Kelly and Cullen met in November 2017 in the staff dorm room of a hostel in Cuenca, Ecuador. Cullen was nearing the end of a year-long backpacking trip through South America, and was volunteering in the hostel. Kelly was taking Spanish classes and traveling before starting a new job in Medellín, Colombia. Their romance began when a group of friends from the hostel decided to take a bus to Peru together to celebrate Thanksgiving on the beach. Periodic South American adventures and cross country road trips sustained Kelly and Cullen through over a year of mostly long-distance dating. In 2019, Kelly and Cullen moved to San Diego to build their life together.