This is me and one of my best friends,
Michele. In the 15 or so years
that we’ve been friends, we’ve taken many trips together: Las Vegas, London and
Amsterdam, Yellowstone, and a road trip to Mexico, to name a few. This August
we’ll be heading to South America to hike the Inca Trail and check out penguins
in the Galapagos. I have a few other tried-and-true, go-to travel buddies, and
I started thinking about what makes some people work well together on trips,
and what makes me think “never again” about others.
With me and Michele, the biggest
commonality is probably that we’re both pretty laid back about how we like to
plan and take trips, her even more so than me. She lives in Los Angeles and I’m
in Austin, so we’ve done almost all of our planning, booking, and confirming
for South America via email and text. We took turns booking shared flights,
hotels, and excursions, and kept a running tally of who paid what; we ended up
pretty darn close, too, considering the expense and detail of this trip.
Everything is booked now and I only owe her $113 (it’s coming, Mish, I promise.
PayPal, man).
And now that we have the big pieces in
place, we’re both leisurely perusing the details—good places to eat in Lima,
places to see in Cusco while we acclimate to the altitude, any must-see markets
in Quito, that sort of thing. Over the next few months we’ll each come up with
our own lists of what we want to do, probably with a lot of overlap, and then
just do whatever sounds best when we land. Super easy with no drama.
It also helps that we both just kind of
roll with the randomness that pops up when we’re traveling. I remember when we
were walking down a street in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and saw a Jeep drive by
with three or four guys standing up in the back, holding menacingly large guns.
We looked at each other and said, “So we’ll go into the next bar and sit for
awhile?” “Yep, sounds good.” We ducked into the first place we came to, walked
up to the bar and ordered our Dos Equis from a rather bemused bartender, and
turned around to take in the place. My eyes surveyed the room and I realized it
was full of men, all of whom were staring at us. Michele, meanwhile, had looked
at one of the many TVs around the bar and nudged me. “Look up.” I did … and
realized all the TVs were showing porn. Then we both noticed the few women
scattered around the edges of the room, scantily dressed, looking bored, and
ignoring us, unlike the men. And then we saw the door that led who knows where
covered with a curtain. And a man walking behind the curtain with one of the
bored women. Without a word we slowly, oh-so-casually, like we totally knew
what we were doing, walked back toward the door, chugging our beers (we were 21
at the time and had priorities). One of us said, “So … we’ll go in the next
restaurant we find and sit for awhile?” “Yep, sounds good.” And that’s how we
found an adorable courtyard restaurant in Nuevo Laredo with delicious chips and
salsa and margaritas.
While this story might not say much for our
situational awareness or sense of danger, rest assured that we’ve both gotten
much better about these sorts of things in the last decade. Michele even looked
up the travel advisories for Peru and Ecuador, and we now know to be very
cautious with all of our cabs. Progress! But my point is, in my experience,
some people tend to have anxious reactions when things go awry, and others are
more able to pragmatically react without exacerbating the situation. For my
style of traveling, the latter is clearly a better fit. Because even now that
we’re more mature and cautious (and know to assess potential porn bars/brothels
before ordering beer), things will go wrong on our trip. That’s inevitable on
any adventure. Picking a travel partner whom I know I can rely on to keep a
level head in those situations is the only part of it I can control.
After all this rambling, maybe it’s time
for a list. Here are some factors that I like to consider when picking a travel
buddy:
1.
Does this person agree with the type of trip I
want to take? Examples include:
a.
Staying in cheaper hotels to extend the trip
versus having a shorter, more indulgent vacation
b.
Taking a relaxing vacation with lots of sitting,
eating, and drinking versus mixing in more active, outdoorsy fun
c.
Mapping out a strict itinerary versus leaving
chunks of time open to explore whatever comes up
2.
What traits about this person bug me under
normal circumstances and can I handle them when they’re magnified under the
pressure of travel?
3.
What traits about me bother people under normal
circumstances and can my potential travel buddy handle them when they’re
magnified under the pressure of travel?
4.
Will I get stuck with all the planning and
organizing?
5.
Will this person over-plan and over-organize so
much that it takes the fun out of the trip?
6.
How does this person react in stressful
situations? Do I trust him or her to help when things go wrong?
7.
Are we both stubborn about getting our way or
can we compromise so everyone gets to do what matters most to them?
8.
Is he or she slovenly to the point that I wouldn’t
want to share a bathroom with them? (It sounds extreme but, trust me, it can be
an issue.)
9.
Do they have an appropriate sense of the world
around them to not get me in trouble? Will I spend the trip babysitting?
10. Is
this person comfortable with splitting up and seeing different things
separately? Am I comfortable with that?
I could go on and on, but I think these questions cover the
largest concerns about traveling with someone. And don’t forget, travel buddies
are optional! Some of my favorite experiences have come from traveling by
myself. Watch for a post on that soon. :)
I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on travel buddies.
What wisdom have you gleaned along the way? Do you have go-to partners in crime
or horror stories of someone you’ll never travel with again?
