4 Valentine's travel love stories

1.True love: Sally Walton and her husband Rik

“In 1974 I was hitchhiking round Greece when the war with Turkey broke out. I made my way from Crete to Corfu, figuring it was the safest place to be.

“Corfu was pretty deserted, I saw a very cute tanned guy with long blond hair in the garden, and when we spoke that evening he talked about going to sleep on a deserted beach.

“Luckily I knew the way, so I offered to take him there. Somehow we just hung out together for the next couple of weeks.

“We swapped addresses when he left for home. Nothing "romantic" happened in Greece, but he came to see me as soon as I got back and never left again! We are still married, we are best friends, and the most important part is that we are great travelling companions.

“These days we stay in nicer B & Bs and guesthouses rather than sleeping on beaches - and we catch buses rather than hitchhike! He had a kidney transplant 18 years ago on Valentine's Day, but it hasn't stopped us travelling. In March we will be swimming with humpback whales off the Dominican Republic and we just got back from celebrating my 60th birthday in Kenya.”

2. Long distance relationship: Ross Adamson & Katie Gillespie

“It’s quite a funny story really: I have relatives living in Canada and Katie lives next door to them. I visited them whilst on a trip in 2005 and met her then. When I returned home she told me she liked me and we went from there. Two years later I went back out there for six weeks and we fell madly in love with one another.

“So we decided to give the relationship a try… Three and a half years on and here we are!

“Its very difficult having a long-distance relationship, when one of us has visited the other saying goodbye never seems to get any easier, its the fact of knowing you won't see your partner for the foreseeable future and that is hard to come to grips with.

“However, when seeing each other for the first time after a considerable period, you struggle to find words to describe just how great the feeling you are filled with is.

“We see each other around three times a year, but when I finish University I plan on emigrating to Canada as soon as possible, I can’t wait to be with Katie day in day out which at this present time I can only dream about.”

3. Sandrine Prevenier Warrington and her husband Chris

“I met my husband in October 2006 in Jordan. We were on the same tour and we got on really well. On the last evening he told me he had a crush on me and we've been together ever since!

“When we met I was about to quit my job, go travelling and, eventually, go back to Switzerland where I'm from originally. But he followed me on my round the world trip and to Switzerland.

“Our little boy was born in December 2009 and we got married in September last year. We have just moved to Dubai for his work and planned on exploring the Middle East from here.

“The good thing about meeting someone when you travel is that there is a good chance they like travelling too. It makes it easier for future travel!”

4. The anonymous couple: X and X, in X

“While I was travelling in and around Europe in 2010, I helped out at a youth hostel. I fell in love with the owner and we’ve been together for seven months!“