The Perfect Traveler

A good trip can be hard to organize. You brainstorm and plan and finally formulate a great itinerary. Then, you sort through pages and pages of hotels on Expedia, the flights makes you choose between three different cities for a layover, and you have no idea what to pack. But that’s not the end of it. The most important part of your journey is who you choose to share it with. Travel is best when shared with someone you care about, but your best friends don’t necessarily make the greatest travel partners. Here’s a list of qualities to look for in a travel buddy or to cultivate in yourself to become someone else’s favorite travel companion.

Flexibility

Planes get cancelled, trains get delayed, and plans change. You need to be with someone who won’t waste time complaining about the revision but will instead think fast on her feet and help you figure out how to plan an alternate route to your destination or where the nearest wine bar is so you can pass the time getting some culture. Flexibility helps make bad and unavoidable situations as pleasant as they can possibly get. Flexibility also means your own feelings get spared in the process when you learn not to get your hopes hung up on one plan.

The Ability to be Independent

If you’re traveling with someone who can’t function on his own, it’s going to get difficult. Travel requires spending twenty-four hours a day with someone else and although most of it is spent doing fun things, few people can find someone they don’t find annoying after so many hours together. So, it’s good when you both can take time away from each other to be alone. Plus, while the whole experience is best shared, some aspects of travel are good alone, so that you have a piece of the trip that is just yours. Also, if you’re interested in seeing the Uffizi and your friend is intent on going to the Galleria, you can both do what you want without one of you having to compromise and feel resentful. Plus, if one of you gets sick and has to stay in the hotel room all day, your friend can still enjoy herself without you and you won’t feel like you ruined her vacation.

Patience

Like I said, there are always delays and people will always grate on each other’s nerves. But patience means not only the ability to wait for a train peacefully, it also means putting up with your friend’s quirks and understanding that you have some of your own that your friend is overlooking right now, too. It means making allowances for pet peeves (try to phase out that clicking pen or tapping foot) and doing your best to make sure your relationship stays as cordial as possible.

Awareness

Awareness extends to several things: your fellow traveler, other people, and your surroundings. The first means taking a break from thinking about yourself and focusing on how your companion is feeling. Is her trip everything she’d hoped? Does she seem satisfied or is something bothering her? Awareness means thinking about the person with you and making an effort to make sure she’s happy and having as good a time as you. And making sure you haven’t subconsciously started clicking your pen again the way she asked you not to.

Awareness of other people is similar to focusing on your friend’s well-being, but it involves another, more cautious aspect. It’s a good idea when traveling to make sure you’re not unwittingly offending the locals. If you’re aware of other people, for example, you’ll notice they’re all covering their shoulders before stepping into that church and by following their example, you save yourself the embarrassment of being scolded by the priest. The cautious aspect comes in when you realize that as a traveler, you need to avoid drawing undue attention to yourself, especially as a woman. Having a sense of awareness of the people around you allows you to blend in and avoid making yourself a target for crime.

Awareness of your circumstances ties in closely with the “let’s not get mugged today” mentality. When you’re aware, you notice that the streetlights in this neighborhood aren’t very bright and that the tourist bustle has completely stopped. You’ll notice that the woman sitting in the car with her door open and her leg out isn’t there because her car has broken down. You’ll notice that there are some people milling around on that corner down the street and you will identify the need to take another street to get back to your hotel.

Common Sense

Hardly common, common sense in the context of travel is first and foremost about how to avoid trouble. It starts with renting the apartment in Rome ahead of time and recognizing the signs of an upcoming rip-off: the apartment is perfect, it’s priced very reasonably, the words “too good to be true” make an appearance in your mind, and it’s only a Western Union or Moneygram wire transfer away from being booked. How convenient! Common sense continues in avoiding that taxi that doesn’t have a cab number displayed on the side. It means trusting your gut: if the situation you’re heading towards is giving you a bad feeling, turn around and go back. You can’t guarantee that something terrible would have happened, but it’s better to leave it as a “what if” rather than “if only”.

An Open Mind

Keeping an open mind is crucial for a successful trip but it’s especially important for your relationship with the friend who’s accompanying you. He may do something differently from you or have different goals on the trip. It’s important to remember that this is his trip too and to keep an open mind to his needs or his methods so that you both feel acknowledged. Besides, it’s good to step out of your comfort zone and try something new every so often. If your friend hadn’t insisted on trying the mussels in Provence, you might never have discovered your latent love of shellfish.

Curiosity

If one of you isn’t a curious person, then I’m not entirely sure why you’re traveling in the first place. But if that’s the case, it’s bound to form a wedge between two companions. The curious will feel like a burden for stopping to photograph or enjoy a sight. He will feel a pressure, however unintentional, to hurry and move on. Experiences will be dimmed by the presence of someone who is unimpressed or bored. The curious may even feel looked down upon or simple for halting to admire something that the non-curious doesn’t care about. In this situation, I can only hope that the non-curious has a good sense of awareness and realizes the impact of his outlook on the other person before an otherwise fantastic trip becomes unfulfilled.

By Tatiana Sundeyeva

Tatiana Sundeyeva has gotten into the terrible habit of thinking about everything. She enjoys travel, literature, puns, and anything that can be found in a bakery. And not necessarily in that order. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley where she got a degree in English with a minor in Italian.