Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Wednesday, May 6, 2026, was one of those travel days that was not really about famous monuments, ticketed attractions, or big dramatic landscapes. It was about people — old connections, unexpected invitations, friendships that had stretched across years, and the kind of hospitality that makes a foreign country suddenly feel warm and familiar.

We took our time in the morning and did not leave Salzburg until around 11:00 a.m. The plan was to drive toward the Munich area, but there was one small complication: I did not actually have my own rental car.

The Great Rental Car Workaround

The rental car situation in Austria had turned into a practical travel lesson. Rental companies would not rent to Canadians without an International Driving Permit. The frustrating part was that most of the driving I needed to do was in Germany, but because I was trying to rent in Austria, the Austrian requirement still mattered. Travel loves technicalities.

So I borrowed my friend’s car and arranged for a rental car for him to use while I had his. It was a slightly backwards solution, but it worked. Sometimes travel logistics are less like a straight line and more like solving a puzzle where one of the pieces is a German road trip and another is an Austrian rental counter.

A Munich Reunion

The drive to the Munich area took about an hour and 45 minutes. We were not heading deep into the center of Munich, but more toward the outskirts, where we were meeting people we had first met about eight years earlier on a trip to French Polynesia.

That is one of the surprising joys of travel. You meet people in one beautiful corner of the world, share a few meals or adventures, keep loosely in touch, and then years later, because of a message or social media post, you find yourself having lunch with them in Germany.

They had seen that we were in the area and invited us to meet up. It was wonderful to see them again, catch up, and meet the newest addition to their family, their four-year-old son. There was something especially sweet about that — reconnecting after years and realizing life had kept moving forward for all of us in different places, with new stories, new family members, and yet still enough connection to share a meal.

A Barbecue Seven Years in the Making

After lunch, we continued on to visit another family, this time connected through our son’s missionary service in Germany about seven or eight years earlier.

During his mission, our son had met a family there, and one of them had thought that their daughter and our daughter Teyauna would become great friends. He put them in touch, and the connection stuck. Their daughter later came to visit us in Canada about seven years ago, and since then, she and Teyauna had continued writing and staying in contact over the years.

This was their first opportunity in seven years to see each other again.

We were greeted very warmly. It is hard to describe how special it feels to arrive in another country and be welcomed not like strangers, but like people whose story has already been partly woven into yours. There were hugs, smiles, introductions, and that wonderful feeling of picking up a friendship that had waited patiently across years and distance.

We had the chance to hear about their life in Germany, share updates from our family, and enjoy an evening that was less about sightseeing and more about belonging. After weeks of moving through hotels, ships, cities, trains, castles, and border crossings, sitting with friends in a German home felt grounding.

They invited us to a barbecue, and we enjoyed a delicious dinner with their family and daughters. There is something deeply satisfying about being fed by friends while traveling. Restaurant meals can be wonderful, but a meal in someone’s home carries a different kind of warmth. You are not just eating local food. You are being included.

The evening stretched on with conversation. We talked late into the night, until around 11:00 p.m., catching up on life, family, Germany, Canada, memories, and all the years that had passed since these friendships first began.

It was one of those days that may not look spectacular on a map. There was no castle climb, no famous museum, no thousand-waterfall national park, no underground lake. But it mattered.

Travel is not only about seeing places. Sometimes it is about discovering that connections made years earlier still have life in them. A friendship from French Polynesia can lead to lunch near Munich. A missionary connection from years ago can lead to a barbecue in Germany. A daughter’s long-distance friendship can become an evening of laughter and reunion seven years later.

By the time we drove away, the day had become a quiet reminder that the best parts of travel are often not the ones you can buy a ticket for. They are the moments when people open their homes, their time, and their stories — and suddenly the world feels a little smaller and much kinder.