Travelling with Friends

If you have read my previous posts, you will know that on all of my trips so far, I have been accompanied with either my friends, family or my boyfriend. One goal of mine this year was to go on a solo trip, however Coronavirus has currently put that planning on hold, so I thought that I would talk all about travelling with friends.

For this post, I did also speak to a couple of my friends, to find out about their favourite things about travelling with friends and advice they may give to someone thinking about travelling with their friends.

My Favourite things about Travelling with Friends

There are so many positives about travelling with your friends, it will be impossible to list them all, but I will list my favourites here.

• You are sharing amazing memories with other people, which makes it even more enjoyable and so much fun! In years to come you will be able to reflect on your trip together and it will be very hard to forget the memories that you share.
• Travelling with friends also helped so much with homesickness as you have your friends there to support you and help you feel comfortable in unfamiliar settings and experiences.
• I have become so much closer with the friends I have travelled with, we have learnt so much about each other and are definitely best friends for life. I knew that before, but our adventures have made us even closer than before, which I didn’t even know was possible.
• Photos! Not only will you have your friends there to take photos of you in front of different landmarks or monuments, but you will be able to share the screen with your friends.
• If you are a nervous traveller, you may find travelling with friends more secure and may feel safer on the whole, especially out late in a new city. Obviously, you are not always unsafe when travelling alone, as long as you make sensible decisions, but often people like to travel with friends as it feels safer.
• Finally, it is just so much fun! Sharing these memories, making inside jokes and forming this bond is something I love. I meet with my friends now and we always have something to giggle about and know pretty much everything about each other, I could not recommend travelling with your friends enough.

Advice if you are considering Travelling with Friends

I don’t think there are any disadvantages to travelling with friends, but there are definitely things you will need to consider and some advice for while you are on your trip that will make it even more enjoyable.

• Think about who you would like to travel with, you want to make sure that you will be comfortable opening up to them and getting closer over the time you are away. If you are closed off to the person you want to travel with, the experience will be less enjoyable and not as amazing as it could be. You will also want to check that you are all travelling with the same expectations of how you want to live, you don’t want to get there and have one friend ask to eat out at every meal when you are on a lower budget so are happy to make your own food in a hostel.
• Be aware of each other’s weaknesses. For example, if I am left to get hungry I become so grumpy and am miserable to be with. I have never met anyone who gets as ‘hangry’ as me! Being aware of these will mean you will know what to do to help and not to push your friend while they are feeling like this.
• You are all going to need your own space at some point. Living with the same people 24/7 is going to be tiring, no matter who you are with. So appreciate that everyone is going to need their own space at completely different times of the trip, you don’t want to become too much for one another, as this could cause upset. How you do this varies from person to person, so I would recommend letting the friends you are travelling with know how you’d like to go about this. For one person, they may need a room by themselves for a night, another might just want to go for a walk alone and someone else could just want to be quiet for the day, still be with you but not as involved in the conversation.
• Just look out for each other! There will be times when everything is a little overwhelming and someone will need more support, so just be gentle and kind to each other. Remind them how much you love and appreciate them, as they won’t necessarily be able to hear this from their family when they need it while they are away.

Finally, I asked a couple of my friends I have been travelling with to tell me something they found slightly annoying about me while travelling, just for a bit of fun!

• Amy said that my snoring was the most annoying thing about travelling with me! This is so funny to look back on as I would wake up and I wouldn’ think I had even been asleep, but Amy and Kate would both tell me I’d been snoring. We figured out that it mainly occurred when I was in that stage between awake and asleep, because I could still hear things going on but was totally out of it!
• When Kate told me what she found most annoying it really made me giggle. I didn’t buy packing cubes before travelling, whereas everyone else had, as I’d decided that plastic ziplock bags would do the trick, but they were so noisy and inconvenient when you are trying to get your stuff sorted quickly and quietly. I’m an early riser, so I was often up first and I can’t lay in bed once I’m awake which just meant I would wake the others up with the sounds of my crinkly ziplock bags! Sorry Kate!

I hope you have found this blog post helpful and feel more confident about travelling with your friends. In the end you are all there to have a fantastic time and make amazing memories, so you are bound to have an incredible time! If you have any other questions about travelling with friends, please do ask and I will be more than happy to try and help.