Travelling As A Couple – How not to kill each other!

Travelling as a couple & how not to kill each other! 

Travelling as a couple is a lot easier than it seems and a lot harder than it looks. We have travelled full time, part time and even lived in a camper van together. We have even done long distance, while travelling. You name it, we have done it. Nearly 4 years later we are still going strong and having met one another while travelling, we know a thing or two about how to travel as a couple, and not to kill each other.

Just a heads up, compromise and communication are going to be a running theme throughout. Sorry for the spoilers 😏

Why Do You Want To Go Travelling? 🗺️

Thinking about the reasons for wanting to go travelling might seem like a stupid question. Who doesn’t want to spend most of their time in a bikini on the beach right? But when it comes down to it, what do you actually like doing. What kind of person are you? Are you a culture vulture and want to visit temples and historical sights?🏺 Do you want to be adventurous and explore off the beaten track?🧗🏻  Are you after cheap booze and a boogie? 🍷 If you have lied on your tinder profile and claimed ‘ you like the outdoors and hiking’ this will bite you in the bum. 🍑

Are you ready for our first mention of our theme… Communication and compromise is key here. Olly and I enjoy everything I mentioned above but sometimes I simply cannot bring myself to visit yet another bloody temple and that is OK. When I voice my opinion, he listens, and we compromise and go somewhere else. If you don’t compromise, is it really going to be fun dragging someone that really doesn’t want to be there around with you? VIBE KILLER! Sitting down before you jet off to talk about what you want to achieve from travelling is strongly advised. 

This is my “I aint taking one more god dam step” face

Sometimes we are lucky enough to enjoy the same things. For example, we love learning about the culture of the countries we visit 🕌 We are constantly asking one another questions when we go somewhere new like ‘why do you think they do that’. Learning about other cultures together is a common interest, but we have separate interests too. Olly enjoys being active and exploring which I dedicate time for and vice versa. We make time for one another’s interests, which works out well.

Teamwork Whilst Travelling As A Couple

Hate to break it to you, but, it’s just the two of you now. Join a team and work together, not against. When we lived in a camper van together for 8 months, we had no choice but work together in a very small space. Every single part of our day would be easier as a two-person job. Cooking dinner? 👩🏻‍🍳 Ask – Do you want help? What can I do? I never wanted to bloody help, but if Olly knows I am willing to, that is what matters.

Delegate responsibilities to what you’re good at. Who is better at keeping track of your spending? Who’s better at finding hotels? Our routine in the camper van went something like this. Milly gets ready while Olly makes breakfast 🍳 Milly washes up while Olly gets ready 🧼 Both decided on what we want to do. Olly drives while Milly navigates and so on🚐 We found what we were good at and we made it work to our own preference. Teamwork makes the dream work…

Check out our Road Trip Travel Guides Here

Travelling As A Couple, Don’t Get Hangry 🍕

The reason for most arguments on the road, is being tired and hungry = Hangry. Learning to recognise this in your significant other is a life skill worth having. This is the number one reason we argued in Australia. Sometimes exploring can be exhausting and then on top of that you must find a campsite, find food and then cook it. Our advice get yourself a pizza and all will be OK 🍕 Don’t get me wrong, we still argue. If Olly is hangry and I can’t tell, we end up arguing about the smallest thing and it often ends with me shouting COMMUNICATION at him. 🤬

Snacks saves lives people. Especially on road trips. 🍪

Travelling as a couple – Planning 🗓️

Planning comes easy for me because I am one of the most organised people I know, Olly on the other hand, not so much. The perfect balance between spontaneity and planning can make a trip seamless. Take a week’s view, aim to end up somewhere by Sunday and book accommodation and figure the rest out as you go. 🗓️

Even with all the planning in the world it is inevitable that you will get lost. With that in mind DARE you to give me a reason why it matters? Getting lost can sometimes end up the best travel stories. So, what if you miss a bus, there will be another one. Things happen for a reason people.

Be a Social Butterfly and make friends! 🦋

Travelling as a couple, it is so easy not to make any effort with other people you meet along the way. You’re already travelling with someone, why do you need to talk to other people? I am GUILTY of thinking this way. If people start talking to us, I stay silent and let Olly do all the talking. What I didn’t realise was how much I needed to talk to other people. Sometimes a girl needs other girls to vibe with and sometimes Olly needs guys to drink beer with 🍻

The people you meet along your travels are like no other people you will ever meet. We have met some of our bestest friends travelling. I hate to break it to you but, other than your parents, these people are the only other people that will care to listen to stories about your travelling. You have a common interest, so you will naturally get along a lot better. They will be able to relate to you on a level your friends back home won’t be able to.

You need some ME time 🧖🏻‍♀️

Travelling as a couple is an amazing thing. Not sure about you but whenever something amazing happens, Olly is the first person I want to tell, so travelling with him, makes travelling that much better. You get to see the world together and experience some of the most insanely beautiful places on the planet. But let’s not forget the most important person in your life, you! All that time together needs a healthy balance of me time too.

Time apart is good for the soul and everyone needs some me time. Sleeping in hostels can help this as we would often have our me time in our separate bunk beds, doing what we enjoyed. Living in a camper van meant my Me time was sometimes spent laying right next to Olly. But this didn’t matter. I would tell him; I am going to watch my show for an hour is that ok?🎥 And he would do his own thing having his own ‘Me time‘ whether that be reading a book or editing photos. Zoning out and getting far too into Riverdale is ok right?

It’s okay to be a Spendy Susan sometimes 🤑

It’s time to put the phones, iPad, laptops down kids. Spending some quality time together, even though you’re with them 24/7 might sound silly. But, it is important to make quality time for one another. If you have the budget, get some Luxury travel under your belt and book a nice hotel room for one night. Splash out on an Airbnb for one night and make it movie date night. Small simple moments you put a side for one another can mean so much more. Don’t have the budget? Do what we did and make a cosy set up in the park with a few nibbles and chat away star gazing.

Don’t do it for the Gram 📲

As Travel Bloggers our aim for most places we visit is to take lots of photos. Couple Travel Blogging is something we enjoy doing as well as Photography in general. If you’re anything like us, then you also aspire to take the best photo for Instagram #travelcouple! Our one rule of travelling is to experience places first, before we get the camera out. Sometimes it is instinct to get my phone out and record this amazing view in front of me. But we do actively try not to stress over social media. You have no idea how much effort goes into ‘creating content’ and the pressures that follows it. Not getting the perfect photo or not liking how I physically look in a photo can bring my mood right down. We can sometimes compare ourselves to others which is such an unhealthy thing to do. If you take in your surroundings and experience things first, photos come last then that is a step closer to healthier ways of thinking.

Travelling As A Couple And Live In The Now 

Naturally you are always looking forward to the next best thing, the next weekend, the next party, the next holiday. But have you ever stopped to take in the right here, right now? I regularly text my dad something along the lines of “Omg guess what we did today, it was the best day ever”. He replies with “how many best day evers have you had now?” This got us thinking about everything we have seen and done while being away.

This is our second time travelling the world and our main goal of this trip was to see more wildlife and go to places we’ve never been before, hence our name… Unexplored Footsteps 👣 So far we’ve been to so many incredible places we can’t pick our favourite. But the moral of this short story is to take a step back and reflect on everything you’ve done. Because in one way or another it’s been the best day ever! You never know you’re in the good old days until you’re not anymore. Take more photos, write down your experiences and you can cherish these times for years to come

I have solo travelled, I have travelled with friends and I have travelled with Olly and every time, I would pick travelling with Olly. There is something so special about travelling with your significant other. It has brought us together in a way I can’t even describe. We are on each other’s team in every aspect and I don’t think we would be this close, comfortable and trusting if we hadn’t travelled together for so long. It is still surprising that we haven’t killed one another yet, but we pride ourselves on communication and compromise 😏

You need to be realistic and acknowledge that it won’t always be perfect bliss. As long as you have the emotional intelligence to realise that you aren’t perfect yourself and neither should you expect your partner to be flawless, then you’ll be OK.

Pin Our Travelling As A Couple For Later

Follow:

0