My high school friends and I take yearly trips together. We’re in our 30s but still make time for each other.

• I met my best friends when I was 15 in high school.
• Now, we are in our 30s, and we make time to travel together every July and December.
• These girl trips give us time to catch up and enjoy each other.

In high school, my best friends and I used to drive around our small town, blasting music while the windows were down. We’d sing, laugh, and talk about the future, which seemed unfathomable when we were teenagers on the cusp of adulthood but still so young.

Though so much has changed since we were girls, starting with where we live, our laughter has remained the same. It’s the type of laughter where it actually becomes painful, where it hurts to breathe or move. It can be a memory from almost two decades ago, and it still makes us cackle.

But it’s not just laughter when we’re together. We also support each other through the profound and tragic aspects of adulthood, including losses from breakups to deaths.

We are always connected and understanding each other, no matter what is happening in our lives. I saw their faces at prom, and I saw their faces in the church pews at my mother’s funeral. Though we have all changed, we are still in this together.

Our past in a small town bonded us for life

Though we don’t live near each other anymore — I’m in New York City and my friends are in the Midwest — we do what we can to prioritize girl time. In July and December, since we’re usually free around the holidays, we try to take girls’ trips to make up for lost time, have fun, and reminisce on all our memories.

Sometimes life is busier than other times, and we can’t talk every single day, but that’s what makes planning the girls’ trips so important. We know that no matter what, that’s our time to catch up and fully be present.

Our trips don’t have to be anywhere fancy. In fact, we prefer the simple aspects of life, like chatting together over a nice meal, that allow us to focus on catching up. Though we talk in our group chat about one day doing a trip abroad, for now, we focus on going to areas within an hour or two from our hometown, where we can meet at a fairly central location when we’re all in the area.

What matters is spending time together

In the summer, we try to go to the beautiful beaches of Northern Michigan, which is not too far from where we grew up, although none of us live in our hometown anymore. We’ve climbed sand dunes and lounged at the beach, eating watermelon and chips, staying for hours even when we’re sunburned. We’ve also hung out at our families’ homes, sitting around a campfire or eating pizza in lawn chairs and waiting for the lightning bugs to come out.

In the winter, we’ve walked in the snow and visited popular beaches, quieter at this time of year but still just as beautiful. We usually go out to dinner, too, finding a nice spot for the ambiance. We always have an adventure, with the excitement of our youth humming around us. When we’re all together, it feels like interesting things are just bound to happen.

Taking time together to connect allows us to invest in the friendship that means so much to all of us. Though life is so busy, these trips allow us to revisit the past while also building new memories. It feels like we are young again, laughing like teenagers, but also able to give advice through the wisdom that the years have brought us. It’s an uninterrupted time to see and connect with one another when we don’t have the luxury of dropping into each other’s homes like we were able to when we were teenagers, all in the same town with fewer responsibilities.

While one day we may finally take our trip abroad together, when we have saved money and have fewer work commitments, for now, we’re focused on having fun and enjoying each other’s company. When we see pictures of ladies in their 80s traveling, we joke about how that will be us one day.

It’s not so much about what we do as the fact that we do it together. Life is unpredictable, but we’re there for each other in the uncertainty. Sharing a laugh with someone who truly knows you is one of the best feelings in the world, and we love counting down until the next trip.

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