We took one of our first big trips in 2017 to Paris, a city I’ve dreamed of visiting since I was 13. Given that Luke didn’t express much interest in planning the trip, I took full liberty and jam-packed our schedule for every single day, in an effort to see everything possible. You know, just in case we didn’t get back to Paris in the near future. While I was fairly tired but thrilled with the trip, Luke h-a-t-e-d running all over the place for a week, and made his feelings known. (Boyfriend Perspective: I mean, 141,000 steps. That’s all I’m gonna say). ANYWAY, that started us on a new adventure of trying to figure out how to plan one trip that two people with sometimes conflicting travel styles will enjoy. We’ve come to all of these questions organically (read: we’ve come to them by taking trips, arguing, and then deciding we don’t want to have that argument again), and even though most of these don’t lead to formal conversations anymore, we do still address each and every one of these items before we go on a trip, and think they’re absolutely essential for couples travel.
Partner travel question #1: “Do you want a vacation or a trip?”
The Paris situation could have been avoided if we’d just had this conversation. Reason being, the answer to this question can help determine the right pacing for your travels. If you both want a trip (defined here as an active getaway full of things to do, places to see, and people to meet) or both want a vacation (defined here as a quiet, relaxing getaway with few expectations and lots of chilling out), then you’re well-aligned and should have a much easier time planning. If you’re on different pages, and Luke and I often are, you’ll need to take extra care with your plans. Balancing is really the tough part, but the upside is there are so many ways to do it. In fact, many couples travel bloggers actually recommend taking time apart on a trip, particularly when you have different interests or desires.
Partner travel question #2: “What’s your budget?”
The answer to this question will help you decide what the magnitude of your trip will be. Hopefully, you had this conversation before you picked your destination, since some locations are just inherently pricey (looking at you again, Paris). But having honest, up-front budget discussions will help you figure out if you’ll be staying in a hostel, an AirBNB, a hotel, or a resort. Will you be making food or enjoying local restaurants? DIYing your explorations or booking tours? This will also keep you from getting stuck with the bill (and a sense of resentment) when it comes time to split costs later on and the trip ended up being too rich for your partner’s blood (yikes). And if the awkwardness of talking about money seems to drown all those other pieces out, just remember this: with all the things that tend to go sideways on trips, you’ll both have enough on your mind without having to worry about the weirdness and stress of money.
Partner travel question #3: “What are the top 3 things (or types of things) you want to do?”
Even if you’re the planner, incorporating feedback from questions like this makes sure your partner feels their voice is heard, which is hugely important. It’s also a great way to start a conversation that might get your partner revved up about doing his or her own research into the destination and the trip, so they can start getting excited with you and feel like they’re a part of it from day one. Sharing trip planning has always been a bit of a struggle between Luke and me, since I’m the itinerary crafter and he’s the “just tell me how much I owe you for my half…” guy. But when I know what kinds of things he wants to do and I can share tours, packages, or destination write-ups with him over the course of a few days or weeks – so he doesn’t go into complete information overload and choice paralysis – we can start to get to a point where I really understand what he wants and needs… and so does he.
Partner travel question #4: “What’s your favorite part about traveling?”
While this sounds like a weird ice-breaker, this is another great question to get a pulse on how your partner prefers to travel. These are the kinds of questions I love to ask over wine or coffee, because we’re both happy, relaxed, and already in a sharing mood. It can also be a more creative way to get at the “what kind of getaway do you want” question, if they’re not really sure how to answer or aren’t as comfortable verbalizing their precise feelings, wants, or needs. The bottom line is that, even if your partner’s favorite thing is your least favorite thing, the best thing about KNOWING this is that you can balance the trip better to make sure they feel fulfilled, too. Plus, it’s a nice way to get to know something new about your honey 🙂
Partner travel question #5: “Are you excited? Why or why not?”
There are few things prior to a trip that feel ickier or sadder than being head-over-heels for your travel plans, and feeling like your partner either doesn’t care or isn’t excited with you. So, before you start to feel irritable about that, maybe check in with them by asking if they’re excited and what has them feeling so stoked – or not stoked – about your upcoming trip. While it might not help in the week leading up to your travels, if you ask early enough, you may be able to provide alterations, information, or something else that will help your partner get that extra kick of anticipation going. For us, it’s usually a lack of information that leads to a lack of enthusiasm. Being the planner in our partnership, I’ve been known to share a Google map with activities or stops laid out, a destination-specific link per day, and/or a curated Pinterest board with Luke in the lead-up to a trip, to get him as excited for our adventure as I am. It usually works 🙂
Boyfriend Perspective: Obvious but important partner travel question #6: “Where do you want to go for vacation?”
I prefer this one because it gets the tough stuff out of the way up front. Beach? Mountains? France? Japan? These are important decisions and can be tough to agree on if both people have lots of feelings about them. We have a map in our family room, where we can see it, and we keep track of all the places we want to go. Then, we put colored pins in the places that we want to go sooner instead of later. It makes it easier to choose when the time finally comes. We also agreed that we want a balanced year in travel, so that means not ALL beaches or not ALL mountains, etc. Just make agreements ahead of time so no one gets testy.
Pin the tips for later!
Erupting with history: Exploring Algar do Carvao and Gruta do Natal
