I follow a few travel blogs and sites for different ideas, inspiration, advice, etc. from my fellow wanderlusts- and not all of them deal with strictly US travel. One such site is www.traveldudes.org where I read this article about choosing travel buddies wisely- and on making traveling with buddies easier and not a terrible experience.
I felt compelled to share it with you guys because often I find friends (all with the best of intentions!) suggesting things that either sound boring, horrible, not relevant to the point of my blog, or some combo of the three. Now, some suggestions have been awesome (like white water rafting in West Virginia!), but, to me, it's not worth it to plan and travel to eat at chain restaurants and shop in cookie cutter malls. I am the nerd who actually LIKES touristy things, museums, old houses, and memorials. As I learned in Miami (when my travel partner lost her cool and snapped on me and made me feel rushed and flustered until we separated!), not everyone is into the same things. She wanted to go to the beach and dance and party all day- fun!- but not what I was about to waste my time on. I say this to say KNOW THE TYPE OF PERSON YOU ARE TRAVELING WITH, AND MAKE SURE BOTH OF YOU ARE ABLE TO BE FLEXIBLE IN YOUR ACTIVITIES.
Here's where I mention my best friend and I. We too have different personalities in travel- but not so much in activity as we do in how we like to spend our time. I like to plan ahead. Google, travel guides, word of mouth, pop culture, and other resources are my travel bibles! Not only do I like to know what I should do, I like to know how far apart everything is from each other, and since I am the queen of public transportation, I want to know what buses/trains/walkways, etc., take me to my destination, how much they cost and how long the journey will be. And I like to hustle. I don't spend 5 hours in one location- two to three hours MAXIMUM and I'm ready to go unless the place is just truly that huge or that interesting. She, however, tends to plan very little in advance so long as she has a general concept of where she will be, loves to spend long hours absorbing the "atmosphere", and will pay for a cab in a heartbeat if it means getting there faster or avoiding weather. Oh yes, we tend to butt heads while traveling (and even prep each other and ourselves for the arguments we KNOW are going to occur), but we are still BFFs! We know each other, and we know how to make it work-- we don't want to be stranded someplace and not able to help ourselves because we are angry about how much time we spent in a cafe lol! Again, I say, KNOW WHO YOU ARE TRAVELING WITH AND LEARN TO BE FLEXIBLE!
Mind you, I've had great travel experiences- like my journey to Annapolis with my friend Alicia for one. We had an awesome time, so it IS possible to have a great travel partner-- but better safe than sorry!
