Recently, John and I celebrated a significant milestone in our life together – ten years of marriage. It got us thinking about the amazing travels we’ve had over the past decade, and the five years before that. It also had us contemplating the fact that, as a couple travelling together – often for the long-haul – we’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time in each other’s company.
Take the past two years for example: we were on the road for just about all of 2016 and 2017, and when we weren’t exploring, we were usually holed up in a room together working on our blog or planning our next moves. In more than 700 days straight, we spent exactly zero nights apart, and we can count on one hand the days where we went off and did our own thing.
So what’s our secret to successful long-term travel as a couple? Do we fight when we’re on the road? Oh yes. Do we agree on everything? Hell no. Does John wish he was on a different continent to me when I’m hungry and tired and can’t decide on anything? Absolutely.
Even in our worst moments though, we wouldn’t trade a moment of it. There’s nothing we love more than being on the road together. But since boarding a plane back in 2004 and jetting off on our first real adventure as a backpacking couple, we’ve learnt plenty about what it takes to travel together well and still want to be around each other by the end. Here are our top take-outs.
Be On The Same Page About Your Travel Aspirations.
Every five years or so up till now, John and I have packed all of our belongings into storage, bid farewell to our jobs and loved ones, and set off to write a new chapter of our lives on the road. Each time we go, we stay away for longer. Our first big trip was 6 weeks. Our most recent trip lasted two years.
Our decision to prioritise long-term travel as our lifestyle has seen us make different life choices to most of our family and friends: we haven’t bought property, we don’t have kids, we’ve never had a pet together, and we don’t really ever settle between trips.
Making the decisions we have doesn’t mean there isn’t the occasional night where I wake in a sweat wondering if our choices have been the right ones. But when morning arrives and I look out the window on a new and unfamiliar scene, with John beside me, I know this is exactly where I want to be in life. Even more importantly, I know it’s where he wants to be too.
Even now, fifteen years on, we check in with each other on a regular basis to make sure we still feel the same about travel and the direction we’re headed together; it’s just as important today as we navigate what a semi-nomadic life looks like for us in our 40s and beyond.
As a couple, working out what travel means to you – both independently and as a couple, and how you want it to feature in your lives together, goes a long way to ensuring your adventures fulfil you both, while also ensuring you’re on the same page about the other significant life choices that will inevitably come up along the way.
Share The Travel Admin.
While long-term travel might seem like one long cocktail on the beach to the people back home, there’s actually a shedload of work that goes on behind the scenes to keep the adventures rolling.
From researching, planning and organising destinations and experiences, to getting from place to place, searching out accommodation, hunting down meals, managing a budget and – for many travellers in these days of digital nomadism – juggling online work, there’s a part of every day on the road that’s purely dedicated to what we call ‘travel admin’.
As a couple, the best thing you can do is share the load and split the tasks. It makes it easier if you can align your skills and interests, but be fair about sharing the fun stuff as well as the more tedious tasks.
For example, I love trip planning, while John has much more patience in sifting accommodation reviews to find the best stay for our budget. So when we’re travelling together, I’m usually responsible for researching and organising where we’re going and what we’re going to do, while John searches out accommodation and plans how to get us there. Every now and then though, we’ll swap.
When it comes to budget, I manage the day-to-day expense tracking, and John manages the monthly reconciliation, credit card payments, and overall budget tracking. On the blog front, I do more of the social media planning and John does more of the web management. We both write and take photographs for our website.
At the end of the day, making travel actually happen can be time-consuming and intensive, and being able to share the load is a bonus of travelling as a couple. Do it right, and soon enough, you’ll be a well-oiled travel machine, with more time to post pics of yourselves enjoying cocktails on the beach.
Talk To Each Other. Really.
It goes without saying, right? (Pun intended). When you’re travelling together, every day is a talkfest: where are we going, what are we doing, how are we getting there, what does it cost, and when are we going to eat. But when you’re in each other’s space day in and day out, it’s easy to fall into a rhythm and develop something akin to an unspoken language as you navigate new places and experiences. Reading each other’s cues becomes second nature. Or so you think.
When we argue on our travels, and believe me we do, it’s usually the result of a tiny miscommunication or because we’ve missed or misread a cue from each other. This most often happens when we’re tired, hungry or we’ve fallen into a routine and aren’t communicating as well or as clearly as we could be.
Checking in with each other regularly, and being upfront, honest and clear with each other makes an enormous difference, even if you feel like you’re on the same wavelength most of the time. As individuals, you’ll always have your own thoughts and emotions, and travel has a way of challenging and stirring up those thoughts and emotions more than you realise.
Communicating what you’re thinking and feeling will ensure you really are in tune as you travel the world together; at the very least it will give you the chance to unpick any knots before they become too tightly wound.
Trust Each Other’s Instincts As Much As Your Own.
Communicating with each other is even more important when it comes to travel situations that don’t feel quite right.
Just about every traveller will at some point experience that prickly, uncomfortable sensation when their instinct kicks up a notch in response to a perceived threat or danger. It could be a reaction to a person, a place or an experience. Instinct is one of our greatest assets and it should never be ignored. That doesn’t mean avoiding everything that makes you nervous, but instinct is a trigger for weighing up a situation, and making a reasoned decision that feels right for you.
As a couple travelling together, you might have completely different instinctive reactions to the same situation, so if one of you is having a negative gut reaction to something, say so.
Over the years we’ve learned to share and trust each other’s instincts as well as our own. If one of us doesn’t like a situation, or isn’t keen on going down a certain road, we discuss it and make a decision together. We’ll never make each other do something or go somewhere the other doesn’t want to.
Eat Often and Well.
With so much to see and do when you’re travelling, and sometimes when budgets are tight, it’s easy to forget about eating, or to skip meals so you can spend more later. Bad call. Exploring is active, and being active requires fuel.
A hungry traveller can quickly become an angry traveller. ‘Hangry’ travellers make poor decisions, and hangry couples take it out on each other.
It doesn’t take much for me to become a hangry traveller. John has learned to spot the signs fairly early, and I, over time, have learned to say ‘yes, I’m hungry’ when he asks, instead of saying no and letting FOMO dictate the day’s schedule while I slowly turn into a raging banshee.
Sampling local food is actually one of the greatest experiences travel has to offer. Turn eating into an opportunity to combine an important and necessary function with a local cultural immersion, and your energy levels – as well as your partner – will thank you for it.
Work With Each Other’s Quirks.
As in any relationship, with the passing of time, you’ll discover habits and idiosyncracies about your partner that you might not necessarily like, but which you tolerate because, well hey, you love the person.
When you’re travelling and in each other’s personal space 24/7 though, small quirks can mutate from minor irritations into exaggerated, monster-sized issues with the potential to send one of you (literally) packing.
Some things can’t always be helped, like snoring or sleep talking (we’re both guilty…after years sampling just about every ear plug on the market, we’ve landed on Isolate earplugs – peace!).
Habits can be tough to break. If a partner’s particular habit is starting to get to you though, don’t stew on it, be honest so they know that if they must do it, you’d rather they do it out of your presence.
Simple quirks though, like needing to be at the airport at least three hours ahead of time, every time, are just that: quirks. For the sake of peace and harmony, just learn to appreciate them. I have, and we’ve never missed a flight.
Never, Ever Road Trip Together.
Just kidding. What we really mean is, ‘Be patient with each other’. Just about every traveller nominates patience as something you can’t live without when you travel. Whether you’re waiting for a bus running on ‘local time’, or fighting your way through the hordes at an overrun tourist site, patience is a virtue you’ll have plenty of opportunity to practice on the road.
But patience with each other is even more important when you’re a couple travelling together. For us, hiring a car and hitting the road is one of our favourite ways to explore, but some of our most epic arguments have taken place while we’re trying to drive and navigate somewhere new. It’s where our patience with each other usually flies right out the window.
Fortunately our ‘carguments’ don’t last long and we’re good at moving on quickly (that’s another take-out right there). We’ve also learned where the pain points are and how to manage them, for example, we know that we road trip better with me behind the wheel and John navigating (even though John may still dispute this…ironically).
When it comes to travelling together long-term though, being patient with each other will fortify you as a couple against all the other tests and challenges that will push your patience on the road. Trust us, there will be plenty.
Splash Out On Special Moments.
When you’re travelling long-term, budget usually sets the tone for the kind of destinations you visit, the places you stay, and the experiences you have, even moreso when there are two of you to factor in costs for. On some of our earlier travels, we’ve chosen not to do certain things for the sake of saving money, and without fail, we’ve regretted it later.
We’re not saying you should blow your cash on every opportunity that takes your fancy. Great if you can, but if not, then just remember that it’s important to occasionally splash out and treat yourself, or sign up for that amazing experience. It might be a night or two at a better accommodation, a special meal at a higher price point, or that one-time experience that you’ll never forget.
For us, a key motivation for travel is finding and enjoying experiences that are particular to a place, and these days we have a budget line specifically for special experiences.
As Mark Twain so aptly put it: ‘Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did.”
Take Time Out To Recharge Together.
Time out when you’re a couple travelling together is just as important as having downtime when you’re working full-time. As a couple, taking a hiatus from being on the go is necessary for recharging and reconnecting ‘off the travel grid’. Taking time out can mean the difference between loving your travels together, and wanting to pull the pin on the relationship entirely.
We mentioned earlier that there’s a world of work that goes into making travel happen and, in our case, managing a couple travel blog on the go as well. If, like us, you’re busy travellers who like to see and do as much as you can with the time you have – then the daily process of planning, moving, doing, packing and unpacking can, after a while, begin to take it out of you both and put a bit of strain on your relationship.
While our pace is a little slower these days, we still make a point to factor in extended stops every so often when we’re on longer trips, so we can unpack our backpacks completely, settle in and take a break from the daily travel admin. For us, this is usually when we take the opportunity to upgrade our accommodation for a couple of days and indulge a bit.
By the end of it, we’re rested and rejuvenated, and ready to re-hoist the packs and get moving once more.
Appreciate Every Moment. Even The Tough Ones.
It’s said that if you can travel successfully as a couple, you’re a couple for life. Travel puts your relationship under a spotlight, and reveals the best and the worst of you both, especially when you’re exploring challenging places or pushing your comfort zones.
On the road, you are each other’s safety net. You have each other’s backs. You have to compromise, to be honest, to communicate freely with each other, or the fun won’t last. Even after fifteen years together, John and I are still learning about each other, and travel – as much as our lifestyle because of travel – constantly challenges us to be the best we can be for each other.
At the end of the day, travelling together long-term should be the time of your life! It’s a chance to spend intense, quality time with each other and navigate the roadmap of your relationship together. When you’re in that kind of travel hothouse, it can be easy to take the days – and each other – for granted after a while. All the more reason to stop, take stock and appreciate where you are.
Because when the travels wind down and you’ve returned to lives and routines that send you off in different directions each day, it’s those long stretches on the road together – the incredible experiences as well as the moments you can’t wait to leave behind – that are the memories you’ll cherish together forever.
Are you a couple travelling together long-term, or are you about to set out? What are your top tips for couples to travel together successfully? We’d love to hear from you below.
Did you just coin a new term “cargument?”!! I love this! We’ve had so many carguments that end the minute you get out of the car.
Haha! I wish we could claim it, it’s one of our favourite terms, but we heard it somewhere a while back and have been using it ever since. You’re exactly right, they’re over the second we leave the car. That’s the best bit really. Happy travels! 🙂
Our top tip would be to avoid two-person Kayaks at all costs…
Good advice guys ….. although I think we’ve even mastered that challenge for the most part!!