These 81-year-old best friends traveled the world in 80 days

CNN
 — 

A pair of finest close friends from Texas are proving that experience does not have an age restrict – even when you’re 81.

Ellie Hamby, a documentary photographer, and Sandy Hazelip, a doctor and lecturer, toured the globe in 80 times, adventuring from the seashores of Bali to the deserts of Egypt.

The octogenarian grandmothers started their bold journey on January 11, according to the web site the two have used to doc their travels.

Their initially halt was a site that eludes even many seasoned travelers: Antarctica.

Getting to the southernmost continent 1st required crossing the Drake Passage, the notoriously tough waters concerning the southern idea of South America and Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands.

“For almost two times, we were a rocking and rolling and a slipping and sliding by the Drake Passage and we have been keeping on for dear lifetime,” Hamby explained in an job interview with CNN. “It was just wild.”

“But when we stepped foot on the ground on the Antarctic, you forgot all of that,” she recalled. “The magnificence of the Antarctic is just unbelievable to see the penguins and the icebergs and the glaciers – just, this was wonderful.”

Considering that that 1st undertaking, the pair have visited 18 nations throughout all 7 continents, usually though clad in matching T-shirts. They’ve also accrued a loving social media pursuing who track the “traveling grannies” on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

Hazelip advised CNN that she met Hamby soon after her husband died in 1999. Prior to his loss of life, he “planted the seed in my coronary heart that we need to begin taking our grandsons on mission trips in the summer months,” she claimed. This led her to the Zambia Professional medical Mission, a job run by Hamby and her spouse in southern Africa.

The two bonded around their shared desire in journey and determination to prioritizing exclusive ordeals above convenience and facilities when overseas. Equally grew to become closer as widows just after Hamby’s spouse died in 2005.

Hazelip suggests the notion for their trip originated a couple several years right before they had been every single set to flip 80.

“I just got the notion because we had traveled formerly alongside one another internationally,” she explained. “And so about four many years prior to we were being going to transform 80, I pointed out to her one working day, ‘Ellie, would not it be enjoyable to go all-around the world in 80 times at age 80?’”

On their web-site, Hamby and Hazelip say they dedicated the vacation to their late husbands, Kelly and Don. “We miss you and want you have been joining our journey,” they write.

At first, the two planned to disembark in 2022 when they were being 80 several years previous. “And COVID shut those people ideas down,” Hazelip went on. “But COVID didn’t shut us down. So we went this 12 months, and our theme was, ‘At 81 and however on the run.’”

Around the previous 3 months, the pair have ridden camels in Egypt, achieved elephants in Bali, danced in Nepal, and observed the Northern Lights in Finland.

And irrespective of the problems intercontinental vacation offers, the most effective friends say they finished their trip without any arguments.

“We’re equally impartial, quite stubborn. But we feel to let each individual other to give room,” stated Hamby. “We just fully grasp every single other and we know this is a excellent point we’re accomplishing and we sort of respect every single other’s feelings.”

For Hamby, the highlight of the trip was the men and women they achieved together the way.

“We adore all the sights that we saw, but the issues that we try to remember the most are the folks that we satisfied,” she reported. “We met some of the most wonderful, kindest, friendliest people in the earth. We just have close friends now all above the planet that we really like dearly.”

“We usually say when we started this, we did not program a holiday,” she added. “We prepared an adventure. And each single day was an adventure.”

Despite the fact that Hamby and Hazelip have concluded their worldly quest and returned residence to Texas, the two are presently planning for their up coming trip, they told CNN.

And they shared a essential piece of advice for any tourists nervous about the language barrier on their personal adventures.

“You know, persons question us usually about the language, how we manage it,” reported Hamby. “We say with Sandy and Ellie, there is just one language and which is a smile. And we discovered that worked wonders simply because we ended up usually aware that there was not English spoken. But a smile addresses all languages.”

They also inspired other older vacationers to not enable age maintain them back again. Aside from some tiny concessions – like selecting not to trip a motorbike in Bali since of considerations about slipping – they stated their age didn’t affect their itinerary abroad. They reported felt confident that if they were hurt on their vacation, their youngsters “would have been at peace realizing that we had been undertaking what we certainly preferred,” stated Hazelip.

Hazelip described 81 as “the excellent age” to embark on their vacation.

“Getting more mature does give you a minor bit of wisdom of creating conclusions,” she stated. “And so which is the exciting component. I imagine at this age I enjoy so a great deal [of] the elegance and I can actually just soak it in. And for me, this was the excellent age to go. I’m so grateful.”