Two strangers met on a train. Then they decided to travel the world together

American Savery Moore and Canadian Giselle Ruemke were strangers on a train who bonded over the shared loss of their spouses. Then they became friends and started travelling together. Here they are pictured at Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. (Savery Moore via CNN Newsource)

Savery Moore and his wife Jan always talked about travelling across Canada by rail.

The American couple shared a dream of waking up to the sun rising over the tracks and spending days winding through forests and across prairies, glimpsing snow-capped peaks and frozen lakes through the train’s domed glass roof. Making memories together.

For most of their 35 years of married life, Savery and Jan didn’t travel much, spending long days working in advertising.

But when the couple finally retired in their 60s, leaving New York City for a small town in Massachusetts, they were excited for a new chapter and new opportunities.

“We both retired the same day,” Savery tells CNN Travel today. “We looked forward to having our life forever, together.”

Savery and Jan finally looked into booking their dream trip on Via Rail’s “Canadian” service, a luxury train journey that winds from the West Coast of Canada to the East over four days.

“We were going to spend some money and take The Canadian in a class called ‘prestige,’ which is Via Rail’s most expensive way to travel,” says Savery.

This was a “bucket list trip,” explains Savery. The couple wanted to splurge, figuring “we were only going to do this once, so let’s just do it right.”

But just as they started planning the trip, life took an unexpected turn.

“Jan was diagnosed with cancer, and it was lung cancer, and it was aggressive,” explains Savery. “Within a month-and-a-half to two months after her being diagnosed, the cancer had already spread.”

In the months that followed, Jan had brain surgery. She was enrolled in a couple of clinical trials.

“But from diagnosis to her passing was 16 months,” says Savery.

Jan died in 2019. And without her, Savery was left heartbroken and lost. Life was put on hold. Travel plans were shelved. Everything was uncertain.

“That dream of taking The Canadian never went away from me, but it wasn’t… it didn’t have the same… I wasn’t looking forward to it as much,” says Savery.

Time passed. Savery, searching for meaning in his new reality, eventually found himself returning to that abandoned dream of travelling across Canada by rail.

“I decided to take the trip myself, to fulfill a promise I had made to her,” he says. “It took me about three-and-a-half, four years to say, ‘Just do it. Do it for me. Do it for Jan.’ Because she would want me to.”

A railway encounter

Savery boarded The Canadian on April 1, 2024, in Vancouver. He treated himself to the prestige class ticket, just as he and his late wife had planned.

As soon as he boarded the train, Savery felt a surprising feeling of contentment. He was proud of himself. And excited for what was to come.

It turned out Savery was the only passenger in prestige class. The whole front row of the domed viewing carriage was reserved just for him.

But on the second day of the journey, Savery was surprised when he walked up the stairs into the domed car and saw “the back of someone’s head sitting in one of those reserved seats.”

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything, instead sitting on the opposite side of the aisle from the mystery passenger: a woman with long curly hair, reading.

Savery recalls thinking: “She’s reading a book, so obviously can read the sign that says this is for prestige passengers only.”

But he kept the slightly ungenerous thought to himself.

“I didn’t say anything,” he says today. “And after a while, she got up and left without a word.”

Later that day, at dinner, Savery was sharing a table with a friendly couple, chatting about what prompted them to book The Canadian. Savery told them about losing his wife, about deciding to fulfill their shared dream, solo.

“Have you met Giselle?” asked the couple, glancing at one another.

Savery told them, no, he didn’t think he’d met a Giselle yet. The couple described her — tall, long hair.

“I know who that is,” said Savery, realizing the description matched the woman he’d spotted sitting in the prestige class seat.

“She lost her spouse too,” said the couple. “Quite recently.”

Taking in this information, Savery decided he’d make a conscious effort to seek Giselle out on board the train.

That evening, the train had an extended stopover in Edmonton. Savery was sitting in the lounge car, sipping coffee alone.

“And just before we left Edmonton, I saw Giselle walking towards me,” he recalls.

“I just motioned her, I said, ‘Would you like to have a seat?’”

“Sure,” said Giselle, smiling. She sat down, introducing herself.

Bonding on the train

Giselle Ruemke was a Canadian traveller in her 50s who had, it turned out, a number of things in common with Savery Moore.

For one, she’d always wanted to travel across Canada on The Canadian. “Taking the train was one of these bucket list things for me,” Giselle tells CNN Travel today.

And, like Savery, Giselle’s spouse had recently died of cancer.

Giselle and her late husband Dave had been friends for decades before they started dating. Within a few whirlwind years they’d fallen in love, got married and navigated Dave’s cancer diagnosis together.

Then Dave passed away in the summer of 2023, leaving Giselle unmoored and unsure of the future.

In the wake of her grief, booking the trip on The Canadian seemed, to Giselle, “like a good way to connect with myself and see my country, refresh my spirit, a little bit.”

Like Savery, Giselle had always dreamed of taking the Via Rail Canadian with her late spouse. And like Savery, she’d decided travelling solo was a way of honoring her partner.

“That trip is something that I would have really liked to have done with my husband, Dave. So that was why I was taking the train,” Giselle says today.

But unlike Savery, Giselle hadn’t booked prestige class. She admits she was “sticking it to the man” in her own small way by sitting in the reserved seats that first day.

She’d only moved when Savery arrived. She tells CNN Travel, laughing, that she’d thought to herself: “I better get out of the seat, in case someone prestige wants to sit in that spot.”

Giselle didn’t tell Savery any of this in their first conversation. In fact, she didn’t share much about her life at all in that first encounter.

But Giselle liked his company right away. He was friendly, enthusiastic and respectful — sharing that he was a widower and indicating he knew about Giselle’s loss without prying about the circumstances.

As for Savery, he says, it was “the common bond, the losses of our respective loved ones” that first made him feel a connection to Giselle. But it was also obvious that for Giselle, the loss was much fresher. She clearly didn’t want to talk about Dave that day.

“So then we just shifted to talking about other things, everyday things, in a nice, relaxed atmosphere,” says Savery. “And I was very at ease speaking with Giselle right away. We started having meals together and as the trip went on, we would spend more and more time together.”

Over the next couple of days, Savery and Giselle also got to know the other solo travellers on board The Canadian. They became a group, and Giselle recalls plenty of moments when they good-naturedly teased Savery “because of him being the only prestige passenger.”

She appreciated having a gang of new friends. Their company distracted from the inevitable loneliness that would sometimes settle over her in her grief.

When the train arrived in Toronto, Savery and Giselle shared a final dinner together before going their separate ways.

The reservedness that marked their first meal together had all but melted away. It was an evening marked by laughs, recalling favorite memories of the trip across Canada and talking about their lives back home.

The next day, they said goodbye. Appropriately enough, their farewell took place at a train station.

“I was taking the airport shuttle to fly back home to Boston, and Giselle was taking the train to Montreal. So we said, ‘Well, let’s just say goodbye at the train station, since we’re both going to be there at the same time tomorrow,’” recalls Savery.

“We were under the big clock in Toronto station, and she was watching the clock. She said, ‘I really gotta go. I have to catch my train.’ And I just… I said, ‘I can’t not see you again.’”

Their connection didn’t feel romantic — both Giselle and Savery were sure of that. But it felt significant. Both Savery and Giselle felt they’d met a like-minded soul, someone who could be a confidant, who could help them through the next chapter of life which they were unexpectedly navigating alone.

Saying “goodbye” felt too final. So Giselle, who is French-Canadian, suggested they say “au revoir” — which translates as “until we meet again.”

And as soon as they went their separate ways, Giselle and Savery started texting each other.

“Then the texts became phone calls,” recalls Savery.

On these calls, Giselle and Savery spoke about their lives, about what they were up to, about their interests.

“Music was like a common interest that we both shared,” recalls Giselle.

Savery is older than Giselle, and their music references spanned “different eras of music, but very compatible musical interests,” as Giselle puts it.

On one of their phone calls, Giselle mentioned she was considering booking a train trip across North America.

Soon, she and Savery were planning a train journey across the U.S. for the fall of 2024, together.

And in the meantime, Giselle invited Savery to visit her in her home in Victoria for a week’s summer vacation.

Fast friends

Savery remembers ringing Giselle’s doorbell in Victoria and wondering how their reunion would play out.

“We had been talking on the phone. We’d been texting each other. It wasn’t as though we were complete strangers, but still… seeing someone face to face, I was nervous,” says Savery.

“I knew it was going to be okay. I was fine with the fact that it was going to be okay. But still my heart rate was a little elevated, I will say. But it was immediately fine. She opened the door, we hugged.”

Giselle says the time on the train in Canada and the subsequent two months of chatting made her pretty certain Savery was a “good, safe person to welcome into my world.”

And during his visit to Victoria, “that proved to be true.”

Every Sunday, Giselle has dinner with her in-laws. When she mentioned Savery would be in town, they encouraged her to invite her new friend along.

“They’re absolutely lovely, lovely people, and they adored him, and they thought he was fantastic,” says Giselle.

Savery also met Giselle’s sister and many of her friends, all of whom welcomed Savery. Giselle was delighted they liked him as much as she did.

“That’s been important for me, to create a little bit of a bridge, so that people aren’t wondering ‘who’s this person and what’s going on,” she says, “Everybody really likes him. And I think that’s given them confidence about me travelling with him.”

Savery’s friends were also excited that he had a new travelling buddy.

“Most of my friends are married, and they’re couples, and I was always kind of the odd man out,” he says. “They were very happy and supportive of the fact that I had someone to do things with, to travel with.”

During the week in Victoria, Savery and Giselle nailed down plans for their fall travels, which morphed into a mammoth, almost two-month-long adventure across North America, spanning some 9,700 miles by rail.

“We went from San Francisco to Chicago to Washington, DC to Boston, to my house for a little while, back to New York City, where I lived for a good portion of my life…,” recalls Savery.

“I got to show Giselle around New York City. And then we took the train to Montreal, where Giselle lived for quite a while, and she got to be the tour guide there for me, which was great. Then we took the train to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for three days, and then ended up back in Toronto and took the Via Canadian the other way, going westbound from Toronto to Vancouver.”

Traversing miles of track across North America, Savery and Giselle grew even closer. They learned that they travel well together, too.

They bring “these different skill sets that are very helpful and complimentary, albeit very different,” as Giselle puts it.

Savery is a great organizer — he enjoys putting together itineraries and putting to use the problem solving skills he honed in his 40-year advertising career.

Meanwhile Giselle is great at finding places to go, recalling recommendations and hunting out spots off the beaten track.

Their easy camaraderie translated into a great travelling partnership.

“We seem to have established a great way of communicating about challenges — that we address and meet and work out in a great way,” says Giselle. “I think that’s worth a lot… I‘m really grateful for that.”

The natural next step was planning another trip. When Giselle and Savery speak to CNN Travel, in spring 2025, they’re in Germany, in the middle of a month-long adventure across Europe via riverboat and rail.

This European trip was a big step for Savery. While he’d always dreamed of travelling and exploring the globe, he’d never left North America until this year.

“Two weeks ago this past Sunday, I crossed my first ocean,” he says, adding he was grateful to have Giselle by his side to encourage him on this adventure.

As for Giselle, she was excited to revisit old European haunts and see new places, all with Savery at her side.

“There were some places that I had been to before that I thought were amazing, that I thought he would really enjoy seeing, and it’s just been great to see those places through his eyes,” she says. “And to be discovering new places, together as well, has been great.”

Both Giselle and Savery had learned lessons from their fall adventure. They’re closer than ever.

“There’s been a teamwork to this that I have rarely experienced, actually, even in romantic relationships, in family relationships,” says Giselle. “It’s a really lovely, rare thing, I think, to be, just tackling things, trying to work out the best way forward and to feel like my issues and my challenges are understood.”

Giselle lives with some chronic health issues and says Savery is “very helpful and supportive in terms of navigating stuff that’s challenging for me.”

She tries to offer that same support for Savery, who is a cancer survivor of several years and takes life-saving medication on a daily basis. On one of their trips, he forgot his blood pressure medication. Giselle resolved this worrying situation with an ease and calm that Savery greatly appreciated.

“I got my medicines and went back on the train, all because of Giselle,” he says.

Bonding over grief

As Giselle and Savery have become closer, they’ve also talked more about their shared experience of grief.

From the outset, Giselle appreciated that Savery brought a few more years of grief experience to their conversations, and was grateful for his candor. When Savery talked through challenges he’d faced, Giselle felt seen and understood.

“Regret is such a common feature of grief. There’s always things that you kind of doublethink or you rethink,” she reflects. “He was just really kind about sharing things that he had learned along his grief journey.”

Giselle always enjoyed hearing about Jan, Savery’s late wife. In time, she opened up about Dave, her late husband.

“It’s really nice to share stories about our spouses with each other,” she says today. “I feel like I‘ve been getting to know Jan through Savery.”

“I feel the same about Dave,” says Savery.

“That’s really nice,” says Giselle.

For Giselle and Savery, travelling with each other has also encouraged them to experience life to its fullest on behalf of their late partners.

“Because my husband died when he was only 53 years old, I kind of feel like I‘m seeing these things for him,” says Giselle. “On some level, it’s like I‘m kind of carrying him with me, wanting to bring him with me, in some way, to see these places in the world.”

Giselle and Savery’s shared understanding of loss also helps them navigate and support each other through the ups and downs that come with the nonlinear journey of grief.

“One of the things about grief is that you never know what’s going to trigger something that brings back a memory,” says Savery. “When we’re together, and one of us has that trigger, we’re both very comfortable now sharing that with each other — because we know the other person gets it and is there to understand and give support, but also say, ‘I know what you‘re talking about, because I‘ve done it too. It happens to me.’”

While there are emotional moments, the majority of stories they share make one another smile, adds Savery.

“I was married for 35 years, and with my wife for 38, so a long, long time with one person. And so I‘ve got a million stories, most of them fun, and a lot of them funny.”

“Very funny,” agrees Giselle, who says of Savery’s wife: “She’s hilarious. I love her sense of humor.”

Both speak about each other’s spouse in the present tense, indicating the roles they continue to play in their lives.

“It’s nice having someone not only to share the grief, but to share the good stories of the loved one that we each lost,” says Savery. “It’s not all crying and tears. It’s like, ‘This was a great story. Let me tell you this story about what Jan and I did.’ And Giselle says, ‘Let me tell you about Dave.’ And we get to share that with each other, and we know that we understand it.”

Feeling grateful

As Savery and Giselle wrap up their time in Europe with a trip on the Glacier Express through the Alps, the two friends are planning future adventures, while taking a moment to feel grateful for their connection.

“It’s just been a really fun, unlikely friendship. This guy’s quite hilarious, and very sweet and kind,” says Giselle. “And so it’s been a really wonderful connection for me to have in my life. And it’s wonderful to be able to get out into the world.”

Admittedly, people they meet on their travels don’t always understand Giselle and Savery’s platonic connection.

There’s a general assumption, almost everywhere they go, that they’re a married couple.

“It bothered me for a while,” admits Giselle. “It did feel awkward.”

But after issuing constant corrections in every destination, Giselle stopped bothering. She decided this assumption was less about her and Savery, and more about other people’s preconceptions.

“tt really doesn’t matter. I kind of got over it,” she says.

Her attitude now is “They’re gonna think whatever they think. It doesn’t matter, because this is our trip, and we know who we are.’”

Savery agrees.

“Let other people think what they want,” he says. “We know. What they think isn’t going to change what is between us.”

That’s not to say the two aren’t aware of the “loadedness around male and female relationships,” says Giselle, adding this loadedness is “heteronormative and patriarchal” but existent nonetheless.

But to automatically assume their connection is romantic discredits the importance of friendship, says Giselle.

“There’s so much focus on romantic love. Maybe friendships can also have that level of importance,” she says. “I like the idea of cherishing our friendships and putting that effort into them as well.”

“It’s also interesting starting a new, close friendship this late in life,” adds Savery. “You‘ve got all this life experience behind you, and now you‘re starting a friendship with all of that stuff, all of that knowledge. And it’s a different, really interesting and great way, I think, to start a friendship.”

Savery says he’s excited for their connection to continue to grow as they travel the world, to continue to “respect what it is that makes our friendship so good and our travelling together so good.”

Giselle adds that Savery has made the year since they met “a ton of fun.” It was a year that’s panned out in a way she never expected.

“He’s just become a really cherished person in my world,” Giselle says. “And I didn’t expect that. That was such an unexpected thing to have happened out of that trip.”

Savery reflects that their meeting on the VIA Rail Canadian was “sort of magical.”

“It was truly a chance encounter,” he says, calling meeting Giselle a “silver lining.”

“It’s been really nice to be able to have a good friend, to go travelling and we’ve been having such a blast,” says Giselle. “I really love the mutual support that we offer each other. And just being able to do this is really, really something. It’s really special, and it’s really fun to share it.”

By Francesca Street, CNN