Advice on Traveling with friend

ladiesman216

Ok im just looking for peoples advice based on their experience:

I intend on going traveling this year with a friend of mine, it would be just the 2 of us. we're good friends but not great friends (in that i've never lived with him, wouldnt really do stuff with just him, if we went on holidays its always been a group of us (actually this sounds really gay!)) but what i wonder is that if we go then we will be sick of each other in no time, and possibly even fall out.

now i know everyone says 'oh you'll meet loads of people' but is this actually the case, i mean do others that have travelled in 2's find that its really just the 2 of them more often than not?

maggiemissy

tough one! Hard to call really, travelling can be stressful but a lot of that depends on where you travelling to and it can be pretty easy to have a falling out but in saying that some of my best friends are people that i've met while travelling and you always met up with other backpackers so its not like you'd be completely reliant on one person all the time, I wouldn't worry about it to much, just go and have a good time. Where you heading to anyway?:D

Gemma01

The best idea is to be flexible. If you both give each other enough space and do things on you own sometimes rather than dragging the other along when they have no interest in something then you should be fine. As for making friends along the way it depends but anyone who makes a bit of an effort to strike up conversation with other travellers should be able to make new friends.

listermint

I would suggest you enjoy everything, but definitely make effort to meet and hang out with others along the way.

I went with my mate travelling, he ended up making a big hullaballo about some girls that he was two timing and he got caught out. I stayed out of the situation but he saw it as if i wasnt backing him up? Basically its better to have some time to yourself aswell as mutual activities.

incidently we went seperate paths halfway and I went travelling with another group of people.

Best of luck,

ladiesman216

Thanks for the replies guys. thinking of doing a RTW trip basically.
Ya its a tough one to call, i definitely dont want to fall out but it is very difficult to spend so much time with one person without getting sh1t sick of them.

whydoibother?

The thing is, travelling requires a bit of flexibility. Ye may have agreed a broad outline of where ye're going and when but jobs and other opportunties and relationships gets in the way. The usual situation where differences occur is where one person wants to change the plan and the other doesn't. E.g. one of ye gets a good job, according to the plan it's time to move on, one wants to go, the other wants to stay and earn more. Another e.g. - one of ye gets a girlfriend and doesn't want to leave girlfriend or wants to travel somewhere else with girlfriend. As long as ye have the same outlook ye'll be fine - either that ye're each happy to make ye're own plans depending on what arises, or that ye're going to stick together no matter what. Just don't have a situation where one person feels free to do what they like and the other feels obliged to loyally stick to the plan. That's a recipe for problems.

Up-n-atom!

I think you should maybe talk it over a bit. I went travelling with a good friend a few years ago, just for a month, and while we got on fine there was a bit of bickering. I can imagine it would've been worse if we had been on a longer trip - we did meet other people and socialised with them, but we were always together and sometimes that was hard.

If you're open at all you should meet other people, no problem. You could even end up tagging along with other people for periods of you trip if you're all heading in the same direction and have befriended each other. You could discuss with your friend how you don't necessarily have to be with each other all the time, and to give each other space to do different activities or to just have some 'me' time without neglecting the fact that you're travelling together.

dory

It depends where you go.

I find Europe harder to meeting people in. I don't know why, it just seems that way. More of a place people go with friends to spend time with friends rather than say South America where solo travellers go and meet people.

Make sure you both say at the start that you can go do your own thing. Try to stay in hostels with a common room so you can meet others. And start up conversation with randomers in hostels, if they've been travelling a while they'll be used to it.

I wouldn't travel with just one other person unless I was sure about them. I've done it twice and it has worked out great, but only for a month each time. We really gave each other freedom - no nagging the other person to go out when they don't want to.