Category: travel

There’s something about travel that really tests a relationship.  Some relationships thrive, and some fail.  Some of my trips have ended in life-long friendships, and some have Ended life-long friendships.  Many have revealed new sides to friends I’ve know for most of my life.

My non-confrontational nature predisposes me to prefer traveling alone sometimes.  I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, without considering anyone else’s needs.  If I’m hungry, I eat.  If I’m not hungry, I keep walking.  If I think something is too expensive, or boring, or exhausting, I don’t do it.  If I want to sleep in, I do it.  I don’t have to deal with anyone being tired, or disappointed, or an annoying tourist.  I can be sneaky and slip through the world unnoticed.  I don’t have to be in any pictures when I’m sweaty and tired and feeling disgusting.  If I screw something up (figuring out trains, language mishaps, directions, end up in a sketchy part of town by accident…), no one knows.  I suffer for a minute, and keep walking.

But then… there are benefits to travelling with friends, fraught with risk though it may be.

SAVINGS!

An obvious one.  You split things like hotels and rental cars, you save money.

These will get more profound, I promise.

SAFETY

This one’s also obvious.  But in addition to just being safer, it expands your radius of exploration when you have someone who boosts your safety score.  I’m definitely restrained and more cautious when I’m travelling alone, and sometimes regret missing out on some things.

SHARED LOAD

Sometimes it’s nice to not have to figure out what to do next.  If you can relinquish control and let someone else decide what to do, you don’t have to do it.  Other people have good ideas, sometimes.  Also, it’s nice to have someone watch or hold your stuff when you use a public bathroom.

MEMORIES

Sure, someone sees when you screw up, and forces you to take photos.  But later, that same person laughs with you about the time you couldn’t figure out the word for “China” in Spanish (which is “China”), or you made a mad dash to find your train and created a classic chasing-after-a-train-leaving-the-platform scene.  They relive the moment you met Zach Braff in London, incredulously, for years.  Those photos you were forced to take might not be ready for your cover story in Vogue, but for the rest of your life you’ll have photos to look at and remember those moments.  They’re there to witness everything that happens, and carry that memory with you for the rest of your friendship.

LEARNING

At this point I like to think of myself as an A+ traveler, with personal best records for packing light, and getting through airport security in record time.  However, I love to see how other people tackle travel challenges, and steal their good ideas.  On a week-long tour of national parks in southern Utah, my friend introduced me to the visitors center videos, and ranger-led tours.  When I traveled alone, my fierce independence and no-nonsense approach to the parks led me right past both of these cool opportunities without a second look.  Now when I visit new parks, I consider these options to help me get oriented and learn new things!

BONDING

Things happen when you travel.  Someone in the group gets taken by Russian guards and you have to figure out where they took them.  Someone gets bombed with pidgeon feces from above.  You have to get a group of drunk adults, one of whom did not buy the tram ticket ahead of time like he was supposed to, back to the hotel on the first night in a foreign city where you don’t even remotely speak the language.  Someone gets sick and has to go to a Russian hospital.  Some of these “someones” become family when you come to each other’s rescue and live to tell the tale.  It’s just something that happens when you travel together.

THEY PICK UP THE SLACK

At this moment in time, the only things I must have when I travel are:

-Safe place to sleep

-Place to shower and toilet

-Transportation from city to city

-Comfortable shoes

-Water

-Money

-Language basics wherever I’m going

I’m confident that if I have these things, everything else will work itself out.  This mindset is great because it helps me embrace serendipity, and provides a nice break from the world of objectives, schedules, and agendas.  Exploration and curiosity are allowed to run wild.  Routines are broken.  This allows me to adjust to new environments, cultures, languages with little at stake if I don’t get it right immediately.

The disadvantage to this mindset is that sometimes I miss things.  Especially travelling abroad, it’s unlikely I’ll be back soon, and I might miss something truly unique and world-class because I just didn’t do any research or planning.  Art.  Sites.  Restaurants.  Vistas.

Luckily, I have a travelling companion who loves researching and planning hotels, tours, restaurants…  she forces me to eat at amazing restaurants when I would usually grab some snacks at the grocery store and eat while I walk around.  She gets the inside info on how to book tour tickets first thing in the morning to get into the Sistine Chapel before it’s packed with tourists.  95% of the time I feel incredibly lucky to have someone with a plan standing next to me, even if 5% of the time I wish we could just “do whatever” and see what happens a little more.  That rarely works out well.  She’s usually right.

It’s worth the risk.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s a nightmare.

But mostly, it’s worth the risk.