V and I have been traveling together for the past seven years (wow, that’s how long we’ve been married!). In these seven years, we’ve done quite a few different kinds of vacations – long self-drive campervan road trip in New Zealand, many long and short road trips in India, UK and now in the US, weekend getaways to nearby cities, cruises, camping and hiking trips, sightseeing and experiential vacations in Europe, even cross-country moves for over a year – you name it and we’ve pretty much done it all. I think today it’ll be safe to say that we are each other’s favorite travel companion. Of course, on all these trips and vacations, it has not always been a smooth ride. We’ve had our share of fights, mood swings, tantrums, even moments when we’ve wanted to kill each other. ????

Sharing Our Travel Quirks as a Couple

Trying to murder V outside the Colosseum in Rome, Italy. 🙂

But from that first road trip together in New Zealand to now, I feel we’ve come a long way. Now, we are both more understanding of the fact that each of us brings something unique to the travel, for instance, I bring in the planning and he brings in the spontaneity. Ultimately, we’ve been able to achieve the right balance! Also, we are both understanding and accepting of the different travel quirks/ or habits we have as individuals. But today, I’m going to talk about some travel quirks or habits that we’ve discovered we have as a couple. These are habits which we refuse to break out of or maybe just prefer because of the kind of people we’ve turned out to become. Here are a few which we randomly came up with talking over our morning tea one day.

No Breakfast in Bed or Room Service: The only exception to this is when we are cruising. We never order in food when we are staying at a hotel. This is mainly because we like to try the local food wherever we are. Therefore, no multi-chain restaurants as well. Also, we don’t like the smell of food in our room. For breakfast, we usually head to the hotel’s breakfast buffet so we can fuel ourselves nice and early and then head out for the exploration planned ahead.

Snacks or Munchies from Home: Having made the point above, I would say that we do like to carry with us some of our favorite packaged snacks when we are traveling. It’s mainly to make sure we have something to munch on if we ever get hungry middle of the night or randomly come across a nice picnic spot or when we are on road trips. Sometimes, we also like to carry a small assortment of packaged teas that we like. It’s just a way of bringing home-like comfort to wherever we are. You know that element of familiarity in the unfamiliar?

Early to Bed and Early to Rise: Our sleeping schedule hardly changes even when we are traveling. We never sleep in till late even if we are on a vacation. We like to head out and start exploring the place as early as possible so we don’t have to rush through our plans.

Party? Who us? I don’t remember the last time we went to a club or a disc. We get sleepy and tired by 10 pm and want to head back to our hotel after an entire day of exploring. There’s hardly any energy left to go clubbing later. The maximum we’ll do is grab a drink or two at a nice, local pub and call it a day.

Travel as Tourists or Wanderers? I would say we are probably a mix of the two but more of the latter. We usually like to ditch transport and instead walk around a city to see the “must-see” spots and then randomly stop at places that catch our fancy. Even in terms of accommodation, we don’t usually stay in the main tourist or downtown areas. This way we get to see another side of the city.

Living Like a Local: If we are traveling to a bustling city, we like to spend time there like a local would do. Just being like any other person in the city is more like our way of experiencing the place. We hardly do any shopping (except from that one fridge magnet as a souvenir), we don’t eat at fine dining restaurants, and off late, we don’t even like the idea of standing in long queues. So that pretty much takes away anything any average tourist might want to do. We just like to walk around, talk to locals, do some photography, explore the local markets, try out local food, and just soak in the vibe of the place.

Do you have any weird or unique travel quirks? Tell me in the comments below. I’d love to know!

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Travel Quirks as a Couple Who Travels Together