This is Optimal Living Daily, episode 278, How to Travel with a Friend Without Strangling Them, by Kristen Wong of thewildwong.com. Get ready to maximize your potential with Optimal Living Daily, the podcast that brings you the best in personal development and productivity every day of the week. Your optimal life awaits. Now here's your host, Justin Malek.
Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Optimal Living Daily podcast. I'm Justin Malek, your very own personal narrator. This is where I read to you every single day so that you don't have to sit down in front of a glowing screen to read your favorite blogs. I read mostly from blogs, but occasionally books, like yesterday.
And today I'm reading from Kristen Wong's blog. She's a freelance writer for massive sites like Lifehacker. This one's about traveling with friends, kind of like a life hacking post, so let's just jump right in and start optimizing your life. How to Travel with a Friend Without Strangling Them by Kristen Wong of thewildwong.com.
After years of friendship, you get pretty close to a person. You both reveal your quirks, expose the darkest, most disturbing parts of your personalities, and probably share a few tears. After that level of intimacy, you know your friend pretty well, until you take a trip with them. Travel can make you see your friend in a totally different light.
For example, my friend Dera always knew I liked Bob Dylan, but she had a whole different perspective on this fact after a seven-hour road trip with my playlist blaring. After about 30 minutes, she said, I guess I don't really like Bob Dylan. And after an hour, okay, that's enough. Then we listened to her electronica and I wanted to shove chewing gum in my ears.
There's nothing like road travel to show you how obnoxious, inspiring, whiny, and hilarious a person is. I love traveling with friends, and I also want to strangle them at least once during a trip. Here's how I've learned to make the most of it. The pros of traveling with a friend.
Obviously, it's fun to do stuff with other people. You have adventures together, and you create stories together. You learn a lot about them, and that brings you closer. You also learn a lot about yourself and your own quirks.
After traveling with my friend Jessica recently, I realized just how low energy I am in the afternoons. She's constantly upbeat and ready to party. I, on the other hand, need alone time between the hours of 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
During our trip, I noticed how introverted and withdrawn I became. She would talk. I would silently nod. She asked questions.
I replied with one-word answers. It wasn't because I was annoyed. I just felt out of it. Since the trip, I realized I feel that way when I'm alone working, too, so I've adjusted my schedule accordingly.
I plan activities like writing and meetings in the mornings when my energy is high and being social doesn't absolutely drain me. Like anything else, you put yourself in a unique situation when you travel with a friend, and unique situations can teach you interesting things about your own character. Traveling solo is great, too, but traveling with a friend can be a whole different, equally fun experience. There are, however, some practical matters to consider.
Nail down your expectations before you leave. We all have different ideas about travel, and you might be planning a crazy, adventurous journey while your friend is hoping to relax. You want to get on the same page about this before you leave. I've found it helps to address a few important overall questions.
What's your overall top goal for this trip? I know it seems counterintuitive to have something to work toward on vacation, but by goal, I simply mean what you hope to take away from it. An overall goal might be to overcome your work burnout and return ready to get back to business. Another goal might be to learn about the culture of the place you're visiting, or to visit family.
Have you been to this destination before? When I traveled to Bogota with one of my best friends years ago, we weren't just exploring a beautiful South American city. We were also visiting his old stomping grounds. That might not seem important, but it has an impact on the tone of the trip.
Even if your friend has only been to a city once or twice, it can affect how you travel. They might not want to do things they've already done. They may know of even better things to do. Or if you've been there and they haven't, you might have to learn to be patient with them as they get the touristy stuff out of the way.
Either way, it helps to know each other's history with the place you're visiting. What must-do activities are on your list? Maybe you want to spend a day doing nothing but sipping pina coladas on the beach. Maybe your friend wants to go ziplining in the rainforest.
When you know what specific activities to expect, you can plan accordingly and maybe even opt out of some of them. Of course, you also want to figure out other practical details like where you'll stay and who will drive if you're taking a road trip. Many of these details are money-related. Talk about money.
It can be awkward to talk about the money. Not talking about it, though, just increases the likelihood that you'll have problems later. Sadly, I didn't talk to one of my closest friends for almost a year because of a money issue we had after a trip together. The issue could have easily been avoided with a detailed conversation beforehand.
Some questions to ponder. Who will pay for gas? How will you split the cost of the hotel? How much do planned activities cost and can both parties afford those activities?
How much do you expect to spend on restaurants? If you run into conflicts, it's a lot easier to resolve them before you spend the money. Schedule time apart. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and it's also a useful tool for not strangling your friends to death.
Spending time with your friends is great, but if you're an introvert, chances are you need time to yourself, too. Even when I travel with my soon-to-be husband, we both take some time to ourselves to explore. This is particularly useful if you both want to do things that the other person doesn't necessarily want to do. When I teased the idea of paragliding, Jessica said, cool, I'll wait for you here.
Many of us need time to nap or just recharge and it's always easier to do that when you're alone. Just make sure to address this, if possible, before you leave. That way, your friend doesn't worry she's annoying you and or you can nip her dreams of spending every waking moment together in the bud. Along the same lines, it's okay to see other people, too.
Hanging out with a third party, together or on your own, creates a new, fun dynamic. If you're getting on each other's nerves, bringing in another friend can diffuse the situation, too. Finally, it helps to break the ice from the beginning. I always address the fact that we're probably going to want to strangle each other by the end of the trip and my friend and I have a good laugh, but deep down, we're both like, it's true, though.
And you know what? It often is. Strong friendships, however, are built on those moments when you can be completely annoyed by a person and still want them in your life forever and ever. Do you travel with friends?
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And now, before we go, I haven't asked this in a long time. The one thing that would be awesome that you could do for me today is to share this podcast with someone else, a friend, a loved one, a co-worker, or even a stranger. Podcasts make great conversation, even if they don't know what a podcast is. More reason to tell them about it or show them right on their phone.
And if you're using it to try to get a date, you can slip your phone number in there while you're at it. Okay, maybe not. But seriously, if everyone listening shared this podcast with just one person, it'd make a huge, huge difference. And I totally know what it's like being on the opposite end and simply listening and never emailing or signing up for mailing lists or sharing the show.
I totally get it. But now that I'm on the other side and I'm on the microphone and production side, I know how difficult it is to get new people to listen to the show. And the best way by far to get great listeners of the show who keep listening has been through word of mouth. So I rely on you for that.
You can email someone a link