There are travel partners — friends with whom you travel — and then there’s travel partners — your real-life partner that you travel with. I’m lucky enough to have both. Jen is my great friend from high school and perhaps the best travel partner I will ever have. We spent nearly 10 months together on a round-the-world trip, drove up the Alaska highway together, and met up in Laos on another trip. My husband is my lifelong partner and while I love traveling with him, the going is not always as smooth as it is with Jen. Why is that?
Traveling with Jen is almost like traveling alone — if one of us wants to stay in a place longer, the other might go on. When we were in Ho Chi Minh City, I really wanted to see the war museum. She was ready to head to Cambodia, so she booked a three-day journey up the Mekong to Phnom Penh. I stayed in Vietnam a day longer, then took a similar 3-day trip. When I got off the bus in Phnom Penh I checked my email to find a message from her saying where she was staying. I took a motorbike there, and we were reunited until the next time it was time to part. Perfect!
With my husband it’s a bit different. On one of our first trips together I tried to convince him to stay in a place a day longer than me, since he really liked it and wasn’t ready to leave. I had made plans to visit a friend and didn’t feel I could break or change them. He didn’t like the idea of splitting up, arguing that “it’s just weird.” And maybe it is. So here are some strategies we’ve crafted for harmonious partner travel:
- Be really clear about what you want to see. You might be heading to Amsterdam together with one person who assumes they’ll spend the whole trip in art galleries and tulip fields while the other person anticipates tours of coffee shops and sex shows. Make sure you know each others’ goals.
- Be flexible. If you drag your partner from museum to museum, maybe skip a less important one in the interest of kindness.
- Spend some time apart. This doesn’t mean disappearing for a few days; instead, try spending an afternoon solo. That way nobody has to do anything they don’t want to — and sometimes it’s just nice to have time to think only about yourself.
- Acknowledge your partner’s willingness to go along with you. Say thank you, and return the favor.