Why You Should Travel With the One You Love

The intent to travel with the one you love is, at its core, the intent to discover and to grow.

This growth brings about an inevitable gravity to seek the unknown, whether it be the beautiful, the contradictory, the truth, or the answer. It requires you to release your ego and to loosen your grips on the need to be in control. Yes—unclench those fists, spread your fingers open, and make some room to receive! …

…Receive the teachers that cross your path and come into your life as experiences. As the spontaneity of travel unravels, you will not only discover the depths of yourself but for the one you love as well. It is a journey meant to be traveled…together.

I still replay this very day in my head. It was the spring of 2013 and I was a content recent graduate living in Austin with my boyfriend. He came home one day with a twinkle in his eye that I couldn’t ignore and an excitement that was contagious. “I’ve been thinking…what if we quit our jobs, pack our bags, and travel?! I mean, we’re young and curious, let’s see as much as possible and learn as much about this world and this life—together!” he exclaimed.

In Gemini-like manner, I burst into tears. Happy tears, scared tears, how-the-heck-are-we-going-to-pull-this-off tears. I never could have guessed that we were about to embark on a yearlong journey overseas that would change our lives and our relationship with the world and each other in the best way imaginable.

1. Travel invites you to bond deeply

Traveling will wake you up and shake you. It will change your understanding and expand your curiosity. Travel will make you dig deeper into each other. What makes them tick? What are they passionate about? What are their fears? What inspires them? Maybe you’ll experience a spiritual awakening or find a deep connection to helping a mountain tribe. Discovering yourselves outside of your comfort zone can be tear jerking and life changing. Travel loves spontaneity, so just allow yourself to let go and trust the journey. Late night talks and ultimate bonds are woven into your relationship from these spontaneous moments.

2. Travel invites you to test each other

Have you ever watched an episode of the Amazing Race? Where couples, best friends and family crack under the pressure, pull each other to the finish line or drag each other down? The same scenario is true with traveling. Spend a straight 156 hours with each other (or a lot more), throw in long bus rides, missed flights, and a stolen wallet and you will see not only what kind of partner you are to them, but also what kind of partner they are to you. You quickly realize how much stronger you are when you’re on the same team. Maybe they led you down the wrong trail 3 hours in the wrong direction, but you realize the energy for blame is better funneled into navigating. The road teaches us to let go of blame, let go of the need to control, let go of grudges. Laugh about it later and go to bed tired, not mad.

3.Travel creates soul food

Travels can be months on end, or as short as one week, but unraveling the experience and deciphering the bits and pieces is a separate journey in itself. One of my favorite books, Into the Wild, states “Happiness is only real when shared.” This is true in so many cases, whether it’s sharing long conversations, a dance, or discovering a passion for sea turtles together, these are experiences that feed the soul. Soul food that is better shared than kept for yourself.

Patience, trust, and compromise are all foundations of a good relationship. Traveling challenges all of the above. If a mishap doesn’t kill your patience, trust, understanding or compromise, then it has made it all stronger. To know you can depend on your partner to nurse you back to health after a stomach virus is comforting. To be able to lean on your partner when you feel homesick is assurance beyond words. Mishaps are part of traveling, they are part of life, and you learn how to take care of each other.

5. Discover yourselves

We can become layers of complexity without even realizing it. We build walls to protect ourselves, we build our reputation and work to keep it. We are expected to be someone, and obligated to be somewhere at all times. When you travel, you start to release these expectations. When you are somewhere where nobody knows you, all of a sudden you fill your days with who or what you’d rather be without the weight of expectations. To see each other in our most open and most authentic selves is where couples start to truly discover one another.

Traveling with the one you love invites growth and expansion. The raw beauty behind travel brings us back with a new set of eyes and new meanings to words such as home, love and gratitude. All in which, through travel, we begin to recognize within ourselves and each other.