I grew up in a town of 1,000 people in Iowa. My dad owned the grocery store there. I always knew it wasn't the life I wanted. I moved to Kansas City at 21 to work for an airline. I met my husband, Bill Walling, there. We were married for 24 years before he died in 2010 of kidney cancer. He liked road trips to Captiva Island in Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico, but he never wanted to go to Europe.

The first time I went overseas was in 2012 with my cousin, who took a group of people to France for 10 days and invited me along. I fell in love with Europe. By 2019, I was living alone in Austin and had the bug to return to Europe for a longer trip. I'm a retired widow with no children, but I decided long ago that I wouldn't miss out on anything just because I don't have a partner.