Traveling solo can be exhilarating and liberating. Traveling with your significant other can be extremely romantic.
But what about when you travel with friends? No matter how close you and your bestie are, traveling with friends can be tricky, tough and can often get a little messy if you aren’t careful.
The next time you are thinking about planning a road trip or vacay with your BFF, consider the following tips so that you not only have a fantastic trip, but return still being just as chummy with your pal as when you left.
Choose your Friends Wisely
The saying goes, “You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends.” But even then, there are some friends that are just not good people to take on a trip with you for various reasons.
Before booking that flight with your pal, consider if you have similar personalities.
Are you both easy going or like every second of every day planned?
Does anyone going have a tendency of getting offended easily?
Do you have some friends that are great in small dosages, but are just too much after extended periods of time?
If you have the control in who you can decide to travel with, take the previous thoughts into serious consideration.
Discuss Costs Upfront
Just like in a romantic relationship, money can be the biggest fight-potential to any relationship that is staying in close quarters. Discuss in advance how you want to deal with the finances of travel, as this can be one of the touchiest subjects.
Is everyone booking their own flights? If not, what are the expectations of when and how the person fronting the cost will get their money back?
Are you splitting a hotel room cost? When and how are those funds going to be reimbursed?
Do you have a general budget that you want to stick for in a day? This includes what you have budgeted for food, site-seeing and entertainment.
Make sure you are either on the same page so that no awkward moments come up when deciding what to do for the day. Just because I’m a budget traveler doesn’t mean that everyone else is. Knowing what the other person has in mind for finances will help to avoid any dinners where your wallet only allows you to buy a water and a small salad as the other chows down on a delicious looking (albeit expensive) steak.
Planning
Are you the kind of travelers that like to just go with the flow or do you like a little structure? Decide before leaving if and what things you’d like pre-planned and who will be responsible for that research. Nothing sucks more than doing 100% of all the planning and legwork just to have nobody care or acknowledge it in the moment because they just want to go where the wind blows. Before spending hours poring over guidebooks and awesome Economical Excursionist posts planning out your days, make sure that those plans will be respected and taken into consideration so that your time and energy is well spent.
You Can Go Your Own Way
(cue song)
Some people love museums and others hate them.
Some people would prefer to spend the evening at a club while others would rather chill at the hotel with a store bought beer and deck of cards.
Decide up front if you are ok with going your own ways occasionally. Sure, you are there to spend time together, but you also don’t want to ruin a trip doing things you just aren’t even interested in. Also, there may also be times that you just need some alone time.
I recently came across this quote over at EverythingZany and love it for finding friends to travel with. If you aren’t traveling with people who bring out the best in you, you might need to find different travel buddies
I recently came across this quote over at EverythingZany and love it for finding friends to travel with. If you aren’t traveling with people who bring out the best in you, you might need to find different travel buddies
“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”- Henry Ford
However, you’d be surprised with how many people actually get offended by the suggestion of separating for a few hours and meeting back up at a central time and location later.
Talk about this expectation before anyone’s feelings get hurt in the moment because you decided you’d rather have a few moments or even hours to yourself.
Be Honest
When traveling with others, it is best to agree before hand to just always be honest with one another. If you agree on this ahead of time, it will help ease those awkward moments of
“Where do you want to eat?”
“I don’t care, where do you want to eat?”
“Uum, I’m fine with whatever”
B.S!!!
Of course you have SOME preference of where you want to eat or what you want to do next! I understand being polite and having give and take, but there comes a point when this turns into nobody being able to make a decision. If you’ve agreed to just be honest 100% of the time, then saying what you really want to do can be accepted easier. If what you suggest isn’t what your travel partner wants to do, then come up with a game plan, but don’t just beat around the bush and then be mad when all you did was eat at TGIFridays or wandered aimlessly for hours instead of seeing the top sights.
If traveling with a a group, votes work great. Majority vote wins, everyone else suck it up!
Once You Find a Good Fit, Stick with It
I’ve been on trips with others that have been a huge success and others that have been a major flop. Usually, it all boils down to personalities but even more, established expectations. Even groups that have very different personalities can still have an outstanding trip, but those people have often already figured each other out, have clear expectations and are willing to be honest and upfront the entire time.
You may also find that the more you travel with a certain person, the easier it will become. You’ll soon just “get each other” and be able to cope with situations easily. Some of our top trips were with our Germany Travel Buddies and best friends, Erin and Kyle. While we all had different personality types, we generally had the same interests. We weren’t afraid to break apart to do our own things and then reunite for dinner later and we weren’t shy to express our feelings and say if we did or didn’t want to do things. We ended up traveling frequently and regularly with this couple because it was so much fun and, just like traveling with a significant other, I believe it made our friendships stronger, but only because we knew what we were getting ourselves into each and every trip.
On a Safari in South Africa, one of our many trips with our friends
Do you ever travel with friends? Tell me in the comments what went well? What went wrong? What tips do you have for fellow travel buddies to ensure a fun and stress free vacation when traveling with that BFF?
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LeAnna Brown
Author and Creator at Economical Excursionists
Former teacher turned blogger turned mom turned full time travel addict, LeAnna has never been one to live life by the rules. Whether she is moving to a farm in Switzerland to learn to make cheese (Yes, CHEESE), jumping off a mountain to paraglide over Cinderella castles, or taking her baby all over the world with nothing but a backpack on their backs, LeAnna designs and defines her OWN life.
LeAnna, her husband Andy, and kiddo, "Lil B" love to live a minimal lifestyle, not only for the "thrill" of pinching pennies but in order to save for traveling the world. Considering over 40 countries and 90+ cities have been explored, we'd say they are doing something right!
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Thanks for the insight on the issues I had never thought about. Looking forward to your new posts.
Great post! Traveling really does bring out the best and worst in someone. It’s also a good test for any relationship.
Thank you! I have a similar post but for couples http://www.economicalexcursionists.com/travel-makes-couples-closer/ I really do think that travel is the perfect way to bring people closer (when done right!)
Great list. I usually travel alone but when I travel with others money is always SUCH an issue.
I agree. I know some people don’t like to talk about finances, but when traveling, I think it is vital to come to agreements before issues arise
Yeah, what you’re writing about is really important. I’ve travelled with friends many times – most of the times it was an amazing experience, but there are a few people I would never want to travel with again.
Yes, just because you are friends doesn’t mean you’ll make great travel buddies! I think we’ve all learned this the hard way
It’s amazing how sometimes even your best friend can be the worst travel partner. Sometimes it is all trial and error
I haven’t had much experience traveling with anyone other than family, but I would imagine that your tips cover the no-nonsense way to get along with anyone in nearly any situation. And even with family, there is sometimes a litttle adjustment necessary to have a good trip together!
We have actually had quite a few uncomfortable moments traveling with family, so yes, these most certainly can be applied there as well!
Great tips. It’s difficult enough traveling alone but when you have to consider someone else, it can be way worse. I think the most important one is choosing travel friends wisely.
Traveling with friends can be amazing…or horrible. It is absolutely about choosing your travel friends wisely!
Great tips! I usually travel solo but I once bumped into another solo traveller in Athens with whom I got on so well so much so that we sometimes plan a trip to go somewhere together; and have since been to 4 other countries together. The drawback though, is that we both live on the opposite sides of the globe. But yes, once you find a good fit, stick with it! 🙂
That is amazing! I think it is so cool to hear travel stories like this… and to think of how good of friends you are now for it!! Hopefully you can travel more with that perfect travel buddy!
I’d love to travel with friends more. Maybe I should share this with them 😉
We love traveling with (CERTAIN) friends! 😉 Please share with whoever you think would love to travel (as long as they’ll make for good travel buddies!)
Useful tips! None of my friends is really into travelling so much, so I started travelling as a solo-female backpacker until I met my boyfriend with whom I can share my passion for seeing the world 🙂
That is so awesome! At least you have someone to share in the experiences now! You should definitely read how traveling brings couples closer together! http://www.economicalexcursionists.com/travel-makes-couples-closer/
i agree!! We have a family that we travel well with and it is so great. Money, accommodation and free time are all factors to keep in mind!!