At a farmstand in Munich, Germany, it happened again.

I was silently counting in German, trying to remember “four” while pointing to the oranges, when the man standing next to me said, “Vier oranges,” to the vendor.

I turned to him to say “Danke,” and we both did a double-take.

He was the Rev. Ken Fleck, the former pastor from St. George Catholic Church in Tinley Park, which is my hometown.

At one time I was a member of that church. More recently, I had written several stories about Fleck’s children’s garden at the church school and about his longtime friendship with a late elderly parishioner who helped maintain that garden. Fleck also spoke at my uncle’s military funeral at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery.

As coincidences go, this chance encounter in Marienplatz, likely the most crowded plaza in Munich, on a busy Monday afternoon would be high on anyone’s list.

Except that this kind of thing has happened before. Again and again, actually. I can’t tell you how many times we have been far from home only to meet someone who immediately brings us right back to our starting point.

A year and a half ago, on a ferry from Tarifa, Spain, to Tangier, Morocco, as we inched our way through border patrol and immigration, we paused to ask the person behind us a question about one of the mandatory forms we needed to fill out. Turns out, that person was a recently retired colleague of my husband’s, also on her first trip to Africa.

In 2015, on the famous “Quiet Man Bridge” in Connemara, Ireland, I asked a group of travelers who were struggling to take a selfie if I could help. After I snapped a few photos of them standing near the plaque of John Wayne, I casually asked, “Where are you guys from?”

“Frankfort — Illinois,” they said.

“No way,” I said, turning to the two teenagers. “Lincoln-Way High School?”

“East,” one responded.

It is a big small world and many of us are traveling it in parallel.

Travel takes time, money and, these days, incredible amounts of energy, patience and resilience. Boarding, disembarking and crossing borders often means long lines, snafus and delays. To travel you must learn how to pack light, be adaptable to new foods, open to learning new languages and currencies, and accepting of other countries’ rules and customs.

In short, you must be willing to forgo your comfort zone in exchange for someone else’s. Though social media posts make it seem glamourous and wonderful, and indeed much of it is, real travel is often real work.

And yet, so many of us choose that. We opt to leave behind the safety and familiarity of home for the chance to see new places, learn new ideas and experience how others live.

We heed the call of adventure in an effort to understand, appreciate and grow. And perhaps to remind ourselves that humans often have more in common than politics and rhetoric would have us believe.

Breathtaking scenery, monuments that stand the test of time, famous works of art, intriguing chapters in world history, foods we can’t get at home — all of it adds to the allure and all of it shows us the way other humans live.

And while it may be something different we crave, we are always joyful when we encounter something familiar along the way.

As we open our minds to new ways of living, many of us also open our hearts to fellow travelers. We bring with us a desire to connect with both the people at our destination and the people in transit.

Even though it happens a lot, I am always impressed by the willingness of complete strangers to chat. Just about everyone I’ve ever met through travel is proud of their hometowns, and want others to love it too.

On a ferry to Dry Tortugas National Park, an hour off the coast of Key West, a man walked up to my husband and extended a hand. He was a Chicago-area colleague who just happened to be checking out the island where visitors go to snorkel and explore Fort Jefferson.

Perhaps the most astounding “chance” encounter we had was on the High Road to Taos in central New Mexico.

Along this lonely, 58-mile scenic road that connects Santa Fe to Taos, an alternative to the busy highway below, it is so quiet you can hear the wind rustling through the juniper trees.

On this day, we seemed to be the only car on the road. We stopped several times to admire the view and the astounding solitude.

And then, out of nowhere, we a spied a middle-aged man on foot, with backpack and walking poles, making his way along the side of the road.

“Where did he come from?” I said aloud.

“Who knows,” my husband answered.

At the next scenic outlook, we parked and waited for him to catch up.

Turns out, he was on a pilgrimage to Santuario de Chimayo, near the end of the bypass. The chapel features El Posito, a hole in the ground where healing Earth can be excavated — one handful per visitor.

The man had walked from Denver, more than 250 miles away, through the Santa Fe National Forest, for “spiritual” reasons.

I didn’t want to pry into his personal business but there was one thing I had to know:

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“You probably never heard of it,” he said. “Oak Lawn, Illinois.”

Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at donnavickroy4@gmail.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/18/vickroy-travel-familiar-fleck-column/