As a solo traveler who has also had the unfortunate privilege of dating in LA, I loved dating while traveling. Dating abroad while with a work and travel community like Hacker Paradise made it infinitely easier. I always knew I had a group I could text after a bad date ended early, to tell about a crazy hook up the next day at lunch, or to trade phones and craft replies with over wine.
Many alumni also enjoy dating while traveling with Hacker Paradise. As one HPer puts it, “There is always at least one hookup if not a relationship that comes from every trip!” Another HPer stated they preferred to keep romance completely separate from the group, but when I reminded them of someone they made out with on-trip, the replies stopped coming.
Loads of people rendezvous on Hacker Paradise trips. When you get a bunch of like-minded people together, with constant sunset backdrops, sparks are inevitably going to fly. Some are discreet. Some think they are discreet. But it’s always so awesome to see who makes it long haul. Here are a few HP relationship highlights:
Emily & Graham
Emily Michels met Graham Dubow on a Hacker Paradise trip in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2016.
“The first week of Thailand we went to Krabi beach with a group of 9 HPers. Graham and I gravitated towards each other. Fell in love right away and have not been apart since.”
She moved across the country to NYC after her few months with Graham and Hacker Paradise, but digital nomads at heart, they soon packed up again and hit the road for over a year – to Cape Town, Berlin, London, Spain, Norway, Prague, Japan, and the Bahamas.
“We are getting married in Oct 2019 in San Diego. We will continue our travels after that with our honeymoon in India and Sri Lanka. We’llkeeptraveling & working remotely together. It’s where our heart is.”
“We’ve had several reunions with our friends from HP. All who saw us fall in love in Krabi beach Thailand. 4 or 5 will be at our wedding.”
Gabi & Denny
Gabi Ciudin and Denny Quesada met in Argentina, started dating in Peru, and fell in love on a road trip from Romania to Italy. Gaby said she had Denny at “I can get my own beer, thanks” within days of meeting in Buenos Aires.
But even with a killer line like that, they didn’t start dating until 3 months into their time with Hacker Paradise, two weeks before they were headed back to California and Romania, respectively.
“We did keep it a secret in the beginning, very few people knew back then. Didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. But after Lima, he flew over to Romania. Couldn’t wait to see him again. The time zone difference between San Francisco and Romania is really not fun.”
Not so spoiler alert. They figured out the time difference thing. “Our wedding was planned and booked in about 3 days time. We booked our Las Vegas wedding in a very, very cute chapel, with Elvis to tell us our vows. I promised I won’t ever step on his blue suede shoes, for he will always be my loving teddy bear and he promised to always love me tender and always be my hunk, a hunk of burning love! [Editor’s note: Gabi then proceeded to name 10 HPers who flew or drove in and another 6 HPers who watched the live feed from around the world.] “It was the perfect wedding, I never was one to like tradition much.”
Felix & Lola
Lastly, we have Felix and Lola who met in Hacker Paradise, Bali edition, and although they can confidently say they never consummated the relationship, they also have a Hacker Paradise baby – Update.Rocks
“We built a service that makes it easier for you to deliver new releases for (Electron) apps to your users. You can hook up your repository, publish a release and we will take care of distribution and providing an API for the apps so they can check if there is a new version available.”
If that doesn’t get you hot and heavy, we don’t know what will. So there these non-lovebirds are, in Bali, both super into Bitcoin (way before the big hype, according to Felix) and several HPers pointed out their shared passion and suggested they should chat.
“Since our common interest in the crypto scene, we talked about building “something” every now and then. We started some small projects but never got really far and then got distracted. We talked about the idea of update.rocks and, different than our other projects, we actually kept going and made it to a point that we could release it.”
Lola is based in France and Felix in Germany, but they meet up from time to time when their travel plans overlap and use email, WhatsApp, and GitHub for coordinating their work, proving that all sorts of relationships can blossom on an HP trip!
So there you have it. Two weddings, a baby, and an open source project. If that doesn’t have you ogling your passport as your valentine this year, we don’t know what to tell ya.
