In December 2020 and January 2021, as much of the world was still locked down by the Covid-19 pandemic, Paulina Klaudyna Krzysztoszek and Cory Michael Bolotsky made the same plan: to travel and to work remotely from one of the few countries open to tourists at the time — Mexico.
They did not know each other. He was living in Boston; she in Manchester, England. Ms. Krzysztoszek planned to travel the world for three years, beginning in Cancun in early January 2021. Mr. Bolotsky planned to travel to Mexico for three months.
By early February, both were in Isla Mujeres and staying at Selina Isla Mujeres, a hostel that caters to digital nomads like themselves.
Meeting seemed almost inevitable. The hostel wasn’t a huge place, and both spent a good amount of time in the co-working space. Plus, Mr. Bolotsky “was the loud American,” Ms. Krzysztoszek said. “Everyone knew him.”
A week later, they officially met when some of the hostel guests went to Green Demon Beach Club. When he came to sit next to her, in the only available seat, Ms. Krzysztoszek said she felt “indifferent.” Mr. Bolotsky said he “thought she was cute.”
There would be no love connection that day. But they soon discovered they were both heading to Tulum next and exchanged phone numbers.
Once there, in late February, Mr. Bolotsky thought, “I got this cute girl’s number,” and invited her to join him and friends for drinks at Mayan Monkey Tulum, a hostel.
As it turned out, Ms. Krzysztoszek was staying there. The evening led to great conversations, late-night dancing and, eventually, a first kiss.
A couple days later, Mr. Bolotsky took Ms. Krzysztoszek on what he called “a proper first date”: dinner at Rosa Negra, a Latin American restaurant in Tulum. At least that was the plan. Before the appetizers even made it to the table, Ms. Krzysztoszek was racing to the bathroom.
Something she had ingested earlier that day had made her very sick, she said. To make matters worse, her hostel was 20 minutes away by taxi. Luckily, his was only 10 on foot. The sleepover was not romantic, she said. “Every five minutes I had to run to the bathroom.”
After a few more successful dinners out, they each decided it was time to continue their travels. “I don’t know which of us mentioned Playa del Carmen first,” Ms. Krzysztoszek said, “but the other said yes.”
“Our love story is weird,” Mr. Bolotsky said. “We were both living out of a backpack.”
The arrangement was “very unusual but comfortable,” Ms. Krzysztoszek said. “We were staying together but not living together.”
Their only problem: The clock was ticking. At the beginning of May, he was heading to New York for several weeks before moving to San Francisco, where he already had an apartment secured. She would continue her solo travels.
“It wasn’t, ‘It would suck if it ends,’” Mr. Bolotsky said. “It was, ‘It will suck when it ends.’”
Mr. Bolotsky left for New York in early May 2021. They decided “to give things a try, spend some time apart and see if we missed each other,” Mr. Bolotsky said.
They did. Three weeks later, Ms. Krzysztoszek flew to New York to see Mr. Bolotsky and, by mid-June, Mr. Bolotsky had scrapped his plans for San Francisco.
A few weeks later, the couple flew to Guatemala “to begin their nomadic journey together,” as Mr. Bolotsky put it.
To date, they have been to 29 countries together. Among them: Costa Rica, Panama, Poland, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Norway, Poland, Italy, Israel, the United Kingdom, Morocco, Nicaragua, Germany, Spain, Bulgaria, Kenya and Tanzania.
It was on one of those many trips, in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, that Mr. Bolotsky proposed in March 2023.
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Ms. Krzysztoszek, 34, who was raised in Połczyn-Zdrój, Poland, is a freelance accountant. She has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in finance and accounting from Poznań University of Economics and Business in Poland, formerly known as the University of Economics in Poznań. She was widowed in October 2017.
Cory Michael Bolotsky, 32, who grew up in Manalapan, N.J., is a freelance strategy consultant for venture capital firms. He has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Northeastern University.
The two were married at Spichlerz Wąsowo, an event space in Wąsowo, Poland, on July 20 by Elżbieta Zimna, the head of the civil registry office in Kuślin.
Ms. Krzysztoszek described the wedding as a mix of “American, Polish and Jewish” traditions. Mr. Bolotsky, who is Jewish, added that “teaching a Polish band ‘Hava Nagila’ wasn’t easy.”
“I’m marrying my best friend, the best man in the world,” Ms. Krzysztoszek said. “I felt like I was over the moon. The level of happiness was so high.”
“I copy everything she said. That’s the first lesson in marriage, isn’t it?” Mr. Bolotsky joked. “Just agree with everything your wife says.”
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