07/30/2026
To Our Friends, Near and Far ☕️ 🌎
Happy International Friendship Day! Today is a United Nations (UN) day that highlights the role of friendship in fostering peace across many cultures. It is observed on July 30 each year. It’s got us thinking about the friends we’ve made all over the world — and how much of life’s best flavor comes from the people we share it with.
It all started with a friend named Mary. When I was 18, my best friend, Mary - always the good talker - somehow convinced/bamboozled my parents into letting me join her on a teen Club Europa tour of Europe. After two months and over twenty countries, I returned home a different person. The cities were unforgettable, but it was the people who really stuck with me: dancing on tables in pubs with British girls in white pumps, riding on the back of Vespas with Italian boys, cruising the Greek island of Hydra with a cliff diver named Andreas, singing Beatles songs overlooking the cemeteries of Venice, and sharing an amazing seafood dinner in Sorrento with locals. A memory I still think about today. That trip planted something in me. Travel became part of who I am — not a hobby, more like a low-grade, wonderful fever. Travel continued until it didn’t. Life got in the way for a while. Many years slipped by in work and routine, until a friend’s wedding in London created the excuse to book a ticket. That was it. Game on. I haven’t really
stopped since.
