When Nicole Kamian sent the spontaneous letter to Eric Raisley, she didn’t expect a reply.
Eric was her ex. A man she last saw over two decades ago, in 1997, when their long-distance relationship was falling apart, and they were going their separate ways, seemingly forever.
Nicole had lived a whole life since then — married, had children, divorced. But she’d kept hold of a box filled with mementos from her relationship with Eric: disposable camera photos, letters, journal entries about their surprise airport meeting.
“Every handful of years, I would find that box …” Nicole tells CNN Travel today.
Whenever she stumbled upon it, she’d sit down and sift through the film prints — snapshots of visits to San Francisco, backpacking through Costa Rica — and gaze at Eric’s handwriting.
“I had kept all the letters he had written to me, and I still have them,” says Nicole. “I just had nothing but incredible memories about that time.”
For all her fondness and nostalgia, she didn’t believe she and Eric were meant to be.
“It would be too good to be true,” Nicole says. “That’s not real life. Real life is about something more than a box.”
But in 2017, in the wake of her divorce, Nicole found herself increasingly curious about Eric. When they’d parted ways, it was pre-social media, pre-smartphones. She didn’t have his contact details. She didn’t know where he’d ended up in life.
“So, I Googled him,” says Nicole. “I saw his name, which is an unusual enough last name, and the fact that he was a teacher in Alaska, I’m like, ‘This is the same guy.’”
On a whim, Nicole decided to write to Eric.
“I couldn’t find his email address. All I found was his name and physical address,” she says.
Nicole didn’t have any expectations. Even if Eric was single, it had been so long since they’d seen each other. They were now in their 40s. They might not get on in the way they once did. Plus, Eric was probably married.
Yet something still made her want to contact him, and so she decided to put pen to paper.
Nicole decided to write the letter in such a way that if Eric had a partner who happened to read it, it wouldn’t raise any unfounded suspicions. She’d make it easy to respond to, and equally easy to ignore.
“So, all I said was, ‘Hey, I came across your name and location, and I just wanted to drop you a note. I hope that life has gone well for you. And if you ever want to get in touch, here’s my email address,’” she recalls.
“There must have been three sentences on that note … and I never heard back from him. He did not write me back. He did not email me.”
When Nicole didn’t get a reply, she put the letter out of her mind. She focused on co-parenting her children, rebuilding her life post-divorce, and enjoying the international travel that came with her job.
Cut to 2022. Nicole was in South Africa on a work trip. Her cell phone started buzzing, a number she didn’t recognize on the screen.
“You know how when you get an incoming call and it’s not somebody who’s in your contacts, but it tells you the location of where they are? Well, this said Kodiak, Alaska,” says Nicole.
When Nicole saw those words, she froze. You don’t get telemarketing calls from Alaska, she thought. She knew only one person who lived in the northern state: her ex from 25 years ago, Eric Raisley.
“I’m sitting there like, ‘What?’ I’m staring at my phone and I’m thinking, ‘This is Eric’ … I just knew it was him.”
Taking a deep breath, she answered the call.
“Hi, is that Nicole?” said the voice on the other end of the line.
“Yes,” she said, her heart beating harder.
And then came the confirmation that her world was about to be turned upside down: “It’s Eric.”
Nicole and Eric first crossed paths on June 28, 1995. They were strangers, both in their mid-20s, who happened to be boarding the same flight from Salt Lake City, Utah to Anchorage, Alaska.
Nicole was an attorney working for a San Francisco law firm, on her way to meet a friend to backpack around Alaska and escape the corporate world for a couple of weeks.
“I was working really, really long hours,” Nicole recalls of that time. “I hadn’t taken a vacation for the first couple of years I worked.”
Eric was a newly qualified teacher heading to Alaska to spend a season commercial fishing and abalone diving. Like Nicole, Eric loved hiking in nature. He grew up in Colorado making the most of the outdoors, putting himself through college by working as a fly-fishing and rafting guide.
Nicole wasn’t actually supposed to be on Eric’s flight, but fate had intervened, rerouting her through Salt Lake City at the last minute and then putting them next to each other in the airport line.
Eric noticed Nicole right away.
“She lit up the room,” he tells CNN Travel today. “Nicole was wearing long johns under Levi’s — that cute little hippie look — she had a huge smile and looked like she was ready for this adventure. She was so excited for the trip … I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a great flight I’m about to get on.’ I can still picture Nicole standing in the terminal.”
“I think we both have this very vivid memory of it,” says Nicole. “I just thought he was so cute. It was like, ‘I’m free for the next several weeks, I’m going on an adventure and there’s this cute boy here.’ I was just really happy to chat with him — but my mind was mostly on this hiking trip I was about to go on, and he was the first person that I was going to meet on this adventure … It just seemed like a perfect kickoff to start my little freedom adventure.”
The two chatted about their respective Alaska plans, about their shared love of the outdoors and a little about their lives back home.
They weren’t seated together on the plane, but midway through the flight, Eric got up from his seat to check in with Nicole and pick up the conversation. And when they landed in Anchorage, Eric waited for Nicole to disembark, and they walked to baggage claim together. Before saying their goodbyes, Nicole and Eric exchanged landline phone numbers.
“Then we parted ways, and he went on his Alaska adventure, and I went on mine,” says Nicole.
Eric set up camp that first night at a place called Homer Spit, a coastal beauty spot southwest of Anchorage.
“It’s a five-mile-long sandbar that sticks out, at the end of the peninsula below Kenai,” says Eric. “You can put your tent up anywhere on the beach, and that’s where I remember filling out my journal and basically writing that I think I had fallen in love with Nicole. It was a love-at-first-sight situation. I mean, she was just in my head. It was pretty powerful, I can tell you that. So, I definitely wanted to stay in touch with her.”
Nicole also wrote about Eric in her diary. She was just as struck by him.
“I’d been in this corporate world and to meet Eric, the quintessential outdoorsman … not only was he this adorable twentysomething handsome guy, but you could tell he was just the real deal,” she says. “I think that that was also just a huge appeal for me about him.”
Nicole also felt it was all “too good to be true.” Eric — and Alaska — were so different from her everyday work on the “27th floor of a building in the financial district of San Francisco” that she felt as though she was being given a glimpse of an alternative version of her life — one that couldn’t align with the path she’d already chosen.
“But I got back to San Francisco a few weeks later and I had an old-school answering machine, where you have a cassette tape, and I pushed the button, and it was Eric — his was the first voice that came on saying, ‘Hi, this is Eric calling from Alaska.’ I was so excited. I think, for me, that made it real, hearing that he called me.”
Eric’s recorded message was a surprise. And there was another waiting for her in the frozen cargo area of San Francisco International Airport.
“He said he’d sent a huge fish box — 70 pounds of Alaskan salmon and halibut,” recalls Nicole.
She called him to say thank you. And so began a series of long, in-depth phone calls.
“On the phone, we could just talk forever,” says Nicole. “We never ran out of things to chat about. We had a lot of conversations and decided we should meet each other in person again.”
By then, it was the fall of 1995. Eric was back in Colorado preparing for an annual family camping trip to Crested Butte in the Rocky Mountains.
“It’s a beautiful camp area, it’s gorgeous, in western Colorado,” says Eric. “It’s really my family’s sacred spot. And we’re not allowed to bring friends or buddies — it’s just family and significant others.”
Eric decided to invite Nicole along. He explained to his family that Nicole wasn’t exactly his significant other — but she was definitely significant.
“Nicole took me up on it instantly,” says Eric. “My family thought it was obviously pretty wild, pretty funny that this is happening. And they were excited to meet her.”
Eric picked Nicole up at the tiny Gunnison-Crested Butte regional airport.
“It was awesome,” he says. “Five days together, up in the mountains, and we’re talking stunning high alpine, beautiful colors, fall … Face-to-face, just to sit in the woods and talk. It was perfect.”
Nicole also met Eric’s entire extended family.
“To walk into that as your first date is kind of unusual,” she says, laughing. “I look back on it, and I cannot believe that I flew out there to meet somebody I didn’t know. That would not be my normal MO.
“But I have felt through life that there are only a certain finite number of people who I feel really, really know me. And I just got that vibe off him from the get-go, and I think that’s why it just did not seem outlandish to fly out there and be with not just him but his family as our first date.”
About a month later, Eric visited Nicole in San Francisco. At the time Eric was between teaching jobs, and Nicole was feeling burned out by corporate life, so they began planning a months-long adventure in Costa Rica.
In early 1996, they made this dream a reality. Nicole quit her job, moved out of her San Francisco apartment, put her belongings into storage and met Eric in Colorado to begin their trip.
“We took about six weeks, driving from Colorado to Costa Rica — guided only by a paper Thomas Guide map book,” says Nicole. “Then we spent two or three months living and camping in Costa Rica.”
It was an incredible chapter. Nicole and Eric learned they traveled well together, made a great team, and had fun.
When they returned to the US, they both arranged work in Alaska for the summer — but ended up based several hours away from each other. Nicole guided backpacking and glacier walks in Alaska’s Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve, while Eric was a fly-fishing guide in King Salmon, Alaska.
“We didn’t have means to communicate that summer, but we had a vague plan to reconnect after our respective guiding seasons,” says Nicole.
But when the summer came to an end, Eric took a teaching job in Napakiak, a remote village in western Alaska. Concerned she’d been out of the corporate world for too long, Nicole decided to return to San Francisco and got a job at a new law firm.
They kept in touch, and Nicole visited Eric in Alaska in February 1997.
“But that is the last time we saw each other,” says Nicole.
During that trip, Nicole told Eric she’d met someone at the law firm. It felt like her path and Eric’s were diverging. It was hard to imagine the long-distance relationship continuing.
“We stayed in touch for a bit, and he wrote me this lovely, incredible letter that I still have, that just said, ‘I’m so happy for you that you’re happy … but I just want you to know, it was love at first sight, and that was just such an amazing experience for me to meet you.’”
Eric’s words were bittersweet. It felt like a farewell. And it turned out it was.
“We left on the best of terms. We really, really did,” says Nicole. “But this was 1997. Neither of us owned a mobile phone. Neither of us had email addresses at that time. In those days, you didn’t stay in touch with people that you had dated. It just wasn’t a thing. Now you would, through social media, stay in light touch — in our situation we would have stayed friends. But you’re not going to call or write letters to somebody when you’re coupled up with somebody else. And so we just completely fell off each other’s radar.”
Years passed. Nicole married the man from her law firm. She loved becoming a parent. Life continued to unfurl, and she eventually divorced.
Meanwhile, Eric fell in love and married someone else and welcomed a daughter, who also brought so much joy to his life.
And then, in 2017, Nicole’s letter appeared out of nowhere on Eric’s doormat.
When Nicole’s letter arrived in Eric’s mail, he was focused on his marriage and family life.
Sure, he occasionally thought about the airport meet-cute that had led to adventures across Costa Rica. But he was living in the present, and he imagined Nicole was too.
“You don’t stop thinking about a person; you always wonder how they’re doing,” says Eric. “But I knew she was married and probably raising a family.”
The letter was an unexpected blast from the past. Eric didn’t quite know what to do when he spotted Nicole’s handwriting on the envelope.
“I was married, with my kid in the house, and just all of a sudden, in this pile of mail, this letter from Nicole…” he recalls. “Everybody looks at each other’s mail in your family unit and they’re like, “Who’s this? What’s this?’ My wife at the time was like, ‘What are you doing? Are you staying in touch with her?’ I was like, ‘Of course not.’”
To reassure his wife, Eric suggested they open the letter together and read it side-by-side.
“It was a great letter,” he says.
Eric then asked his wife what she thought he should do with it. She said it was up to him.
“So, I just let it sit and it sat forever, and eventually I just didn’t have the letter anymore. So I never got back in touch, I never replied, out of respect for my family,” says Eric.
Years passed — roughly half a decade.
In that period, Eric’s marriage ended and he and his wife divorced. He found himself thinking of Nicole, of the unanswered letter, and went on his own internet search to find her present-day details.
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to track her down, and wasn’t sure what he’d do if he did. Then, one day in December 2022, Eric found a cell number listed online, seemingly linked to Nicole. Without overthinking it, he hit dial.
On the other side of the world, in South Africa, Nicole answered. It took a moment or two for them both to process that they were connected and actually talking to each other. Then the conversation didn’t stop.
“We must have talked for two or three hours. It was truly like no time had passed, completely comfortable, and I think we spent that entire call just going down memory lane,” says Nicole.
They reminisced about Alaska and Costa Rica. Then they texted photos — Eric of a recent hike, Nicole of penguins in South Africa.
“So, we had each other’s cell all of a sudden,” says Eric. “We’re talking instantly accessible. We can now communicate easily.”
It was hard to believe, after their 1990s long-distance relationship defined by letters and landline calls. And their over two decades apart, totally out of touch.
“We started having just ridiculously long three-hour conversations on the phone, and oh my gosh, there’s so much to talk about. It’s so easy to talk,” recalls Eric.
On an early phone call, Eric explained why he didn’t reply to her letter. He talked about his subsequent divorce. Nicole opened up to Eric in turn.
“It got to the point where we would talk like a couple hours every single night,” she says. “I was on California time. He was on Alaska time, so it was only an hour difference. We would just basically spend our evenings together.”
For Nicole and Eric, the feelings rushed back thick and fast.
“It was incredible, and we knew right away that we were enjoying something that most people don’t ever get to experience,” says Eric. “It wasn’t lost on us at all. It was truly wonderful.”
“I absolutely fell back in love with him,” says Nicole. “But way more than the first time. I felt like he was like the adult version of the boy I had a big crush on. That’s what it felt like for me. Just having these really meaningful and fun conversations.”
“I absolutely fell back in love with him. But way more than the first time.”
Nicole Kamian
Nicole confided in her mother and a few friends about her phone calls.
“Everyone seemed delighted by how happy I was to have reconnected with Eric,” she says.
A few months passed, and the daily phone calls only got longer. Then, in March 2023, during Eric’s school spring break, he and Nicole arranged to meet in person, on vacation in Mexico.
“We were going to meet back up in an airport, and we haven’t seen each other since the ‘90s,” says Eric. “Oh my gosh, talk about anticipation. I had four flights to get there from Kodiak, Alaska … And that last one was pretty intense, coming out of security, knowing that when I come around the corner, we’re going to see each other …
When the moment arrived, it was everything Nicole and Eric had dreamed of.
“You see the person hasn’t changed,” recalls Eric. “She’s standing there. It’s over 25 years later. We walked up to each other, and she just jumped into my arms. It was incredible.”
“We just spent that entire evening out in Puerto Vallarta,” says Nicole. “It was so much fun. This area we’re staying in was just super walkable — outdoor dance performances and just one thing after another to just entertain us and have fun. It was just such an easy thing.”
As she sat opposite Eric, Nicole had the thought: “This is it. We’re it. This is my life partner.”
This certainty came from the months of phone calls, she says. “But also, that attraction we had 25 years before was 100% there.”
Nicole and Eric talked all evening, reassured that they still shared a similar world view, similar outlook on life. They felt totally in sync.
“This was, I believe, way stronger than anything we had had 25 years before, and in part because we were older and wiser and understood ourselves better,” says Nicole. “We just had the best time.”
“She’s standing there. It’s over 25 years later. We walked up to each other, and she just jumped into my arms. It was incredible.”
Eric Raisley
When Eric got home from the trip, he shared tales of Mexico and Nicole with his friends and loved ones.
“I was elated to share, both with friends that didn’t know her, as well as with family that met her back in the day,” says Eric. “People’s reactions were all the same. They were so happy to hear a story like that. So much of Nicole’s and my time together from before seems like yesterday. My family remembered that era as though it was yesterday too. New friends were just taken by what a cool opportunity it was that was unfolding. Everyone was just so happy for us.”
Within two weeks of returning from Mexico, in April 2022, Nicole was visiting Eric in Kodiak.
“It was beautiful. It’s gorgeous in spring. We did lots of hiking in the snow,” says Eric.
Nicole spent much of that summer 2022 working in Europe. Eric traveled over to visit, and the two went hiking together in Switzerland and Croatia.
Then they flew to Alaska together. Nicole unpacked her suitcase at Eric’s home in Kodiak. And she never left.
“I’m not sure that when we returned to Kodiak in July that we had articulated to ourselves, or each other, that it was going to be a permanent move,” says Nicole.
But during the year leading up to her reunion with Eric, Nicole had been working all over the world. Her kids were at college. She’d sold her home in California and embraced a more nomadic existence.
“So it was easy to just return to Kodiak with Eric after our vacation in Europe, leaving it open-ended to some extent,” explains Nicole. “In many ways, that made the transition easier for both of us. It gave us time to continue to develop our revived relationship, without the pressures that might be felt by a more typical situation where a couple decides to move in together.”
Time passed and Nicole didn’t leave Alaska. She continued to put down roots in Kodiak. Eric’s daughter was also at college, so the couple enjoyed the company each other could provide, and their relationship continued to deepen.
“It was a complete blast for me to be able to show off Kodiak to Nicole,” says Eric. “I took her on all my favorite hikes, beaches, fishing spots, etc. as well as introducing her to all my friends. It was so easy. Everything that we did was fun and we really enjoyed being together.”
“From the onset, he made sure that I felt entirely comfortable living in his home, and he quickly folded me into his entire life outside of his job, whether meeting his friends or including me in his daily adventures,” says Nicole.
Four years since they reunited in Mexico — and over 30 years since they met in an airport line in Salt Lake City — Eric and Nicole are still together, happily based in Alaska and enjoying exploring the world whenever they can.
“The initial chance encounter, is to me, the most amazing part of our story,” says Nicole. “Serendipity, for sure. The years apart are harder to reconcile one way or the other: although we could dwell on decades of missed opportunities together, we both have incredible children from our past marriages that we wouldn’t trade for anything.”
They both believe the timing is finally right.
“I am just full of gratitude that things turned out the way they did, when they did,” Nicole says. “I really believe that we didn’t wind up together back in the 1990s due to timing being a bit off, and that we are together now thanks to the timing being perfect all those years later.”
“Both of us had very fortunate years apart too,” adds Eric. “We both have incredible children and we both have an attitude toward life that aligns with one another when it comes to family, friends, work, play, etc. It’s too easy.”
Eric suggests their story illustrates that you can “never tell where life will take you.”
He also highlights the importance of not being afraid to seize chances or to take a risk.
“It does take a bit of effort too,” he says. “I could have easily not tried to call Nicole — since it may have seemed so random to do so. I wanted to and so I did. I just knew that Nicole would appreciate it. Whether she was at a point or not in her life to let me in, she would still appreciate the effort. So, don’t be afraid to reach out to someone no matter how far or distant it seems.”
The risk, says Eric, would have been worth it, no matter the response. But both he and Nicole are grateful for the resulting happy ending, three decades later.
“We are extremely happy,” says Nicole. “It’s really the ultimate do-over story.”
