How To Travel The World With Your Significant Other – And Make Sure You Go The Distance
Travelling with a loved one – particularly your boyfriend or girlfriend – is an enlightening experience, to say the least. Some couples return home from a trip closer than when they left, basking in the glow of a successful shared adventure (and enviable matching tans).
But others, well, return home separately. That’s because travelling with another person can be challenging, irrespective of if you’re in a romantic relationship.
[related_articles]30958[/related_articles]Fortunately, there are ways to make sure you and your significant other return home with hearts full of love and camera rolls full of travel snaps. We turned to Dominic and Meghan Loneragan of Citizens of the World, a pair who’ve been making couple travel look insanely easy for years now, to find out what you’ve gotta do to make it work.
#1 Take it slow
You can meet amazing people – and even romantic partners – and form incredible relationships when you’re on holiday but, sadly, the rule doesn’t necessarily apply if you’re travelling with a person you just met. That’s why it pays to get to really know someone before you buy an around-the-world ticket together.
“There’s definitely a three-date minimum,” Meghan jokes. “We didn’t travel internationally until we [had been] together for a year. You learn a lot about someone when you’re stuck in another country together. You want to [be] sure your crazy matches their crazy at least a little before you take the plunge.”
The lesson? If it works out the way you hope, you’ll have your whole lives to explore the globe together – don’t let it be the thing that sends you on your separate ways.
#2 Respect their travel style – and yours
“One of the hardest things about working together as a team is we both have our own visions [for] what makes a good journey,” Meghan says, pointing out that Dominic prefers getting amongst it in the Great Outdoors (“it” being mud), while she’s all about that poolside cocktail.
But they’ve figured out an easy way of ensuring they can both make the most of their shared experiences. “We call [ourselves] ‘Mild Vs. Wild’, and every trip we do have a mix of both. For instance, we hike in the morning (to ‘earn your beers’), followed by some kind of spa indulgence in the afternoon.”
The lesson? Appreciate what each person brings to the relationship – and the holiday – and make time to get out of that comfort zone.
#3 Let it all out
Staying in close quarters with another human for a long period of time can be challenging for even the most patient among us, which it’s why it pays to be honest about how you’re feeling when it all gets a bit much.
“We used to just yell and scream like everyone does,” Meghan says. “Now, we use a lot of ‘When you do this, it makes me feel like this’ statements.”
A fun way to test your compatibility is to see who prefers the aisle seat, and who’ll happily take the window – consider it the “olive rule” for travel. If you can’t even come to an agreement on who’ll sit where without tearing strips off each other, perhaps you should avoid getting on the plane until your communication is up to scratch.
(Meghan prefers the aisle, and Dom’s all about the window seat, if you were wondering.)
The lesson? Let it all out in a way that allows you to clear the air and go on your merry way – together.
Check out Qantas flights and begin your next adventure.
(Lead image: Everton Vila)
