5 Reasons to Travel With Your Best Friend

Guest Blog by Susannah Perez

So you’ve reached an important time in your life and you want to celebrate; the last kid has flown the nest, you’ve hit the big 5-0 or it’s just the end of a long year. The best way to conclude the year is to get on a plane, wave goodbye to the rain and fly away to foreign parts. But who with?

You could go with your family. However, as much as we love our kids, spending the entire two weeks arguing about what to visit (culture or clubs? Beach or bar? Temple or tiendas?) is not quite the stree-free, relaxing holiday you had envisioned.

You could go with a bunch of friends, but then there is the inevitable problem of someone being left out, having to share rooms with the one who gets the stomach flu and trying to decide between you where you want to go first.

Personally, I would say that the perfect person to travel with is in fact your best friend!

There’s a reason you call them your ‘best’ friend. And why would you want to embark upon your adventures with someone you consider less than ‘best’? Exactly.  If you are still on the fence, read these five reasons why you should go away with your best friend and see if you agree.

1. They already know you inside out and know all your little idiosyncrasies, so no embarrassing discoveries. Your best friend already knows that you have to have the window seat or how scared you are of spiders – they will automatically check the bath and under the bed for you!
2. You’re already an established team. You draw on each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses. This is a great dynamic for travelling. Your buddy is good at Spanish so can chat to the locals and negotiate fares, whilst you are great with a map and can always suss out those hidden gems most tourists never see. Dream team!
3. You are best friends for a reason. You love each other unconditionally, share many of the same tastes or generally just complement each other well. If all of the above are correct, then that’s a pretty great travel partner to have.
4. You will make loads of new memories to share. You have been through school together, seen each other get married and have children and stuck by each other through good times and bad. Now is the time to make more memories that will never fade. Take loads of pictures, chronicle your journey and make a scrap book. That book will end up being one of your most valuable belongings in later years, something you can share with your grandchildren or look back through when you’re feeling down.
5. Your friendship will become stronger. Travelling in foreign parts and coming up against trials and tribulations that are completely new or just having an amazing time far away can really bond two people closer together. Extreme sports, dealing with a crisis as a team or simply discovering a new and beautiful place together will strengthen your friendship bond immeasurably.

Guest Blog by Susannah Perez is ordinarily a fashion blogger with a penchant for lingerie and fifties dresses. She often blogs about friendship, relationships and foreign travel (having spent a lot of her life living in different countries). She regularly writes for White Pages.

So plan your trip together, taking into consideration each other’s tastes and interests. Go and shop for new back packs and make a list of all things you’d both like to do. Remember to write a to-do list of important tasks when you get there: find address, buy water, exchange money, etc. Oh, and don’t forget your camera!

I’d love to hear from those of you who’ve travelled with your best friend. Was it a good decision?