This is a guest post by Ant, who used to blog at Positive World Travel, a travel blog that focused on couples travel tips. Their blog is no longer in existence.

When traveling the world as a couple, there can come a time when your relationship “spark” loses some its brightness. While exploring new cultures and racing around the world, it‘s easy for your relationship to fall to the wayside or end up in a rut.

I’m talking from experience.

Our relationship has become boring and mundane a few times, but we‘ve found many ways to keep igniting the flame over and over again. The important thing is to try and keep your relationship as fresh and as exciting as the countries you‘re visiting.

Here are a 6 ways Elise and I have found to keep our relationship interesting while we travel the world:

1. Organize a Date Night

As corny as it might sound, going out on an actual “date” can do wonders for your relationship. It can get monotonous sightseeing, eating cheap meals, or cooking your own food day in and day out, so making time for a special night can be something to look forward to.

Elise and I plan a date night every two weeks. We spend a little extra money, go to a nice restaurant, and dress up as best we can. We spend that night not talking about our website or what we did that day but rather talking with one another, putting our dream caps on, and playing the “what if” game.

Elise loves to chat about our eventual wedding, and even though it can drive me crazy at times (I never knew you could talk so much about floral arrangements!), date nights are a great way to share and chat about her — err, I mean our — dream wedding.

Date nights give you the opportunity to listen and reconnect with one another outside the traveling experience.

2. Be Spontaneous

Traveling as a couple can take its toll on each of you, and this tip is one of our key ingredients to success. Elise likes our travels to be somewhat planned, and I try and mix things up and be spontaneous, which keeps her thinking because she doesn‘t know what I have planned next.

If you have extra time in the city you‘re in, head out for the day and just act on a whim. Do activities you hadn’t considered before. Try some romantic activities like booking a massage together. Or try something more fun and unconventional when traveling, such as seeing a movie or going bowling.

Traveling doesn‘t always have to be about sightseeing. You can spend time doing “normal” activities that you did back home, too.

3. Embrace Celebrations

Even while traveling, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries is important to any relationship. It doesn’t matter if you‘re in the middle of nowhere, because the fact that you‘ll go to a little extra effort and get creative will always make your partner happy.

Once when we were camping, it was Elise’s birthday and we were far from any nice restaurants. So, the morning of her birthday, I woke up early to blow up 23 balloons and then gently placed them throughout our tent. I woke her up to an out-of-tune singing birthday candle and a dry piece of cake I found at a corner store the day before. She was delighted that I had gone to the trouble of making her birthday a little special even though we were camping.

We spent the rest of the day at a deserted beach, and Elise says that it was one of her best birthdays ever.

4. Plan Surprises

Even though you‘re traveling on a limited budget, a surprise every now and again will always excite your better half. Elise knows that I‘m a sucker for dark chocolate, and I always get excited when she‘s been out to run some errands and jumps on the bed with both hands behind her back when she gets home. I love that she thinks of me while she‘s out. It brings joy to our relationship.

Try to surprise each other with little touches here and there. Even a small gesture can work wonders.

5. Face Your Fears Together

Doing activities that one or both of you have a fear of can bring you together and bond you. Sharing a fear and overcoming it will definitely bring the spark back and a sense of achievement for you both.

Elise has a small fear of heights, and she has regularly pushed herself to confront this fear over the past 18 months. She has jumped out of planes and off cliffs into fast-flowing rivers. Each time she faces this fear I get so proud of her and it deepens my love for her.

Supporting your partner and giving them the encouragement they need to face their fears or overcoming them together is an instant bonding moment shared between the two of you and only strengthens your relationship.

6. Get Intimate

It has to be noted that sex is an important part of every relationship, and when you’re not having any, you‘re bound to be fighting more. Traveling in dirty environments and staying in shared accommodation can be a dampener to sexual relations. Finding time for a romp when there are train schedules to work out, long and sweaty bus rides to take, or a day battling annoying touts can be difficult.

Spending a little extra money from time to time and staying in a private room is the best way to find some alone time, as having sex in hostels can be quite tricky otherwise. Elise and I do this from time to time to make sure we can have intimate moments together. It’s worth the extra time and money. Trust me.

Even couples that have been together for years and years all need to take time out every now and again to make sure the spark is still there. The most important tip is to work out what works for you as a couple. Elise and I always make sure we not only have time for long-term travel and all that entails but also for making our relationship work on the road and keeping the spark alive.

Ant is one half of the dynamic duo who used to blog at Positive World Travel. They wrote about their experiences and thoughts on what long-term travel is like as a couple, though they no longer blog.
 

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This is a guest post by Elise, one half of Positive World Travel. She’s an expert on what it’s like traveling as a couple. In this post, she shares her advice on how to keep your relationship functioning on the road by dividing up responsibilities. NOTE: As of 2016, their blog is no longer active.

In a previous post, Anthony wrote about how compromise and communication are key factors in maintaining a successful travel relationship.

I also wrote about how “me time” can do wonders for avoiding arguments and keeping the relationship fresh.

But there’s another important tip to keep in mind: making sure each partner has certain responsibilities on the road.

When it comes to planning a trip and traveling as a couple, there are many tasks to perform when you travel. Questions constantly need to be answered: Where are you going to stay? What visas do you need? What currency is accepted? Who’s going to make transport inquiries? Who’s going to book flights?

Splitting up these tasks early on can make traveling with your partner far easier and much less stressful than a disorganized approach, giving you time to focus on the thrills and experiences rather than the mundane and nitty-gritty aspects of long-term travel.

Anthony and I learned from the get-go that it pays to know who’s doing what on the road. We both now have our own little roles we take on every day.

For example, I now am the official key bearer for our room, which means I’m responsible for making sure our room is locked and that I have the key safely tucked away and on me at all times.

We spent far too many nights early on during our trip having the same conversation:

“Do you have the key?”

“No, I thought you took it.”

“Well, I didn’t take it. It was on your side of the table.”

“Where is it then? I don’t have it.”

It’s a small role, but it’s an important one nonetheless, and we save ourselves from getting into fights.

When you’re traveling as a couple, splitting up the responsibilities of travel has other benefits. You can save a lot of time and frustration if you assign planning jobs when organizing your onward travel.

For example, instead of both looking for cheap accommodation, one person can be finding accommodation while the other can be figuring out transport.

This, in turn, can save time and reduce conflict and stress. By splitting up the workload, you each have a single focus rather than trying to cope with everything at once.

For instance, Anthony is in charge of booking and organizing all onward travel, whether overland or by plane, and I’m in charge of or researching and finding accommodation at our next destination. We both decided on these roles fairly early on.

A month or so into our trip we were finding ourselves being disorganized in terms of transport and accommodation. I remember specifically, in Malaysia, we were traveling late at night into the town of Semporna. Ant had told me that he already had accommodation in mind.

However, when we finally got off the bus, Ant didn’t have a clue where any of the hostels were or how to get to them (and, of course, there were no tuk-tuk drivers in sight!). The road was deserted except for a few stray dogs. A heated argument ensued, and it wasn’t until much later that we ended up in a hostel room.

This only had to happen once for it to be decided that I would be in charge of finding accommodation on our trip.

When deciding who will take on what roles and responsibilities, it all comes down to knowing your partner. You must have an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. I’m in charge of finding and researching accommodation because I’m good at it. While we try not to plan too far into our trip, I love to be organized.

Anthony can’t stand spending time online looking for places to stay and reading reviews. But me? I love it! Anthony trusts that I will choose a good place to stay, and he’s happy that he doesn’t have to do it himself.

What I’m not good at are directions. Never have been. Getting from A to B has never been a strong suit of mine.

In India a few years ago, Anthony bravely handed over the map for the day as I insisted that I was fine in directing us through small towns and villages high in the north.

Four hours later (when we should have reached a town by then), we were still walking slowly uphill. Anthony then asked for the map, only to announce that I had been leading us in the total opposite direction!

Tired and fed up, we hitchhiked our way back to the starting point, fuming silently in the car.

I also know that Ant is better with saving money while traveling. That is his strength. He sorts out exchange rates and conversions and knows when best to exchange our money.

Of course, when you’re out on the road, there may be times when these responsibilities change as your travels develop or things crop up, but at least having an idea of who will do what is a good start.

The key to making this work is being consistent. Don’t chop and change all the time or become lazy at what you’re both supposed to do. It may sound like being back at an old desk job, but being consistent with tasks — even when traveling — only makes things easier.

But while splitting up jobs and taking on different roles all helps make travel easier, there’s one job that you should still both do together: making decisions.

While compromising will come into play when making decisions, don’t take the idea of splitting up the jobs of travel to the extreme and only have one person make all the important choices during your trip.

Remember, traveling as a couple is about working as a team and doing things together.

Balancing the workload, knowing your partner, and staying consistent will make your travels easier, happier, and more rewarding.
 

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This is a guest post by Ant, one half of Positive World Travel.

Elise and I fight. A lot.

It’s usually about petty things that don’t really matter, but in the heat of the moment, sometimes even the smallest issues get blown out of proportion.

It’s the stupid stuff, like where we should go next or what we should see. We argue about food a lot, too. Elise is always hungry and needs to eat throughout the day, whereas I can last all day on one big meal.

And our filming often causes disagreements; we don’t always share the same “vision.”

Spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week with someone is bound to take its toll at some point or another. It’s normal. In all honesty, I would be more worried about our relationship if we didn’t fight after spending this much time together.

Our fights typically occur on travel days, when one of us is either tired, hungry (mostly Elise!), or fed up with the day. Traveling 18–24 hours on buses, trains, or planes hardly brings the best out in anyone. The snapping begins over something trivial (like what taxi to catch), and before you know it we’re fighting about how Elise never listens or how I never understand her feelings.

One classic fight that should have earned us a spot on Jerry Springer happened when we were traveling from Kathmandu to Chitwan in Nepal. Chitwan is only 150km away from Nepal’s capital, but the road conditions are really poor, so we were on a cramped minibus for about eight hours.

As soon as we got off the bus, Elise started complaining about how she had a sore neck and just needed a sleep and a shower. I, on the other hand, was feeling pretty good. The motion sickness tablets I had taken knocked me out during the trip, and I had managed to grab some sleep on the bus.

That’s when the bickering started.

We snapped at each other about the best way to reach our guesthouse, what guesthouse we were going to stay at, and how long we would be staying there. We bickered the whole time until we found a place to stay. As soon as we were in our room, things got worse. The fighting eventually escalated until I went for a walk and Elise had a nap.

When I came back from my walk, the fight started again. This time it was about how I never put my toothbrush or contact lens solution in the right spot and how Elise can never remember where she keeps things in her backpack.

The fight continued for another several minutes, and we began to pick on issues totally unrelated to the original topic. When does a fight ever stay on topic anyway? You always end up fighting about irrelevant issues. You say things you’ll regret later and don’t even really mean in the first place.

With tears in Elise’s eyes and I so exhausted by the whole argument, we had to make a choice: either continue fighting or come to our senses.

I told Elise we both needed to calm down and look at what we were fighting about. What was the root of the argument? Nothing but a bumpy bus ride.

I think Elise was just as relieved as I was to end the fight, and we ended up talking about ways we can resolve these conflicts and stop them from happening in the future.

How to Resolve Conflicts

The thing with fighting on the road is that the arguments take on a different form than the fights you have at home. At home, there are distractions like friends and work to keep your mind off the argument.

When traveling, however, there’s no escape. You have to talk about how you feel or what’s bothering you and come to a resolution.

What works really well for us is having a “word.” One word that you can both use if you think the other person is picking a fight for the sake of it. You both have to like this agreement. You can’t abuse the word and say it whenever you want just to shut your partner up. It has to work for both of you.

This approach has really saved us and prevented a lot of fights from starting. For instance, if Elise is complaining about how long we’ve been walking or how hungry she is, it tends to get on my nerves. I’ll make comments back to her that can be a little heated, and Elise will simply use the word. It snaps me straight back into line.

Even though it may sound silly to act so quickly on one little word, it really does help us to prevent situations from spiraling out of control. I realize that what I’m saying is unnecessary. Problem solved. Fight avoided. Happy days.

Honesty is another important part of a relationship that can help resolve conflicts. Not being afraid to express how you feel is so important during an argument. You have to be able to listen to each other’s point of view and take both criticism and advice to heart.

Arguments are no different than a disease, and prevention is always better than a cure.

After 16 months on the road, we, as a couple, have pretty much figured out how to avoid the bigger arguments. We still bicker a lot, but it’s never anything as serious as the fight in Nepal. We are now conscious of what can set each other off and always try to minimize those actions before they escalate out of control.

Traveling lets us work together in stressful situations and solve problems, but it also allows us to learn how to prevent arguments. The latter is the most challenging thing about traveling as a couple by far, but I think we are slowly mastering it.

Anthony is one half of the dynamic duo from Positive World Travel.
 

Related Articles

• Keeping the Relationship Spark Alive on the Road
• The Importance of Personal Time
• Why a 50 Year Old Couple Sold It All to Travel the World

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Have you ever felt burned out from travel? It happens often if you’re on the road for a while or traveling too quickly. It’s something most long-term travelers deal with from time to time — myself included. In my experience, personal time is the best solution. This is a guest post by Elise, one-half of Positive World Travel. She shares her thoughts on travel burnout and the importance of making time for yourself.

I’m going to be selfish for this post. I’m going to write about myself. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with the details of my favorite food, hobbies, or shoe size.

Instead, I’m going to talk about why taking some time out from being a couple can be a good thing when you travel.

Yes, I’m talking about that popular catchphrase, “Me time.”

Last month, when Anthony wrote about traveling as a couple, he spoke from the heart and really hit the nail on the head as to what couples travel is all about.

It’s about the experiences and memories that you create together, and it’s about being a unit and sharing your adventures.

While all that is true, I thought it was important to mention that while having a successful relationship on the road does stem from compromise, communication, and understanding, another important factor is taking the time to do things that are just for you.

Without trying to sound too much like a TV talk show host and shouting, “Go on, girl! You deserve it! Let it be all about YOU! Do it for yourself!” I do believe it’s true that doing things for yourself can lead to twice as many benefits for a couple. Being selfish every once in a while can be a good thing.
 

Why Is “Me Time” Important for My Relationship?

Life on the road is different from life back home. Regular routines or structures are things of the past. You have to work, communicate, and solve problems together while navigating new surroundings frequently.

While Ant and I do most things together, we have days when we need our own space. Sometimes we just need to do our own thing, whether sitting on the beach with our iPod or off doing a hike alone.

Ant got the chance to go spearfishing the other day, which left me alone all day to do as I pleased.

Was I bored? Did I get lonely? No, I spent the day pampering myself! I washed my hair, gave myself a nice mani and pedi, and then lost myself in a good novel. I even went out to a local store and stocked up on chocolate.

Taking time away from your partner and doing what you want for yourself gives you time to relax and recharge, which only helps your relationship. You’ve done your own thing, so now you can be ready to listen, compromise, and be a loving partner with even more confidence.

I think some arguments that Ant and I have had simply happened because we didn’t have enough separate space. Everyone needs their own personal space. Taking some time to go off exploring on your own, reading a book, or doing an activity can really solve some problems before they even begin to bubble to the surface.

Furthermore, “me time” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “alone time.” It can quite often mean hanging out with fellow travelers, and it can be a great chance to let you and your partner interact in different environments.

While Ant and I really do love each other’s company, we also enjoy meeting other people from all over the world. Quite often we will have a few drinks with other travelers and barely speak to each other the whole night. We get lost in other people’s stories.

Taking time for yourself is such a good thing, but what makes “me time” even more enjoyable is being able to recount your day. The day after Ant returned from spearfishing, it felt like we hadn’t seen each other in ages! We were so excited to chat about what we had done! We chatted and laughed about our adventures that night over a bottle of wine and some freshly grilled fish that Ant had caught.

It was just as exciting as when we go out and do something together, and it helped keep the energy and excitement in our relationship going.

Don’t be afraid to ask your partner if you can do your own thing for a while. Chances are they will want to too!

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This post is part of a series of posts by Ant and Elise, a couple that has been traveling together for over a year. They will be writing a monthly column on traveling as two since I want to be able to provide some advice for couples traveling but I tend to travel mostly alone.

Traveling as a couple is unlike anything else. You’re not alone, nor are you just traveling with some friends. It’s more than that. You’re traveling as a unit, and as such you get to share all your experiences (including the downsides of travel) with someone else.

It’s about seeing places and sights for the first time and knowing you’ve done it together. It’s about creating memories that you can look back on for years to come, knowing you shared them with each other.

Elise and I have been together for five years (engaged for one year), and we’ve been traveling as a couple since the beginning of 2010.

We decided to travel long-term because we wanted to explore the world rather than work our fingers to the bone. We saved hard for three years, quit our jobs, sold our things, and never looked back.

Was it the right decision?

Definitely! Deciding to travel together was one of the easiest choices we ever made. People told us that traveling as a couple would either “make or break” our relationship, and in all honesty, I can see how that may be the case.

You’re with the other person 24/7, and you really do get to know them on a deeper level. There’s no hiding who you really are. It can be tough for some people, but while there have been trying times, it’s only made us stronger.

The biggest thing that makes couples travel work is compromise. Although Elise and I have similar interests, there are still many times we give and take with one another.

Not only does compromising allow your partner to experience something that they really want to do, but it also opens your own eyes to another side of travel that you might not have experienced on your own. That’s what couples travel is all about.

It’s about doing things with and for your partner.

It’s inevitable, however, that you’re bound to fight at one stage or another. The times that Elise and I have had disagreements are usually over matters that don’t need addressing. The best solution to an argument is to talk with each other truthfully and listen to what your partner has to say. You have time to come to a resolution and there’s no need to blow anything out of proportion.

Nipping the issue in the bud before things get out of hand is always the best way to try and solve problems. Communication is the key to any successful relationship.

We’ve discovered that the underlying factor to most of our arguments is that one of us just needs some “me” time.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have some time on your own. Doing your own thing for a while really helps you appreciate the other person, and it also helps you to see things from their perspective. Just spending a few hours on your own sometimes can make all the difference even if you haven’t been fighting with your partner.

On the other hand, the support that comes from couples travel is greatly rewarding. When you’re sick or tired, your partner is there to pull you out of the rut, cheer you up, and get you back on your feet.

Your partner will be there when you need someone to talk to and when you want to share your deepest fears and sorrows. You get to see each other in a new light and learn more about each other than you ever would back at home. You’re that little piece of home to each other that’s so good to have around.

Traveling together enhances the quality of time you get to spend with your loved one. Because you’re with someone 24/7, there’s always the opportunity to laugh, chat, and play together. You’re really able to appreciate the small moments together. Waiting for a bus for 12 hours can end up feeling like five minutes.

Whatever way you look at it, traveling as a couple is a unique experience. It bonds you and brings you together; it’s something special you both share that will truly last a lifetime.

Anthony is one half of the dynamic duo at Positive World Travel. Both he and Elise will be writing about their experiences and thoughts on what long-term travel is like as a couple.

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