One of the toughest decisions you’ll have to make as a traveler is whether to take your boyfriend or girlfriend with you on a backpacking trip overseas.
If you’re a woman, it’s most likely a no-brainer – if you have a boyfriend or even a close male friend, go with them or ask them to join you, unless you embark on a soul-searching solo trip or you are challenging yourself on purpose. I have met plenty such female travelers, and I would leave it up to them to write about pros and cons of travelling with male partners.
As far as I’m concerned, if you’re a woman, the benefits of having a man travelling with you generally outweigh any possible drawbacks unless your fella is completely inexperienced and high-maintenance. With a guy by your side, you will feel more protected, you will have someone helping you with luggage, keep you warm at night and overall, someone hopefully strong enough to rely upon.
The only way that can go wrong is if you start fighting, and then it can just get ugly for everyone involved, as it’s not usually possible to storm out of the house and slam the door when you are staying in the same hostel room or are on a long bus journey somewhere. So look at it as a true test of your relationship. If you are experiencing issues before you left home, take a 2-3 day road trip together before embarking on a multi-week journey to a foreign land. Test out the waters – see how you two stand each other for 48-72 hours straight. Because once you are set to share the often demanding challenges of a backpacking trip, it would be difficult and costly to change your mind.
Very important – if you are travelling with your platonic male friend, please make sure he’s not “into” you. Because believe me, men, especially young men, are fully capable of doing something as stupid as to go on a lengthy trip with you for the sole purpose of having a chance of hooking up with you along the way. I am absolutely serious, and you would be naïve to think otherwise. By knowing that he’s into you while not being “into” the guy and still going away with him, you are basically using him. So don’t.
But as I always say – if you a woman, and don’t have a boyfriend – never hesitate to travel solo, and I will write about benefits of solo travels in a future post. Now, if you are guy, there is a whole array of reasons why you may or may not want to travel with a girlfriend, and I will get into those in one of my next posts.