The 11 Best Secrets for Travelling as a Couple
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Travelling as a couple is such a wonderful experience. What a better way to spend your time than to explore the world with your favourite person along your side. With that in mind, it isn’t always easy to travel as a couple.
When you’re with the same person for 24 hours a day, you soon learn a lot about that person. Travelling with someone is such an intimate experience that you really will know your partner unlike anyone else.
We’ve been married for less than a year at the time of writing this and all our friends always tell us how in sync we are as a couple. We completely owe this to our travel experiences together. After all, how many other people have been tandem bungee jumping together?
Not just that but whilst we travel together, we also technically work together too as couple travel bloggers. Sometimes juggling both of these can be wearisome on a relationship and it takes a while to adjust and learn how to adapt to work and travel together without it taking a toll.
After we got married, we found that it actually felt like nothing has changed and we think that is partly due to all these experiences we had already shared together. Whilst we’re still learning new things about each other daily, we are so comfortable together because of everything we’ve already shared as a couple that travels together.
We didn’t get to this point without plenty of bumps along the way and learning how to travel together and stay in love. We wanted to share with other travel couples all the tips we’ve learnt along the way to make your journey much smoother.
Tips for Couples Travelling Together
1. Create Your Travel Goals Together
When you’re first planning on travelling together as a couple, it is so important that you talk to each other about your travel goals. This is especially important if it’s your first trip together because this will be a brand new experience for you both.
For us, every year we create a 10 list of things that we want to do in the New Year together and experience whilst we’re travelling. We recommend for couples travelling together to sit down and talk about things you like to do when you’re travelling, things that interest you and plan where those tie in with each other.
This will help you make sure you are considerate of each other on your travels and look at experiences for each other as well as yourself.
Amy really enjoys anything to do with books so now and then whilst we’re away, Liam will find a hidden gem such as an incredible library or a quirky book market. For Liam, he really enjoys the adventurous things in life and even though Amy is terrified most of the time, she takes the plunge with him on most of the adrenaline activities or at least makes sure there is plenty of time for him to get his adrenaline fix whilst we’re abroad.
2. Remember Those Travel Goals
Following on from the last point, even if you’ve been together for years and travelled together a hundred times, it’s still worth thinking about those travel goals that you both have and regularly revisiting them.
Not just that but your travel goals will change over time and you will find that often they start to align with each other as your interests grow and change as a couple.
If you’re travelling and you’re finding that you’re in an argument or not in the best place with each other, grab a bottle of wine, sit down with no distractions and talk about your couple travel goals and how you can improve things. Honesty is absolutely key not just in a relationship but especially in a travel relationship.
3. Share Travel Admin Responsibilities
One of the most tiresome things and biggest arguments that couples can have when they travel together is that one person takes all the responsibilities. For some couples this works really well as one person enjoys taking charge but this doesn’t work for everyone.
When it comes to us planning a trip, Amy likes to take control and plan / book most of the trip but when things get a little overwhelming she asks Liam to take charge of certain elements to help support. This is something that works well for us but for some couples, splitting the responsibilities 50/50 might be best.
Speak to each other about what you like planning and what you don’t and set responsibilities for each other making it shared as much as possible. This will really help to take some pressure off the both of you and relieve any potential tension.
4. Don’t Forget to Have Fun
When you’re travelling, especially if you’re also travel bloggers like us, it is so important to have fun and not forget the reasons why you like to travel.
Sometimes when we’re abroad, we get so immersed in the photos we need to take for the blog posts that we want to write when we get home that we have to take a minute to just go out and enjoy cocktails and put the phones away.
Not long ago, we took our first trip to London together and at the start of the trip we posted on Instagram we were going away. When we touched down, we decided to just be in the moment together and visit Harry Potter Studios together by just being present.
Have cocktails together, enjoy the sunset boat cruise and laugh so much that you can’t breathe. These experiences are exactly what travelling is for so make the most of every moment that you can!
5. Take Plenty of Photos
Even though we like to be in the moment, we also like to take lots of photos and keep the memories for when we’re old, grey and telling our grandkids all the adventures we were on. Not just that but we also like to share these incredible memories with people just like you!
There are a lot of people that believe taking photos and videos takes you out of that moment but we completely disagree. The amount of times we’ve taken videos and one of us has played up to the camera making it an even funnier memory!
For us, we also like to take some of the best photos from the trip and turn it into a collage for that particular trip for our wall. We have quite a few frames stacking up for each destination now. Don’t be afraid to take plenty of photos together so that one day you can look back on your trips together and reminisce about things that happened that you may have forgotten.
6. Don’t Drink Too Much
When travelling as a couple, one of the biggest causes of arguments is often alcohol. We’ve all been there and made the mistakes so the best thing to do is keep alcohol to a minimum. We’re not saying don’t drink but it’s probably best not to get drunk.
As a couple, we love having a few beers when we’re travelling and trying the local drinks so we like to have a few whilst we’re away. However, drinking to get drunk can cause problems for a lot of couples especially if you’ve not been together long or it’s your first time travelling together.
7. Share in Each Other’s Interests
When you’re a travelling couple, you may have very different interests and things you like to do when you’re travelling. If it’s your first trip away then be considerate of each other’s interests and what you want to do whilst you’re in this new and wonderful destination.
Not every activity is for both people in the couple but just showing an interest or taking the time to make it possible for the other person really means a lot.
Where possible, try to step out of your comfort zone and engage in activities that your partner wants to do. Not only will this help to strengthen your relationship but will also enable you to create some incredible unique memories together.
Your partner will be very grateful that even though you haven’t wanted to do or try something that you have still given it a go. With this in mind, this will also be a good thing for yourself too. If there is something that you don’t want to do, especially because you’re nervous then often that is even more reason to do it.
Stepping out of your comfort zone can really help shape you as a person and not just your relationship. You will often find that there are things that you wouldn’t expect to enjoy. You never know, you may even pick up a new hobby along the way.
The most important thing when you’re travelling is to keep an open mind about things that your partner wants to do. If you’re definitely set against joining in on the activity then make sure that you’re still supportive and find a way to make this possible for them.
This encouragement will also really help your relationship and enable you to both continue to build a strong, solid foundation.
8. Experience as much as you can together
Following on from our last couple travel tips, say yes to as many experiences as possible. You only get one lifetime so make sure that you leave it saying that you embraced life in the best way possible.
Take some time to step out of your comfort zone and say yes to adventures that you wouldn’t usually. Travelling is all about new experiences and learning more about yourself and the beautiful world that we live in.
9. Have some “me time”
Even though you’re in a relationship, this doesn’t mean you need to be in each other’s pockets 24/7. It is healthy to have some time apart in a relationship regardless of whether you are travelling or not.
Sometimes you will need a bit of time apart when you’re travelling so that you can enjoy a little bit of your own company. One of the biggest mistakes that couples travelling together can make is by not giving each other space.
If there is something that you or your partner does not want to do whereas the other person does then don’t be afraid to suggest splitting up for the day to go and do things that you both want to do separately.
If you’ve also had a little bit of a bicker or an argument (this is normal don’t worry) then don’t be afraid to go and take some time apart to get your head back in place. However, make sure that you communicate this and don’t be frightened to say that you need a little bit of time to yourself.
Everyone needs their own space at times and that is completely okay!
10. Make Your Travel Bucket List Together
When you’re making your travel plans together as a couple, there will be destinations and things that you really want to do. Share these with each other and try to come up with a list of things that you both want to do.
This way you can alternate between your personal travel bucket lists as well as your couple travel bucket lists. These are the most exciting plans to make because you are both fully on board with the same plans and destinations.
These bucket lists are what light our fire and get us excited for planning our trips and remind us why we love travelling so much.
11. Set a Budget
Now, the worst part about travelling is sticking to a budget. Us working class people have got to have money ready to plan the next trip!
For every trip, we set a budget for everything and we try our best to stick to this. In our opinion, this helps stop a lot of arguments because money can definitely be the biggest source of problems in a relationship.
We try to do as many things as possible to try and keep our budgets low on our travels but that is just how we like to travel. Find what works for you as a couple and discuss your realistic expectations on what budget is possible for each trip.
Now for Planning Your Next Travels Together
Travelling as a couple is such a beautiful experience and travelling together will bring you closer than any other couple.
Take the leap together and enjoy as many trips as you can. Life really is too short and should be enjoyed with people you love.
Follow our couple travelling tips as much as you can so that you can find a rhythm with your partner and explore the world together stress-free.
