Suitcase? Done.
Itinerary? Done.
Touristic guide? Here it is.
Tickets? Here they are.
Let’s go! Together?

When we leave for a journey, we choose a destination, we devour touristic guides and books, we buy tickets, and we pack. Is that it? No. There is another element for the success of an adventure:  a good travel companion.

Let’s admit it. Whether as a couple, with friends, family, work colleagues or unknown people met online, to travel in company is not always a simple and nice experience.

A journey can strengthen and create amazing relationships. Nevertheless, it can also break those bonds, making us not wanting to travel with that person anymore.

Even it is not always possible to choose a good travel companion, we can always think about what it means to be a perfect travel companion, finding ispirations for the next adventures.

5 tips for a good travel companion

I remember my first travel: I was “unexperienced”, and I didn’t know what it meant to travel farther from home and in company.

I also recall the first fights, the frowns for being forced to accept other people’s decision, as well as the first laughs and smiles, sharing a plate, a picture or an anecdote together.

All the journeys until now, helped me understand what I want from a journey and, especially, what I’m looking for in a travel companion.

Therefore, I will tell you some anecdotes to learn together how to choose a good travel partner. Here’s 5 tips:

1) Alike and different: find your compatibility

One of my favourire travel companion is my life partner Lele, even though we are quite different – apparently, at least.

I am a big dreamer. In fact, I created ways to see the world while staying at home during the pandemic; Lele, instead, is pragmatic and grounded, thinking about a trip only when already booked.

Being born in a city, nature is my escape. It makes me feel  balanced and at peace with the World. Lele, agronomist grown on the mountains, knows any name-treatment-species-type of plants and animals. Therefore, when surrounded by nature, he experiences that state of primordial emotion as the main character of a wild adventure.

I am an introvert. He is an extrovert.

Lele and I have quite different personalities, and yet, we are more alike than we think. Over the time, and traveling together, we realized we share the same love for the world, a similarity we express on our own way, that has kept us together for twelve years now. 

During our journeys, our different personalities and interests were the right inputs to confront ourselves and grow.

Diversities allowed us to discover different ways to face the same situations, to manage difficulties, to experience events, to see the world, to engage in new activities and challenges. Briefly, to find a way to understand each other.

A good travel companion is not a different or a same person to us, it is just a compatible one.

China. The joy of a gaze

2) Curiosity and anxiety: inner motivations

I acknowledge it, I lack of sense of direction. If there was an award, I would be the worldwide winner of the “lost in the street”.

The most oustanding moment was in Fez, Morocco. I had to get back to the Riad, at the gates of Medina, in order to get a thing I needed but forgot in my room. Sara, cousin and companion of numerous adventures, reached me at the riad, not seeing me return. She opened the door saying: “You got lost, right?”, “I missed the intersection to turn left!”, I answered laughing.

So, during my trips, I am not the one holding the map.

However, if during my first adventures “to miss a road” made me feel more insecure and anxious, today it is just a new dimension of curiosity: I love the wise art of getting lost. And this is how, Sara and I  met Yussef, a spices seller, that invited us to his house for a tea with his family, after feeling sorry for us lost in front of his shop.

I learned that a good travel companion has to share with me two inner motivations: the same curiosity toward the destination, and the positivite and functional anxiety the excitement of discovery creates, for which “to get lost” is not a problem. 

This is how we will have funny anecdotes to share, how we will be able to get oustide our comfort zone, and this is how the unforseen events will turn into great and new adventures.

Fez. Greetings from the intricate medina

3) Flexible and honest: the art of compromise

I was in Ibiza with three globetrotter friends of mine, Federica, Linda and Clio. As we used to, we visited the island off-season. We were divided between the one who did not want to drive, the one who wanted to see the bustling market, and the one who wanted to admire the Mediterranean nature or the plain white architecture. However, we bonded over the desire of discovery and the joy of eating paella: we found a meeting point, respecting everyone’s desires and our timetable. 

By definition, a journey is imbued with changes and adjustments.

In fact, it poured in Ibiza, the temperatures plummeted, therefore we had more cups of tea than sangria, and we lost the wheel rims of the car while on the road. Todays, they are all funny moments, but at the time we felt chased by bad luck.

To travel as a group means you have to take with you a good amount of flexibility. Flexibility makes us able to face unexpected events, but also to understand yours and the others’ needs.

Hold a grudge or do something, to then complain about it, or even force ourselves in order to make somebody happy, it is frustrating and can jeopardize the group’s dynamics. 

A good travel companion is able to listen saying “let’s choose”, to find a compromise with a felt “ok”, but he is also aware of what he can honestly accept saying “no, I prefer to do something else”.

Ibiza. A sun salutation flow without the sun – Ph. @Linda

4) Travel style: can we travel together?

Throughout my journeys, I learned to select my travel companions according to their approach to life.

Sometimes “trial weekends” are necessary in order to understand the opposite styles of traveling. However, more often it is enough to acknowledge an incompatibility just from the way a friend think or live his life. Even if we love each other, during a journey we may not want to compromise. This does not mean we have to give up our trip, nor we have to go together, with the risk of breaking or cracking that bond.

So, how to do it?

We can go with an organized travel group, with the same travel style, the same curiosity and interest toward the chosen destination as we have. Or we can solo travel and bond with new people on the road, whether in a hostel, during an excursion or at a bar.

If we find people sharing our travel style, it will be easier to find also a great adventure companion.

Tulum. Everyone has their travel companion

5) What does it mean to be a good travel companion?

A good travel companion is supportive, from a psychological and from a practical point of view. The aim is to turn the journey into a pleasant experience, where trust and being able to face together the obstacles are rewarded. 

There is no space for selfishness and egocentricity, because to be a good travel companion means to see the other as a partner in adventure, not a chaperon.

To be a good travel companion means to acknowledge our own diversities and use them as a source from which to draw, in order to find ourselves more united, similar and authentic like the adventure we want to experience together.

“Companion” means to “accompany, be present for the other”.

Chiara Travel Psych

Una psicologa con la valigia sempre in mano.
Benvenuti nel blog di Psicologia del viaggio.

www.travelpsych.world