Serendipity

We all know serendipity is amazing.

As some of you may know, I’m on a east coast business trip that has already spanned Boston and New York City, with the next stop being Philadelphia and Washington DC. There have been a few serendipitous components to the trip, and some missed serendipity.

1. My best friend in the world happened to be in Boston the same weekend I was. As a result, I got to hang out with her for two days which was of course a huge unexpected bonus (who doesn’t like hanging out with their best friend?). Yet if that scenario were to happen to anyone outside of my 4 or 5 closest friends, we likely never would have realized we were to be in the same city at the same time. I trade emails and texts with my close friends all the time. Not so with everyone in my network — even though I’d love to spend time with many of my more distant friends in another city.

2. On the bus to the airport in Boston to pick up my friend, I saw a girl at the back of the bus who looked almost exactly like one of my close friends from high school. Since I couldn’t quite be sure from the front of the bus and didn’t want to make a scene by approaching her all the way from the other end, I texted my old high school friend who now lives in Los Angeles, “Are you in Boston right now?” I got a text a few minutes later that said, “Nope, but will be in NYC on Sunday.” Holy crap I thought — that’s crazy, since I was headed to New York on Monday. Turns out we didn’t end up meeting up since she was just in and out for a client meeting, but we tried.

3. A fraternity brother of mine, who I last saw in Santorini in the summer of 2010, was in Boston for the weekend as well. We randomly saw that we were both going to be in Boston ahead of time based on random Facebook status updates and planned to meet up. We both completely spaced and missed each other.

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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We all love when serendipity happens.

Despite knowing more about people’s locations than ever before, it doesn’t happen near as often as it should. Here is a personal example of serendipity that could have been…

You see, Amanda and I met down in the Dominica Republic about 4 years ago while I was visiting Kayla in the Dominican Republic (who works for Esperanza). We both share a strong passion for microfinance. But I haven’t seen Amanda since, though we have traded the occasional Facebook comment or message over the past 4 years. While I was in Seattle this past June, I had coffee with Amanda to get her feedback on the travel concepts I was working on building (since she’s an avid traveler). We of course got to discussing our respective travels over the course of the past few years.

And you know what?

We were both in Bangkok for New Years this past year. And both on Khao San Road for the actual celebration.

Likely we walked within a few hundred yards of each other at some point during the night.

We had no clue.

If we had ahead of time, we certainly would have met up for a drink or two. A friendly face is always a welcome sight on the travel trail.

Do you have an example of serendipity that could have been?

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Category Archives: Serendipity

Serendipity on my East Coast Trip

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers

Exploring the Wild Blue Yonder