We’re 82-year-old Best Friends Who Traveled Around the World in 80 Days — Here’s What It Was Like

For Travel + Leisure’s column Traveling As, we’re talking to travelers about what it’s like to explore the world through their unique perspectives. We chatted with Sandy Hazelip and Ellie Hamby, two 82-year-old single great grandmothers, who travel around the globe together with an infectious, positive spirit. Their adventures will be documented in a Penguin Random House book called “Happy Place,” out next year.

Sandy Hazelip: I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, in a very modest family and got married when I was almost 20 years old to a wonderful person. Our son developed diabetes when he was a baby, so I became interested in learning about medicine. When I was 34 years old, I told my husband I wanted to go to college to become a doctor. From day one, he was my cheerleader. I started medical school when I was 39 and opened my practice in 1985. 

Then, my husband died in 1999. But before he became ill, he mentioned we should take our grandchildren on mission trips. Six months after he passed, a young physician told me he was going to be at a medical missions workshop the following weekend in Dallas. I went and met Ellie Hamby and her husband, who were the directors of the Zambia Medical Mission. I started going on the mission and Ellie and I became good friends.

Ellie Hamby: I grew up as a farm girl in Oklahoma and lived in a very small town until I finished high school. I got married and then went off to college. My husband was a professor at Abilene Christian University. We wound up going to Zambia and lived there for six years in the 1980s. When we came back to the university, we were approached about directing a medical mission. 

Neither one of us were medical [professionals], but I’ve been known to organize everything all of my life. We started organizing a medical mission to Zambia in the 1990s. It’s one of the world’s largest medical missions, and I’m still directing it. We see 2,000 to 3,000 patients a day over six days a week at the clinic. Sandy’s been one of the medical doctors, going every other year for the last 20-something years.

About five years after Sandy’s husband passed away, my husband passed away in a tennis accident. Sandy called me about a month after. I was still adjusting to his sudden death. She said, ‘I’m moving my medical practice to Abilene and I don’t want to leave my home in Eastland, so I need a bed a couple of nights a week. If you would give me a bed, I’ll take you out to eat.’

That was 19 years ago. Except when we’re on trips, she’s generally at my house one or two nights a week. We stayed up late, drank coffee, and started realizing we like to do things alike. Our friendship developed out of two terrible tragedies, but it was a beautiful thing because tragedy hits all of us. That doesn’t mean your life is over. We both had phenomenal husbands. We loved them dearly. But we did develop this great friendship. 

Our outlook on life is similar: We’re very happy people, we believe in the goodness of humanity, and we’re not scared to try new things. 

I had already done quite a bit of traveling, having been to about 115 countries.

About three years after Sandy started staying at my house, we took our first trip together in 2008. We went on the Trans-Siberian Railway — not the tourist train. We went on the second-class people’s train all the way. 

Hazelip: Our third trip together was in 2011 — we were in Syria when the war broke out.

Hamby: We were sleeping in a Bedouin tent in Palmyra in the Syrian desert. We had already been all through Syria on public buses — two 72-year-old women with backpacks.

The problem was that there were no tourists in Palmyra and we were headed to Jordan, but we hadn’t paid the hotel and there were no ATMs in the city, nor did they take credit cards. Mohammad at the hotel organized everything for us — his mother cooked us a wonderful meal that night and he arranged for us to go with a driver to Damascus about five hours away.

We got there and the whole plaza was lined with the military holding AK-47s. Our driver went up to them and must have said these two old women need to get cash out of an ATM. They put down their guns. We prayed there would be money — and there was. Then, Mohammad told us to get in a white unmarked car on the side of the road to take us to Jordan — and it did. So, we already had some wild experiences.

Hazelip: We are old enough to remember the movie and book, “Around the World in 80 Days,” so two or three years prior to turning 80, I said to Ellie, ‘Why don’t we go around the world in 80 days when we’re 80?’

Hamby: My first reaction was, ‘What?!’ About 30 seconds later, ‘Why not?’ We told our family and friends. I think most of them felt like it would never happen. It’s a pretty daunting thing, and we didn’t realize just how daunting it was until we completed it and got all this recognition.

We used the Oneworld Alliance Round the World fare, which is great. You have to go to six continents and it gives you 16 flight segments. You circumnavigate the world in one direction. That made it handy and saved us money. 

Hazelip: You can make your own itinerary — just follow their rules. When we got to a country and wanted to see more things, we would use our airline miles and fly to those other places. Occasionally, we had to buy a ticket. Our average hotel room for the whole 80 days was $29 a person per night — and that usually included breakfast.

Hamby: Our best bargain was $13.50 at the Royal Pyramids Inn in Cairo. We had to enter through an alley, but when we got to the rooftop, there were the pyramids. And then the lights show at night — we watched it for free.

Hazelip: When other women say they would love to take a trip with us, the first thing I do is look at their hands. If they have well-manicured fingernails, they probably don’t want to travel with us.

Hamby: We don’t have a travel agent. We book every hotel ourselves; we book our flights, and when we have a problem, we have to solve it because there’s no one we can call. And we don’t have any men carrying our luggage.

Hazelip: We had originally planned to go on our Around the World trip when we were 80, but COVID shut it down, so we went when we were 81, and our theme was…

Hazelip and Hamby: Around the world in 80 days at 81 and still on the run.

Hamby: We started in Antarctica. It’s one of the most awe-inspiring places to set foot on in the world. To stand there and do a 360 around you — what you see is just beyond belief. The immenseness of the Antarctic, the ice mountains, the icebergs, the water, penguins everywhere — it’s unbelievable.

Hazelip: Then, we were in the Arctic Circle. We had a driver in Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland. One day he said, ‘Would you like to do a husky sleigh ride today?’ I thought it was going to be some tiny ride like at the Texas fair, so we said sure.

Hamby: He had a whole pack of huskies. We went for four miles through the forest, turning sharp corners and holding on for dear life. And it was minus four degrees.

Hazelip: We got back and said, ‘Wow, that was fun!’ Another day, he asked if we wanted to see the reindeer farm. Turns out, it was his family’s farm where he grew up, and we got to feed the reindeer. 

Hamby: Sandy and I don’t often plan. Things just kind of happen. We really rely on locals to organize things for us. In Bali, for example, we got a driver for $50 for eight hours. When we saw something we wanted to do, we could do it. We saw this sign that said, ‘Happy Swing,’ so he turned back. They were the most fun swings over rice paddies.

Hazelip: At the end, we said we did not go on a vacation — people get tired when they go on vacation. We went on an adventure and every adventure just ramped us up for the next one. 

Ellie found a saying that I absolutely love: ‘The world is a book and he who does not travel only reads one page.’

One of the world wonders we had planned to see on the trip was Machu Picchu, but the political unrest shut it down. Ellie and I are eternal optimists. We were sure by the time we got there, it would be over. Three days before our flight was scheduled to Peru, we had to make the decision to cancel that. 

So, this year, we are now in South America with Machu Picchu being the last place we stop. We are having a wonderful time and our new theme is…

Hazelip and Hamby: We are 82 and we’re not through.

Hamby: We’re up in La Paz, Bolivia, at more than 12,000 feet. We climbed in the Valley of the Moon the other day and a whole group of Bolivians applauded when we got all the way to the top.

On this trip, we fished for piranhas in the Amazon. I caught three, but Sandy caught the biggest one. We ate it that night in piranha stew, which was pretty good. We also went alligator hunting — and caught two. I went swimming with pink dolphins in the Amazon. We’re not afraid to venture out.

Hazelip: We’re not afraid to have fun.

Hamby: Also, for your information, between Sandy and I, we have four artificial knees. Those things happen to all of us as we get older, and you’ve got to work hard, do physical therapy, and stay positive.

Hazelip: Ellie’s family is accustomed to her wild travels. My family is trying to get used to it. I promise I will send them text messages every day. I let them know we’re safe.

Hamby: In our planning, there are some things our kids don’t need to know. They didn’t need to know we were going piranha fishing, for example. Why would we tell them and have them freak out? They can find out later when they see pictures of the piranha we caught.

We’ll keep traveling as long as we can — and we can come up with sayings. We don’t have one for 83 and 84, but for 85, it will be “We’re 85 and still alive.”

We hope to be able to travel as long as our health holds out. So far, we’re fine, but we know we’re getting older and there’s going to be a time we can’t. We don’t let age determine what we want to do. We’re fearless travelers, we don’t like nightlife, and we’re not looking for men. We’re just two single women having an adventure.

Hazelip: We have one wonderful adventure after another every single day.

Hamby: The language of South America has been a bit trickier than most, but Sandy and I say there’s one universal language, and that’s a smile. We use that over and over and over again.