I started dating a man at the very start of lockdown. We texted, talked on the phone, and FaceTimed for six weeks to be safe. After six weeks we finally decided that we didn’t want the other to go anywhere and met in person. We spent the majority of our first year dating bouncing between my house or his house just the two of us. We got an alert from pomelo for crazy cheap flights to Puerto Rico. My boyfriend is 29 years old and has never left the west coast. We booked the flight for late April, and were able to be fully vaccinated over a month before we left.

The trip looked different than how most of my travels have looked in the past. We quarantined for two weeks before, and packed a bag filled with masks, sanitizer, and alcohol wipes. We spent time exploring beaches, getting take out, and falling more in love with each other and the world. We read multiple books while laying in the sun, and just had a very low key trip. Puerto Rico had incredible covid precautions in place, and we were grateful to be able to support small businesses while also keeping both them and us safe. While on the trip, we had multiple deep conversations about what we wanted our lives to look like. We ultimately decided that we were ready to take the next step and get married. We are currently in the process of ring shopping, with a plan of getting married next summer. We both agree that Puerto Rico is what pushed us to realize we wanted the rest of our lives to look like that. On our last day we bought a gorgeous painting of Old San Juan to remember our first trip together and hope to return next year for our honeymoon.