relationship & surviving each other
After 734 days on the road, that’s just a little over 2 years, we are finally home. We often get asked if we had relationship problems on the road so we’re spilling our best relationship advice (*spoiler alert, not as exciting as you might think). If you are more of a video person, scroll to the bottom to see us chattin’ it up; if not, keep on readin’.
Did we get bored of each other? Did you drive each other crazy?
Not really, we actually got tired of traveling and constantly moving more than we got fed up of each other. Of course we had our fights, but nothing that we feel took a deep toll in our relationship. A long trip like this requires a lot of planning so there was always something to plan, investigate or explore. Plus, Fermin had a part-time job so that broke up our routine a lot.
TIP - If you do feel like maybe you are bored, or think you will get bored, try to plan multi-day tours. This will break up having to be together 24/7 since you’ll be meeting new people and also give you a break from planning immediate future travel. It’s basically a rest from each other and from planning; win-win! We planned our whole Egypt visit with a trip and, not only did we meet awesome people, but we painlessly navigated a country that could be pretty tricky to plan on your own.
How did you get personal space?
When we first started the trip, we didn’t have much of a routine. We’d get up and go see as much as we could - Every. Single. Day. That quickly wore us down and we started to develop a routine, this included our personal space. This is what it looked like for each of us:
Fermin - watching NBA on YouTube, reading and work were the moments ‘away’ from me . This meant I didn’t nag him while he was watching a game or working. Fermin is not much of a night person too so we tried to plan in advance night activities (like Jazz concerts or going to a bar) and avoided making major travel decisions late at night. ‘Fermin’ time happens in the late evening into the night.
Siori - morning ‘me’ time that involved either checking IG, meditating or Yoga (or all 3 sometimes). Usually the first 30 minutes of my day I’m not very talkative so I most likely check IG for a bit, then get up meditate 10 min (not every day but I’m slowly getting there) and do a little Yoga (just a few chaturangas, breathing and stretching). Then I’d sit down with Fermin, have coffee and he’d chat my head off, ‘cause he’s a morning person. And then I’d have ‘me’ time at night too, b/c that’s when Fermin is winding down and wanting more ‘Fermin’ time.
The key to maintaining a healthy relationship in our case was honoring this ‘me’ time. This might sound like overkill to someone who thinks traveling should be ‘spontaneous’, and maybe it is for other couples, but this is what we found works best for us. Long term travel can be exhilarating, but also exhausting, so balancing both is critical.
How did you manage all the travel planning?
As we mentioned before, Fermin had a part time job so he didn’t do much of the long term planning. We discussed where he wanted to go and I (Siori) would do further research as to how much it might cost to get there and what we could do once we got there. Once we had decided on that we would divide the smaller tasks of booking hotels, sites, public transport, tours, etc… I booked all the airfare using a combination of money and miles but everything else we divided up. Here are some of the tools that helped keep us organized:
Google Drive - we had shared folders by country so we’d put all travel reservations in one folder so we could both access the same info without having to send it to each other. We also downloaded to our phones what we considered ‘critical’ info such as:
Visa information - especially if we had printed the visa, we still kept an electronic copy just in case something happened to that paper copy (queue the coffee)
Hotel reservations for the first night when arriving to a new country.
Local SIM carrier info - we usually did a bit of research in advance so we’d know where to get data and who offered the best deals. 90% of the time this was at the airport so by the time we left the airport we’d already have data, but just in case, it’s good to have all you need offline.
Google Keep - some countries like Bolivia have more requirements. For these few countries we’d put together a checklist and share it. This way we didn’t do double work or miss anything that was important.
BONUS ROUND
We think the sanity of our relationship hinged on these key points:
Communication - was super important and it was something we definitely improved on this trip. You have to deal w/ ‘hangry’, tired and annoyed versions of your partner and not want to strangle them.
Keeping an open mind - not blaming each other in the moment (and maybe going ‘easy’ afterwards) and working through the problem are key to staying happy.
Compromise - Fermin loooooves to arrive 8hrs early to the airport (ok, that’s an exaggeration, it’s really 4hrs) and I like to arrive ‘just on time’, which is 2-3hrs early. So we compromise and get there 3hrs early - I even compromise and we arrive 3hrs early for domestic flights (when we are abroad, not at home), which is overkill in my opinion, but it’s my way of showing, I’m willing to meet Fermin 1/2 way. Fermin compromises in a whole bunch of other ways so we are both happy.
We definitely had our share of rough relationship moments but these little things have helped make those challenges a little less rough.
Do you have any tips you’d like to share? or any questions? Leave ‘em in the comments below!
Here’s the video we promised ya at the top.
