When I first read about the impossibly generous trip opportunity, I couldn’t believe my eyes. An out-of-the-blue, life changing possibility. The challenge was selling the idea to my husband.

It was mid-March in Boston where Tom was finishing graduate school. I worked for American Airlines at Logan Airport and occasionally read a copy of an airline industry magazine. Each issue offered travel deals for airline personnel.

That spring, Pan American was offering a cheapie around-the-world trip. Whoa! But of course, they had lottsa rules. You had to travel for a minimum of four weeks, and a maximum of six. Hmmm, tricky but possible. You could only travel in one direction … heading east or west, but continuing that direction, no backtracking. Okey dokey. And one other little hitch – you could only take one suitcase. Yikes.

We could create our own itinerary? Exciting. And with guaranteed seats on every leg?

This was big for airline employees always flying stand-by. What? For real? Guaranteed seats?

And the price – unbelievably – was $184 each!

The deadline for booking the trip was just a week away. I was going to have to do some f-a-a-a-s-t talking.

Tom and I both had new jobs to go to after he graduated. I was headed for American’s corporate office, and he was going to the treasurer’s office at Pan Am. I could take a leave of absence between jobs, and he could negotiate his start date. Now I just had to negotiate with Tom.

He said, “I have to go to work. It’s been two years with only one summer job, and I have to get going.” That excuse fell on deaf ears. I could already picture myself riding an elephant.

In addition to my full-time job, I had worked nights doing billing for a doctor while Tom studied. We were coming out of grad school debt-free.

“Listen to me, please. We can borrow the money from the company credit union. And all the hotels will be half price.”

When that fantastic bargain didn’t grab him, I did the emotional sell – with a few puppy dog eyes thrown in: “We do not know what the future holds. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We don’t know whether we will ever again have the time, the money, or the health to do this. And then the kicker: “The next realistic time to do this is when we’re retired, and I really don’t want to wait 40 years.”

I think I threw in some tears and some “No Shopping” promises. It took two days of pleading. When he finally gave in, we only had five days to decide on an itinerary and get the tickets written. Our departure was in May, the day after his last exam. We opted to skip graduation in favor of soft Roman nights.

After putting the plan together, I realized it was going to be spring in Europe, eternal summer in South Asia, and winter Down Under. Packing was a real challenge. Layers and cotton were important. Temperatures spanned 45 to 110 degrees. And 100% humidity was prevalent.

One suitcase only – which did not have wheels back then.

And so, we departed Boston for Paris, the beginning of our forever-remembered odyssey … a wide-eyed young woman, eager for every vista, museum and shop, and a responsibly eager young man with his hand on his wallet. The 6-week trip, with a number of days at each stop, included Paris, Rome, Beirut, Istanbul, New Delhi, Agra, Bangkok, Saigon, Hong Kong, Djakarta, Sydney, Auckland, Tahiti, Los Angeles and home.

There was an Elvis-lookalike bartender in Paris; a butt-pinching in the Sistine Chapel; a threat with fixed bayonets in Beirut; spiked espressos shared with Istanbul carpet dealers; mothers and babies begging on Delhi sidewalks; the Taj Mahal at Sunset; amoebic dysentery in Bangkok; sharing bar stools with Michael Caine in Hong Kong; Macau water villages; Hindi and Buddhist temples in Djakarta; driving the Blue Mountains north of Sydney; and a beach picnic in New Zealand on the shortest day of the year – June 21st. The young women of Tahiti had the most beautiful aqua eyes I’d ever seen.

We cherished these memories and all the others from that trip for decades. We both loved it so much, and honestly, we never got over having the opportunity. We were in the right place at the right time, it fell into our lap, and we managed to make it work. It took us two years to pay off the trip – probably the best money we ever spent.

The trip changed us. It was a singular opportunity early in our marriage to learn about our world and a great deal more about ourselves.

A lifetime later, I still believe in Carpe Diem. We seized the day, and the time was right. It often is.

Marcy O’Brien, a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, can be reached at moby.32@hotmail.com