DIVIDING UP travel responsibilities

Updated: 04/11/19 | April 11th, 2019

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 guidance 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 NOTE: as of 2016, their blog is no longer active.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 essential elements 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 essential suggestion to keep in mind: making sure each partner has certain responsibilities on the road.

When it concerns planning a trip and traveling as a couple, there are numerous tasks to carry out when you travel. questions continuously 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 simpler 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 essential bearer for our room, which implies I’m responsible for making sure our room is locked and that I have the essential safely tucked away and on me whatsoever times.

We spent far too numerous 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 essential 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 searching for cheap accommodation, one person can be finding accommodation while the other can be figuring out transport.

This, in turn, can save time and decrease 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 chose 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 chauffeurs 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 chose 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 should 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 searching for places to stay and reading reviews. men mig? Jag älskar det! Anthony trusts that I will choose a good place to stay, and he’s pleased that he doesn’t have to do it himself.

What I’m not good at are directions. har aldrig varit. 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 ought to 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 åtminstone att ha en uppfattning om vem som kommer att göra det som är en bra start.

Det väsentliga för att göra detta arbete är att vara konsekvent. Hacka inte och ändra hela tiden eller bli lat över vad du båda förväntas göra. Det kan låta som att vara tillbaka på ett gammalt skrivbordsjobb, men att vara i överensstämmelse med uppgifter – även när du reser – gör det bara enklare.

Men när du delar upp jobb och tar på sig olika roller alla hjälper till att göra resor enklare, finns det ett jobb som du borde fortfarande göra tillsammans: fatta beslut.

När du komprometterar kommer att spela när du fattar beslut, ta inte upp idén att dela upp arbetet med resor till det extrema och bara få en person att göra alla väsentliga val under din resa.

Kom ihåg att resa som ett par handlar om att arbeta som ett team och göra saker tillsammans.

Att balansera arbetsbelastningen, känna din partner och hålla dig konsekvent kommer att göra dina resor enklare, lyckligare och mycket mer givande.

Boka din resa: logistiska förslag och tricks
Boka din flygning
Hitta en billig flygning genom att använda Skyscanner. Det är min favorit sökmotor eftersom den söker på webbplatser och flygbolag runt om i världen så att du alltid vet att ingen sten lämnas omvänd.

Boka ditt boende
Du kan boka ditt vandrarhem med Hostelworld. Om du vill stanna någon annanstans än ett vandrarhem, använd Booking.com eftersom de konsekvent returnerar de billigaste priserna för pensionat och hotell.

Glöm inte reseförsäkring
Reseförsäkring kommer att skydda dig mot sjukdom, skada, stöld och avbokningar. Det är omfattande skydd om något går fel. Jag åker aldrig på en resa utan den eftersom jag har varit tvungen att använda den flera gånger tidigare. Mina favoritföretag som erbjuder bästa service och värde är:

SafetyWing (bäst för alla)

Försäkra min resa (för de över 70)

Medjet (för ytterligare evakueringstäckning)

Redo att boka din resa?
Kolla in min resurssida för de bästa företagen att använda när du reser. Jag listar alla de jag använder när jag reser. De är de bästa i klassen och du kan inte gå fel med att använda dem på din resa.