Last week, two of our lovely Ugly Ducklings met up for a traveling vacation and wrote us, deciding to share about the trip! 
How cool is that?! We are so excited about the community that is being built here! I’ve already heard whispers of other Ugly Ducklings Reunions happening all across the world. Check out Maaike and Maressa’s notes below about their Duckling Vacation and stay tuned for more great stories of this awesome community!
Is it possible to find friends via an online community? That could be an excellent research question for researchers who are specialised in the development of modern culture. Well, may we, Maressa and Maaike, two proud Ugly Ducklings, make use of the opportunity to serve as the example that it indeed is possible to make friends via social media.
This crazy idea to do a roadtrip in Maressa’s home country came into view some months ago. As a passionate traveler and Switzerland fan, together with the opportunity to finally meet a dear friend I (Maaike) had been talking to via Twitter, Facebook and Skype, I just couldn’t let that pass.
It seemed like forever until it finally was Thursday 25th July, the day I would fly out to Basel. Luckily, we planned many things in advance, which definitely was part of the fun I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on.
Today, Sunday 28th July, we’re almost halfway our trip, and we’re having such a blast! We’re travelling from campsite to campsite with our tent and visit famous areas like Ticino in the south, Zermatt (where the famous Matterhorn mountain is), Luzern and Zurich. In the meantime we’re just chatting, laughing, and having fun like we’ve been friends for years. It truthfully feels that way. (And yes, we fangirl too. Like, a lot!)
I hope everyone gets the chance to do something like this. Take the risk, and see what it’ll bring you. If it feels right, and you’re able to make clear mutual agreements with each other, why not? What’s holding you back? It’s a life experience I’ll certainly treasure for the rest of my life.
Maaike
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I think I can safely say that everyone who is in a fandom has their friends they’ve never met but really really want to. I met some really great friends of mine on twitter and I talk to them often. It’s always a big wish of me to meet these people.
About 2 months ago Maaike and I had this idea of meeting each other. She said she has been a lot to my home country, Switzerland, and always loves to visit. We managed to find a date where she and I could have a week off from work and started to organize our roadtrip through Switzerland.
At this point we didn’t know each other that well like we do now after one week. We started to skype at least once a week for several hours and now she’s one of my best friends.
I seriously would’ve never thought that I’ll meet such good friends who are almost like family on a social network site. Everyone of my friends (in Switzerland) and also my parents were a bit concerened that we would be fighting all the time because I’ve never met her before. But our meeting happened and I regret nothing because we had so much fun (and of course also fangirl moments) this week. It was just a blast and I’ll never forget it for sure. We went for it and took a risk and it was one of the best weeks of vacation I ever had.
Maressa
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Check out some special Ugly Ducklingish photos from their trip below! What fun!
The Ugly Ducklings 
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Thank you so much for your reply!
Believe me, I DID this 10 years ago haha! So for starters, when I was about 9 (so 12 years ago) and just learned English in school, I became a member of Penpal International, a website dedicated to find friends from all over the world to either write actual letters to or emails. I loved to just write actual letters and add pictures, drawings and stickers to that ;) I still have a great collection of letters and ‘art’ of my penpals of these days. I did that for a while, but unfortunately I never got the chance to actual meet any of these penpals. Then, about 10 years ago, my mom became a member of Virtual Tourist (now part of Tripadvisor, but still a website on its own). That was a brand new website at the time where you could exchange travel reviews, information and pictures, but foremost: meet people from all over the world. My mom started writing with some of these people and we met a lot of them over the years everywhere we went. So either if it was somewhere in Europe or in the United States, we always met/ and still meet VT members. Of course some of the members have children, and that’s how I came into contact with some of them and started to write with them when I was younger.
Finally coming to a point here?! Yes, sorry, well the point is that I’ve always loved to write and meet people from all over the world. As my mom loves this too, I think it’s in the genes ;) Nowadays it has become so much easier, and I feel blessed to have so many lovely friends who I met on Twitter, and my goal is to meet as many of you as possible! :) Because the world has so many interesting things to discover AND people to meet! :)
Love
Imagine trying to do this 10 years ago. I know that you were little, and that the show didn’t exist. But try to imagine if this had happened in 2003. Not even Facebook existed back then. Technology has provided us with so much more than just a screen, a keyboard, and a chat. If we look in the right places, we’ll find amazing people. Thank you for sharing this experience with us! Much love (: