James' World 2

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After moving back in with her parents during the pandemic, Kayla Ibe was feeling restless. The 28-year-old public relations executive from Manahawkin, New Jersey, felt she wasn’t taking full advantage of her newfound perk of working remotely, so Ibe posted a half-joking tweet asking if anyone wanted to drive across the country with her. A few moments later, Ibe’s phone started buzzing.

It was her college friend Amaana Hasan. “She’s like, ‘I saw your tweet,’” Ibe reminisces. “‘Are you serious?’” Ibe wondered to herself if they would be compatible road trip partners considering they hadn’t been in proximity for years. “We were like, ‘Could we actually do this? Do we think we could make it work?’ By the end of the week, I had the first two weeks of our trip planned.”

The duo met the that way many new college students do: living in the same dorm during their freshman year. After graduating in 2016, they occasionally exchanged text messages. “We really didn’t have much of an in-person relationship post-college,” Ibe says, “which is what makes the story so fun.”

Ibe and Hasan had a preliminary conversation about the budget and the length of the trip. Because they would be working full-time, they decided to share hotel rooms to take advantage of free breakfasts and Wi-Fi. They committed to making lunch and dinner in Ibe’s mini Instant Pot and took turns cooking, from penne in Bryce Canyon to chili in Moab, Utah.

Initially, Ibe was nervous to broach other topics surrounding traveling together. “I didn’t want to be like, ‘I’m anticipating that we’re going to fight. How are you going to handle that?’” But on the first day of the trip, Ibe blurted out a question in the car about just that. Hasan’s answer was more relaxed than she anticipated. Ibe could stay in the room, and Hasan would go to the lobby or for a drive to give them space.

The conversation prepared the mates for an afternoon at Zion National Park when they had differing visions for their day. After a hike, Ibe wanted to do another, but Hasan wanted to go back to the hotel and nap. Hasan had put Ibe on her car insurance before the trip, so after a brief bit of tension, she suggested Ibe drop her off at the hotel and take the car to embark on a solo excursion. “That was the moment,” Ibe says, “that I realized we’re on this trip together … but we can still have our own experiences. Not every little moment has to be shared.”

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Shondaland Staff

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