I know it can seem like an intimidating task to find someone to take your next trip with. But it doesn’t have to be. Let me show you how to decide who you’re going to be traveling with efficiently. Picking a travel companion has never been easier.

The perfect travel companion?

Perhaps you’ve never traveled with anyone else than your parents. That’s okay. But let me tell you, a whole new world will open up for you when you decide to do exactly that.

I decided to make this post because after some looking around on the internet, I couldn’t find any thorough, specific posts about this subject. I’m here to change that. You’ll be provided with a list of potential travel companions that you can choose from, based on what you need.

Still wondering who you should travel with? Let’s take a look!

Family

The most basic (and probably also the most common) form of travel: going on a trip with your family. Parents love to take their kids somewhere, and the kids love to go somewhere with their parents.

Photo by Natalya Zaritskaya on Unsplash

Advantages:

It’s riskless. You know having your parents (and siblings, if applicable) as travel companions is a safe bet. They know you better than anyone and there will be no surprises.

They’re reliable. Friends might promise that they’ll come visit you when you’re abroad for some reason, but most of the time, they don’t. Your family will always come through for you.

You get to know your family even better. They say that you don’t know someone until you’ve traveled with them. You get to see people from another perspective, and that’s no different when you travel with family.

You will have a lot of memories. At any time, you can think about how you hiked a mountain together, or you got lost in a city together. The trips you take will inspire a great deal of beautiful memories.

Disadvantages:

Destinations. You, as a youngster, probably want to go do some adventurous things while you’re abroad. Your parents might prefer an easy, safe destination. (Then again, they might not.)

Personal space. When you’re traveling with family, you spend a lot of time together. You’re basically going to be seeing each other all day, every day. If that’s not something you’re prepared for, you should consider traveling with someone else.

Friends

Friends are most likely among the more popular travel companions as well, and they have good reason to be. Traveling with them is a splendid way of testing how strong your friendship really is. If you’re not afraid of that, here is why you should travel with friends.

Photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash

Advantages:

Freedom to choose. As opposed to traveling with family, your friends might want the same things in your trip as you. You might be able to go hiking, visit a monastery or trek through South America.

Good company. If you’re traveling with friends, you know for a fact that you’re going to have some great people alongside you.

You know what you get. This point kind of blends in with the previous one. Your friends are your friends for a reason. They’re a you know what you’re going to get type of deal.

Safety. It’s true. A group of friends abroad is less likely to get robbed or to have anything happen to them than a solo traveler or a couple chasing their wanderlust.

Disadvantages:

Isolation. When you travel with friends, you tend not to get to know – or even talk to – people who are not already in your friends’ group. That means you’ll miss out on a huge part of traveling.

Stressful situations. When you’re traveling with friends, your friendship truly gets tested. You might find yourself in situations you haven’t been in before, and you might have to make some tough decisions.

Best friend

This category is nothing but an extension on the last one, really. Having your BFF as travel companion could be amazing, but it could also turn out to be a bit of a disaster.

Photo by Cole Hutson on Unsplash

Advantages:

Your friendship will grow. You’ll get to know each other even better than you already do. When you’re on the road together, you see your travel companion(s) in ways that you would never see them at home.

Happiness. Every time you think back to the time you went city-tripping with your best friend in some foreign country, you’ll find yourself smiling about little things that happened. Even when you’re not back at home yet, you’ll share the happiness with your best friend. And isn’t that what friendship is all about?

Teamwork. There’s always going to be something you suck at, but that doesn’t mean that your best friend isn’t awesome at it. If you’re truly good friends, you’ll complete each other in different circumstances and you’ll be a team if there ever was one.

Disadvantages:

Arguments. Most arguments that start while you’re traveling will stay with you for a long time. After all, you can always come back to that time you/your friend got you both lost in a bad part of town, or got scammed and lost all of your money. 

Responsibilities. Either one of you could potentially be a more responsible person than the other, and that can lead to frustrations with the other one. If you are doing all the work and your friend is just leeching, you won’t like that.

Significant other (SO)

Choosing your significant other as a companion on your trips can be a refreshing change of pace. Whether it’s your boyfriend, fiancee, husband or partner, here are some reasons why you should (or shouldn’t) travel with them.

Image by Yuri Catalano

Advantages:

You’ll rediscover each other. Once again, travel is an excellent way to find out things you didn’t know about one another. How else would you figure out that your boyfriend speaks Conductor? (Yes, How I Met Your Mother, that’s a wink at you.)

It’s cheaper. Traveling in group is almost always cheaper than traveling alone, even if that group is just you and your SO. You can avoid pesky fees for booking rooms alone, you can share a private room at a hostel, … The possibilities are endless.

You can leave your comfort zone. Being in a foreign country with the one person you love more than anything in the world can really bring out another side of you. It can make you want to do crazy things you wouldn’t even consider doing back home.

It’s romantic. A weekend in Paris? A couple of days strolling through Venice? Nothing is more perfect for you and your significant other than a romantic getaway.

Disadvantages:

Your relationship will be tested. It’s almost guaranteed that you will get into some fight during your trip, be it a small disagreement or a huge blowout. These are the times when your relationship will only survive if it’s solid.

Cliché destinations. The destinations I mentioned before – Paris and Venice – are great and all. But if you are a couple that require something more adventurous, you might have to look a little bit further than that.

Solo

I know traveling alone defeats the whole purpose of finding a travel companion, but hear me out here. Solo travel is something different entirely, and I strongly believe everyone should give it a try at least once in their lives, even if it’s only to realize that you don’t like it at all and you never want to do it again.

Photo by Nina Uhlíková

Advantages:

You’ll learn a lot of lessons. You’ll be forced to solve problems you never would have gotten involved in otherwise, all by yourself. You get a creativity boost, because you have no choice but to be creative. You learn things that you would never find out if you don’t travel alone.

Absolute freedom. You can literally do anything you want to do. There’s nobody there you have to depend on, and nobody depending on you. If you want to skip some tour you had booked, nobody is going to tell you you shouldn’t.

Making new friends. When you’re abroad alone, you can make friends in a lot of ways. It’s very easy to meet new people and become friends with them when you’re traveling by yourself.

Experiences. Solo travel is very different from any other kind of travel. Although you might feel like you learned a lot from backpacking through South America with your friends, I can guarantee you’ll experience things more thoroughly.

Disadvantages:

You’re alone. The obvious disadvantage of having no travel companion is that you don’t have anyone to fall back on. Then again, as a solo traveler, you’re more approachable, so you might make friends more easily.

It’s more expensive. When you don’t have a travel companion, you might miss out on special deals, twin rooms, etc. Some hotels add a so-called single supplement: people who travel alone have to make up for the money they miss out on because the room is only being used by one person instead of two.

Conclusion

In the end, what it all comes down to is your personal preference. For some people, the disadvantages of traveling with friends won’t weigh up at all against its advantages. Other travelers will prefer being alone on the road time and again. You have to decide.

What do you prefer? City tripping with your parents? Or hiking in the mountains with friends? Let me know in the comments below.

As always, thanks for reading!

-S