The people who knew you when you were awkward and liked you anyway are worth flying home for.

Being liked before you had anything to recommend you is a specific kind of evidence. Those people saw the version with bad hair and no idea how to talk to anyone, and chose to be around it, which means their liking you was never about the later improvements. Nobody you meet afterwards can offer that.

Keep hold of two or three of those people as life starts moving everybody around. Be the one who books the trip rather than the one who agrees it would be nice. The effort is usually unevenly shared, and it is still worth it.