It seems to me that one of the most addictive aspects of travel is the way everything exists in the present.

You meet people. You like them. You are friends.

The road, which brings with it all the intimacy of a freshman dorm, throws you together, and at least for that moment, you feel completely bonded.

But it doesn’t mean you’ll stay in touch. On the road there are no obligations.

When George Carlin died a couple of weeks ago, like many, my first response was sadness.

He was married to a friend of mine. I knew how completely they depended on each other and how deeply she would miss him.

But second to my shock at his passing was a feeling of regret. Because Sally (his wife) had always wanted to take a road trip together and I had always turned her down.

There seem to be two kinds of travelers in this world: those who love bed and breakfasts and those who loathe them. I fall into the first category.

I love going to breakfast and meeting people who change from strangers to friends in the course of a meal.

I love that the owners hover around the table like mother hens.

I love that when an owner hears you say you are going to check out the famous restaurant down the street, she tries to steer you away warning that its reputation is overrated and its prices ridiculous.

Serendipity. It’s the mother’s milk of happy travels.

It’s that being in the right place at the right time convergence of events that can, as one of my friends put it, “make you feel like the sun is rising in your stomach.”

Oddly enough, these sunrise moments often happen when plans go awry and schedules are rendered meaningless.

Take the case of Mark Gold, head of the California-based environmental organization Heal the Bay. He travels a lot, but always on business, to a conference here, a workshop there, to lobby legislators in Washington D.C.

This summer, if you’re sitting on a beach, and realize after maybe a day or two that you really aren’t a beach person, you might try striking up a conversation with a neighbor.

Maybe with a young couple sitting on the beach chairs near yours. That’s what Stephanie Hutta did on a visit to the island of Skiathos, Greece.

She began to talk—maybe about the weather, or the beauty of the place—it really doesn’t matter. What matters is this: Using hands, gestures and a Greek/English dictionary, she made friends with a couple on the beach and ended up on their honeymoon.

Editor’s note: Volunteer vacations are one of the fastest growing segments in the travel business, as more and more people look for a way to give back on their journeys. There are dozens of organizations offering these voluntourism packages. One in particular is Airline Ambassadors, which operates an average of 10 trips per month to help orphanages around the world. And these special trips are not just for adults. In many cases, parents are encouraged to bring their children. Here is the first person story of one of those Airline Ambassador trips, written by one of the kids who went …

Three years ago, when I was just 12, I took a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This trip wasn’t done as a typical vacation to enjoy pretty scenery (though the scenery was pretty). This was a trip taken for a better cause, to work with other volunteers (along with my mother and grandparents) to help change the world for the better. This was an Airline Ambassadors experience.