, around the same time, I met a friend from Finland.

Many years later, while my wife and I were in Czechia for a conference, that Finnish friend flew to Prague to to visit us.

At that conference, we met a friend from Moldova. Several months later, we travelled to Moldova to visit her and experienced things that most visitors would otherwise not without such a connection. She provided an insight to the culture that would have otherwise been impossible to gain from reading a travel guide. It’s the only reason that I learned of Transnistria, let alone visited that unique and fascinating place.

We befriended a local while trekking through the mountains of northern Thailand. To this day, he’s one of our closest friends. We met up with him again in Bangkok, and later, shared a mind-shifting journey on an island in the south of the country. In the years since, we’ve reconnected multiple times and have enjoyed some of the most epic evenings on the streets of London, of all places.

In Nepal, we hiked with an English lad and celebrated the effort with a night of cheap rum and Nepali beer. He’s since moved to Canada and we reconnect every time we are in Vancouver.

In El Salvador, we met a woman who, years later, I learned is the sister-in-law of a co-worker of mine. She only lives a few hours away and we’ve remained quite close to this day.

These experiences are why I always meet new people with an open mind. I’ve been blessed with so many incredible friends from around the world that I happened to meet in some strange place and time.

And this has taught me that lasting friendship often comes from the most unexpected encounters.