Name: 12 Surprisingly Simple Tips for Traveling as a Couple
Uploaded: 2018-06-14T09:58:49.000Z
Duration: 14 min 8 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

What is going on ladies and gentlemen, Vagabuddies? Welcome back to the channel.

Lately we've been getting lots of questions from you guys and girls out there about how to travel with your significant other or tips for traveling as a couple.

So I figured I would introduce you, or reintroduce you, to my girlfriend, Carrie Rad.

I do a self-care content, primarily. I do travel and lifestyle content, and I talk about ways to take care of yourself.

First and foremost, if you have not subscribed to Carrie, do yourself a favor.

Check her channel out, hit that subscribe button.

Traveling as a couple can be the ultimate test to a relationship.

It could probably end your relationship. A lot of really strong relationships fail when they go out and travel together because travel can be inherently stressful.

Basically today we've come together to share with you guys and girls some of the tips that we have found out, sometimes the hard way, through nearly two years of traveling together.

So to start things off, we're just going to list out some pros and cons of traveling as a couple.

Con: nightlife is probably less likely to happen as a couple just because you have less incentive to go out.

Why would you go out to eat if you have a Michelin star meal at home?

Unless of course you're actually going to a Michelin star restaurant, in which case you should totally go out to eat.

Pro: you can always taste more food when you're sharing.

Con: some partners eat more than other partners.

You have double the money to spend so when it comes to the place that you're staying, like an Airbnb, you can get a nicer space.

You don't need a second bed or a second room, so you're spending less, but your money goes much further.

One of the cons is that if you're not careful, and you don't communicate clearly, one person may feel like they're pulling more weight ,

and covering the costs of the other person's all-expenses-paid vacation.

Pro: you have two brains to come up with more ideas, which means more fun adventures.

The con to that is that usually one person tends to take the lead naturally, and that can leave the other person feeling like a little bit ignored or undervalued.

And it could cause resentment later on in the trip.

A lot of the reason why couples tend to argue when they're traveling is all about communication.

Sometimes couple can have widely different ideas about what they want to do on their travels, and having expectation is a surefire way to get let down.

Here's a scenario that's all too familiar in this day and age.

Babe, do you have your phone with you? This is a perfect photo op for Instagram.

You know, I just... I really want to just unplug and I didn't bring my phone and... I don't really...

I thought we were going on this trip primarily for Instagram.

We should have talked about this beforehand.

So avoid the let down by having a long, clear conversation before you go about what your expectations are for the trip.

What you want to get out of it, where you want to go and why, and then once you've done that, sit down and listen to your partner's take on their ideas for the trip.

One of the most important things that you can do is to talk about your budget, clearly.

What really works for us is just going Dutch as they say, which literally means splitting the costs fifty-fifty right down the middle.

You don't have to be counting every single penny because if you're getting obsessive about keeping it 100% totally even, then you might cause a little bit of bad blood.

You don't want to spend your trip thinking about every single little penny, you want to enjoy the trip.

Super important tip: - Eat before you get "hangry."

So things do not go well when we are hangry.

So we've learned the hard way that we start to get kind of snappy and disrespectful when we're hungry, but it's only our stomachs talking. It's not the real you.

Talk over breakfast about what your lunch and dinner plans are, and if they're few and far between, if you're on a road trip, or you have to cover a lot of distance, if you're traveling like via plane,

uh, just make sure that you're stocked up on snacks, that your tummies are full, and it will just make everything that much better.

And anyways, when you're traveling, food is one of the best parts of travel, anyways.

So if you talk about it at breakfast, then you'll make sure you hit all of your spots that you want to go.

I would say generally, you are like getting ready for bed way earlier than I am.

- Also waking up.  I wake earlier than you! - And also.. oh my god, yeah.

Like, Carrie is an ultimate morning person.

The reason why I like waking up really early in the morning is because I really, really like personal time and the morning when I'm having my coffee.

It feels like the rest of the world is still asleep, and then there's a bonus because when he wakes up in the morning, coffee has already been made!

But that brings us to our next talking point, which is valuing personal space and personal time.

Travel can foster immense personal growth, especially solo travel.

But traveling as a couple sometimes you don't have that space to kind of let your wings spread a little bit and really dive into your destination and dive a little bit deeper into yourself.

A lot of the questions that we got which we will be answering in specifics over on Carrie's channel on the video that we're doing on her channel,

were about how to kind of figure out your travel itinerary when one partner wants to do one thing and the other partner wants to do something totally different.

And I think that the easy solution to that is just accepting that... hey ,we're two people here.

We might have different desires when it comes to what we're going to do in a destination, and giving each other the time to do that.

And use that time and space to embrace your individuality and explore an adventure and create moments with yourself,

and then at the end of the day when you guys reunite, you can talk about your travels and your experiences, and all the adventures you had during that day.

And at the end of the day, that just brings you closer.

And it doesn't even need to be a full day. It could be something as small as like,

"Cool. I'll see you in an hour or two. We can meet at this little coffee shop, and we can kind of rendezvous."

- Like, for example, Carrie might - Go to a market!

Yeah, and go shopping, and I would go on like a trail run or go surfing, and those two activities might seem like polar opposites, but if you give each other a little bit of room to breathe, it can all be fit in.

Which brings us to our next point: compromise.

Let's take a little quick second here... Okay Google, what is the definition of compromise?

Compromise: an agreement or a settlement of the dispute that is reached by each side making concessions.

Which basically means both sides are equally unhappy with the final product.

- No. That is not what compromise means. - No?

- It just means to be understanding of your partner's plan, and what they want to do and to make sacrifices. - Mm-hmm.

Sometimes when you're on a trip, it's impossible to do the two things that both of you want to do at the same time.

When that is the case, be the bigger person and like concede a little bit and say,

All right, cool. Well, today we'll do the thing that you want to do, and hopefully tomorrow, we can do the thing that I want to do.

Mm-hmm, but also I think that talking about everything that you want to do beforehand like we mentioned before

is a really great way to avoid having to sacrifice too much and avoid having to compromise all of the time.

If you have a game plan, it pretty much solves that problem.

Which brings me to our next point, which is have a plan, but don't over plan.

Over planning is a guaranteed way to totally destroy the spontaneity and the carefree aspect of travel.

When you over plan something, you feel the stress.

You feel like you need to be doing something, or you need to be somewhere at a certain time, and that really just kind of removes you from the moment,

and it's really going to negatively affect your trip.

For us, the best part of traveling together is disconnecting and relaxing.

If you have a plan set in place and you're worrying about that all the time, you're not going to be able to relax.

The best thing about travelling together, what I love most, is having a full day with no plans, and we can either stay in bed all day if we want to or we can go on some crazy adventures.

And I think having that option when you wake up in the morning, depending on how you're feeling, is really important.

So for example, Carrie and I went to Costa Rica for two weeks last summer. It was an amazing trip.