Whether it’s How Stella Got Her Groove Back or Before Sunrise, we’ve all probably seen a film where the characters meet while traveling and fall in love, romanticizing what that experience could be like for us. Such a plot has been the reality for many people, including Black travelers like DJ and Jose.
When DJ quit her job and left the States to teach English in Spain, she was in search of her own Eat, Pray, Love moment. She found the “Love” part in Jose, originally from the Dominican Republic but living in London, while he was vacationing in Madrid.
“Guys in Spain sometimes turn Black women into a fetish, and the hookup culture is very high, so I was looking for something more,” she explains. “Since there are not a lot of Black men in Spain, when I found one, I swiped right. He didn’t have any game. He was simply being genuine and I liked that.”
Jose felt the chemistry, too. “I liked how she looked, her smile, and she was cute, so I swiped right. We talked daily, getting to know each other, but I didn’t see a future because we were living in different countries. Then, I realized we had a lot in common, and the communication was effortless. It was fun.”
What followed was a romance that defied geography. Their first four dates were an adventure, each one unfolding in a different country: Spain, Italy, the UK, and Dubai. They turned passport stamps into proof of commitment.
For Ashley and Diandi, love didn’t require quite as many miles at first, but, like DJ and Jose, it came to be unexpectedly. Their story begins closer to home in Nashville, Tennessee. Ashley was visiting with a bachelorette party, and Diandi, born and raised in Belize, was in town on a business trip. One swipe changed everything.
“It’s rare to find a young woman with values, ambition, educated, and beautiful all at the same time.”
That was Diandi’s first message to Ashley.
“I remember thinking his message was too cheesy. I was not going to reply,” Ashley admits. “Until he ended the message saying, ‘So even if you don’t reply to me, make sure you find someone who values how awesome you are and shows you every day.’ That changed my mind.”
Their connection moved fast. After messaging for a few days, they met that Monday—then again on Wednesday, and again on Saturday. Diandi missed his flight back to Belize, and before they knew it, five months had passed, and their first date was still going.
Still, love abroad isn’t just about romance. It’s about logistics, sacrifice, and navigating time zone differences. DJ was still living in Spain when Jose moved even farther away, trading in the UK for Dubai.
“We spent so much time on the phone [navigating the time difference] that I wasn’t hanging out and meeting new people like I had moved to do,” she says. “One night I said, ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore, it’s too hard for me.'”
Jose’s response was immediate. He booked a flight to Spain, a move that changed everything. Soon after, the couple began thinking long-term. DJ decided to leave Spain—and her job—to move to Dubai with Jose.
Ashley and Diandi faced their own challenges before making a gutsy move. Less than a month after Diandi’s six-month stretch in the States, Ashley—who they joke didn’t even have a passport before meeting him—traveled to Belize for a month-long visit.
Family opinions added another layer for both couples to navigate. “I feel like people thought I was sketchy and just wanted a green card,” Diandi says. “That’s always a generalization I faced because Americans always assume everybody who’s not from here wants a green card.” In reality, he loved his life in Belize, and his family wanted him to stay.
“My family wanted to make sure I was making the right move [because ] I’m not the type to just let go of the reins,” Jose explains. “Before I was always playing [relationships] by the book, always careful, calculating my risks, and this time, I was just free, believing in the process.”
DJ remembers it differently. “It was not that positive!” she says, laughing. “Eventually, everyone came around, but I could tell that they were not feeling the whole idea. Dubai is far away, and they didn’t know much about its culture.”
Doubt crept in at different moments for both couples, too. Ashley felt the weight of what moving to the U.S. would mean for Diandi. “I felt a lot of pressure because the way race is viewed in the U.S. is very different from other places,” she says. “I wanted to make sure he was 100 percent on board, and I wasn’t forcing him to leave his great life in his home country and have to come to deal with the prejudices and racism that we have in the United States.”
For DJ and Jose, uncertainty peaked when DJ, homesick and struggling with the job market in Dubai, announced that she was moving back to the States permanently. In response, Jose made his own big move.
“I casually asked, ‘What if we got engaged?’” Jose recalls. “To me, DJ going back home single or just dating, that just doesn’t have the same [commitment] to it.” He adds, “Now we know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s us being together. We’re engaged and we’re getting married.”
Nearly two years of immigration paperwork followed, measured in paperwork, patience, and countdowns to the next reunion. But once the ink was dry, the transition from long-distance to marriage required intention. “I bought a house because I wanted us to feel settled,” DJ says. “I also surprised him with a PS5 when he moved because that’s a pretty significant action, and that was to show my appreciation that he moved. Our wedding was a few months later.”
Jose felt the impact immediately of the move, but also a great deal of support from DJ and her loved ones.
“She made me feel loved and welcomed, and being a part of her family reduced my homesickness,” he says. “I don’t feel alone because her family is my family now.”
Ashley and Diandi were talking marriage less than seven months after their first swipe on OkCupid. But Ashley is quick to ground the whirlwind fantasy people may have about finding love with someone from another country.
“You always have to think about the immigration and the policy aspect of a long-distance relationship,” she says. “People have misconceptions that you can just fall in love and be together. No, this is not 90 Day Fiance, this is real life.”
Their advice is simple but hard-earned: open communication and honesty from the start. Cultural differences, they say, don’t disappear—they demand understanding.
Today, DJ and Jose are married, raising a toddler in St. Louis, Missouri, and building a life they once could only imagine across time zones.
As for Ashley and Diandi, they reside in Houston with their two children. While they’re rooted in the present, they keep their hearts open to the future. A move to Belize is always on the table—a reminder that as long as they’re together, wherever their love story takes them, it will be a happily ever after.