Comments on: When Relationships and Travel Collide

By: Jess

Jess — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:46:05 +0000

Hey Dan,

Did you resolve your issues when she got back?

Jess

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:08:03 +0000

Thank you so much, I really enjoyed this article. I certainly agree with it. Travelling is an amazing opportunity to interact with other cultures and I think being in an relationship would limit the opportunities you could have. Couples of course enjoy their travelling but not as much as the single people!

By: LeslieTravel

LeslieTravel — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:59:54 +0000

Interesting– but I have to disagree. I traveled with my boyfriend (now husband) for 12 months around the world and it was a great experience. You say that “No one cool is going to approach a couple”– but you seem to define a cool person as another foreign backpacker, and one that wants to party all night long in the hostel. If that’s what you’re looking for, why bother traveling? You could go to a frat party or dive bar at home and find the same thing.

By: admin

admin — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 06:28:48 +0000

Tara, let us know how it goes

By: Tara

Tara — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 05:46:33 +0000

FrenchK – I salute you! All those tours where all the Europeans run around other countries getting pissed – means they are all too hung over to actually appreciate and enjoy the local aspects. Should just stay home.

As for me- this very evening I had to have the conversation with my beloved about travelling. We have been together nearly 5 years, and we knew we both wanted slightly different things – but I guess waiting to see if the other might change their mind a little. We have set a date to get married. But travelling is important to me – and if I don’t do it I will regret it and begin to resent it (and him). But after talking tonight, I don’t want to give him up, and nor him me. So I will travel. In the grand scheme of life, a few months is nothing compared to giving up your best friend forever. We have done 3months apart due to work, and managed that. It will be sad not to share some experiences together – but sadder to experience them with a sense of loss. He feels he has done his travel experience. I don’t. My turn. And I have never been big on sleeping around (even when very intoxicated!).
I think this post is only for young adults, not people old enough to realise what it means to spend your life with someone, and what trust is all about!

By: FrenchK

FrenchK — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:19:53 +0000

Just to be more precise (excuse my english as I am not a native english speaker), I didn’t mean that travelling in any way is a selfish activity. Just the kind of travelling that forces yu to break up because you can’t experience it with someone you care, but you only do it for your own’s sake, to brag about it, to feel important, to export some customs in a city that isn’t used to them (I have seen some disgusting obnoxious behaviour from drunk backpackers acting disrespectfully in countries where people don’t even drink alcohol, let alone go around banging anyone outside clubs and bars).

By: FrenchK

FrenchK — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:13:10 +0000

Wow. The writer of this article is a sad, sad individual.
Are people so selfish and unable to think for others that they need to break up with their partner instead of travelling with them?
I for one have travelled alone, all by myself in some very isolated places. The loneliness was very refreshing. Being in a very strong relationship now, I realize that sharing a passion is ALWAYS (I meant it) better than experiencing it yourself. It all depends on the strength of the relationship.

This website in itself is a bit dumb. Going from city to city doing the regular stuff, seeing the regular sights, staying in the most popular hostels and banging some fellow travellers from a similar wealthy country is an imbecile behaviour. Of course, to each his own, and if people want to spend their money travelling like that, so be it. There is much more philosophy and experience to get while discovering the world (travelling in itself is somehow selfish and focuses too much on the ‘leisure’ that westerners have invented).

Back on topic, if the writer doesn’t know what love is and probably never will and likes to shag other backpackers while getting drunk in every city in the world, good for her. It’s quite fun. It’s very dumb though, just exporting western culture and customs onto another city, ultimately making travel just a big colourless industry like many others.

Of course this comment sounds very self important and pretentious. I don’t care though. I have done my fair share of experiences and I have found some authenticity in some ways of experiencing what the world has to offer to us. Some people just aren’t made for it, and this article is the proof that superficial fake experiences are just the majority of what is the travelworld nowadays.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 08:13:55 +0000

I have done a lot of traveling on my own and my girlfriend of 4 and a half years decided that she would go solo traveling for 6 months for her first time. I knew that she wanted an open relationship so before she left i told her that i had no problem doing that. 2 weeks into her travels she called me and told me that she kissed this random guy. I acted cool with it but over the next few days it really started to play on me. I called her up and broke up with her. This was one of the hardest things i have done in my life and something i now really regret. 3 weeks later she hooked up with this other guy and traveled together all across Cambodia. She called me up and told me how they went moterbike riding together etc and did all these fun things and then posted facebook photos. It made me feel nauseous. I keep asking myself, had i have not broken up would she have done the same things… I dont know… either way it hurts like hell…we no longer speak to each other…

By: malia

malia — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:44:59 +0000

i also think this article ridiculous. i have travelled alone a lot, and its not as cracked up as some people think it is. You do go out and travel, and have all your travel stories to bring back and re tell, as well as memories to play over and over in your head when you travel alone. And your travel story can run the gamut of one drunken night in Varanasi, is the same as another drunken night in Istanbul, or in Bristol for that matter. you change your poison, and your environment, but you still get pissed and pretty much remember nothing after. except perhaps that you seem to have let go of your inhibitions. But nothing beats travelling with a special person and sharing the climb up the pyramids of Teohtiuacan in Mexico, or sharing a cloudless star dappled night sky on the beaches of Palawan. yes you do get on each others nerves, but if that special someone IS special you would know your boundaries and give each other the alone time they need, etc. many of the memorable moments we have and remember we are more often never done alone. Standing over the valley of Granada, and seeing the sun set across olive trees with my boyfriend was an amazing moment; I shared it with someone I cared for, and at the same time the quiet of the experience meant that I could also be ‘alone.’ I was both with someone, and the depth of the experience was intensely personal. Experiences are shared. Not simply re-told.

By: Kaylin05

Kaylin05 — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:19:10 +0000

I don’t think if you are gone for a short period (only a month or two), that you should break up. If you are going on a year-long, round the world finding-yourself journey alone without your partner, then yeah, maybe it is time to reconsider things. I think it depends solely on you two as people and the situation involved.

For me, right now, I am planning to move to France for 7 months this fall. I have a boyfriend. We have already found our way back to one another once, so I think it’s the real deal, and I wouldn’t break up with him just for that… I’ll be back (our hometowns are near one another), and he can come visit. It’s just France, not a third-world country; there are phones and internet there. I don’t sleep around with random people when I’m single, so why would I do it when in a relationship, just because I’m in a foreign country? doubtful. My boyfriend is even less about partying and sleeping around than I am, so I wouldn’t be worried about him doing something crazy at home while I was gone.

(Plus, I don’t think French men are that attractive as they all seem to be shorter than I am! plus I have hips and they don’t seem to like that either.)