A Toronto man who embarked on a cross-country search for a woman named Elizabeth Gallagher to take on a trip around the world has found his travel companion in a 23-year-old Dalhousie University student from Cole Harbour, N.S.

This Elizabeth Gallagher — unlike the woman with the same name who was originally supposed to use the tickets — volunteers at a local homeless shelter and is a seasonal Canadian coast guard rescuer. She will join Jordan Axani, a 28-year-old real estate development manager who posted a Reddit ad in November looking to find a replacement to take on the trip he planned with an ex-girlfriend before they broke up.

Unable to change the name on the pre-booked plane tickets, Axani required his companion to be named Elizabeth Gallagher, have a Canadian passport, a willingness to see the world and the courage to “pay it forward.”

The Elizabeth he settled on meets all the requirements and says she is excited about her impending adventure, even if it means she will miss celebrating Christmas and New Year’s with her family.

Gallagher, who goes by her middle name Quinn instead of her first name, first caught wind of Axani’s offer when friends and family bombarded her with links to his Reddit post.

Gallagher’s sister Lydia even tweeted Axani a photo of her sister’s passport verifying her name and citizenship after his quest made headlines in the U.K., Asia and Australia. She scrawled “Take me!!!” on top of the image.

“They were pushing me out the door. Some of my sweetest aunts in the world who would never say anything were saying, ‘If you don’t go on this, you are crazy,’” she says, giggling. “I thought this is a crazy opportunity. Even if I didn’t get picked, I felt like I had to say I tried.”

Axani’s search elicited floods of emails and social media posts from adventure-seekers living in all corners of the globe, plenty of whom offered to change their name to be eligible for the trip.

To be crowned the lucky lady, Gallagher impressed with a questionnaire about herself and a Skype meeting with Axani that ended in the pair chatting “for hours.”

Putting to rest rumours that Axani had romance in mind when he set off on his search, he says the pair will be sleeping in separate rooms as they globetrot.

Gallagher also has a long-term boyfriend who, she admits, “is a little jealous that I am going on a trip with a guy and a trip that he would love to go on.”

“He is really supportive,” she adds, noting that he came on her last trip to Thailand, where she spent six months teaching English.

As for Axani, he declined to say whether he told his former girlfriend about his choice, but he’s happy that the Gallagher he picked has a love for travelling and a penchant for giving back.

“She has a real thirst to see the world,” Axani told the Star Tuesday, while standing at a set of Los Angeles airport gates about to board a plane headed for New York. “She has that east coast wonderful personality. She’s a good-hearted person.”

After weeks of Skyping, the pair will meet up in New York on Dec. 21 to depart on their “around-the-world voyage, making stops in Milan, Prague, Vienna, Paris, Bangkok, Thailand, New Delhi and Agra before returning to Toronto on Jan. 12.”

Axani is just getting around to planning which hot spots he will visit in each country, but has his eyes set on the Taj Mahal and various monuments in New Delhi. “The Christmas market in Prague is a no-brainer,” he adds.

On Gallagher’s trip checklist is a visit back to her old town in Thailand to see former coworkers and students.

In addition to bringing the two together, the search generated entertainment offers for Axani including a Bachelor-esque show to help him choose an Elizabeth and a documentary-style travel program. He stayed mum on whether he has taken any deals.

He vows that the trip will be documented in some capacity and he will be posting regularly on his blog, Twitter and Instagram.

When he returns to his Cabbagetown home, he will work on his newly formed charity, A Ticket Forward, uniting “underprivileged and at-risk individuals” with travel opportunities.

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The idea for the initiative came from a plethora of “heartbreaking stories” Axani received from people sharing fears of not being able to see the world.

“I was reading this story about a terminally ill mother of two at 26 saying her biggest fear of dying will be that her children will never be able to see the world because she didn’t do so herself,” said Axani. “When you are reading these stories en masse, you are thinking, ‘oh my goodness, what can we do about this (and) how can we help?’”

Axani’s solution was to find a way to help these people see the world with the help of hotel chain Marriott International — which is providing him and Gallagher with accommodations on their trip — and crowdfunding platform CrowdRise.

Among the first four beneficiaries of the charity are a Toronto-based young woman whose family fled Somalia during the civil war and a Mississauga crisis hotline volunteer and life coach who survived “a violent marriage, childhood sexual assault and multiple car accidents.”

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