I was unemployed. Davida was underemployed.

Looking back, we had no business going to the UK. But I’ll always be glad that we did, for that first trip together, in January 2000, proved just the start of a now 15-year journey.

Another part of the underlying magic of that first trip was the friends that we made. Our first three nights we stayed with zinester friends, Rachael and Jo, in southeast London whose flat – the converted chapel of a former school, adorned with everything from 70 years worth of toy robots to Trashwomen ephemera – remains to this day my all-time favorite dwelling. From London we headed south to Hove, a suburb of Brighton, where we stayed with friends of Rachael and Jo, in a cold-water squat without heat. So cold was the house that, when I got up to pee in the middle of the night, the cold porcelain produced an instantaneous cloud of steam. Yet another zine-friend put us in touch with a friend of his, a most gracious pensioner with whom we stayed the next night, in her posh house in Hastings.

Meeting locals always adds another layer of excitement to travel, one you would never otherwise experience. You learn of places and things and customs exclusive of any travel guide. And if you’re lucky, you gain a new friend from it. Zine connections are often particularly fertile given the automatic shared interests. And so, for these reasons, we looked forward to meeting yet another friend of a friend during our trip to Ireland.

Anto, his wife, Aine, and their two young sons live in Youghal, a seaside town about a half-hour’s drive east of Cork, on Ireland’s southern coast. He and Davida had been in touch via email before our trip, and with a quick phone call on the road from Dublin we arranged to meet not far from their home.

Quickly proving to our mutual satisfaction that neither of us was creepy or conservative, Anto invited us back to his house. There, we met Aine and the boys, with whom our son happily played despite a few years difference in age. Aine prepared an impromptu dinner, after which we retired to their living room.

The boys cavorted and Anto played records while the four adults talked of everything from parenting to zines to travel to politics to our shared love for the ocean. The single bottle of wine they had on hand didn’t go far, so Anto and I drove to a local supermarket, where I made sure there would yet be wine in their cupboard after we left. On the short ride to and fro Anto pointed out local landmarks like the Clock Tower Gate, in downtown Youghal, which housed prisoners during the Irish rebellion of 1798.

Back at the house, Anto and Aine invited us to stay the night. We gratefully accepted, and we all spent the rest of that evening talking and drinking wine by the fire, while Anto spun Irish records and we talked of our favorite music. Later in the evening, he gave me a Dubliners record to take home. When we went to bed, hours later, it was to allow our curious young one to finally sleep.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast of Irish porridge, we piled into the cars and drove to Goat Island Beach, a favorite destination of theirs, in nearby County Waterford. The frigid wind did nothing to dissuade Anto from stripping down to his swim trunks and going for a dip in the cold sea. He and Aine also introduced our son to Irish sport of hurling, while Davida and I explored the rocky, majestic coastline. Afterward, they took us to the 13th-century ruins of Ardmore Cathedral. Anto pointed out the adjacent 9th-century stone round tower, used by local monks to protect their valuables from marauding Norsemen.

While the three of us would have gladly spent the rest of the weekend with our new-found friends, the road beckoned. Our plans called for us to be in Killarney that night, and to ensure time enough to see everything we wanted to, we reluctantly bid our hosts goodbye.

But Anto and Aine’s hospitality and generosity left an indelible impression on us for the rest of the trip, and beyond. I’ve played that Dubliners record countless times since returning home, while Davida has worked to replicate the delicious pasta dish Aine prepared for us. And we’ve both been reading his zine, Loserdom.

One day we will go back, while we’ve made it well known to our Irish hosts that they will always have a place to stay in Baltimore should they ever venture stateside. For now, I can’t help thinking that, but for 3,000 miles of interfering water, we would all likely spend time together.