Published on July 13th, 2021.
Would you travel without your significant other?
If so, for how long? A week? A month… or even longer?
For the past few weeks, I’ve been traveling through Europe with my friend Lucy Bedewi, who I originally met online in a Facebook group and later met in person in a small airport in Crete. Lucy is 22-years-old and at the beginning of her digital nomad journey.
As we’ve been traveling together, she’s shared some of her fears about getting into a relationship and what that might mean for her travel-centered lifestyle.
These conversations got me thinking about my own relationship of five years and how I’ve traveled frequently without my boyfriend, sometimes for weeks or months at a time.
If you’re like most people, you’ve probably never considered taking a long trip without your partner. You might even find the idea odd or wonder what’s wrong with someone’s relationship for them to consider it.
I’ve been solo traveling and traveling with friends for most of my adult life. As soon as I got my first job in tech and could afford it, I used my tax return and two weeks of vacation time to take a trip to the UK. Nine years later, I’ve been to over thirty countries (even lived in some of them!), and travel has become an inseparable part of my identity.
So when I met my boyfriend, I never considered changing my travel habits. In fact, I was ready to travel even more.
My boyfriend Justin (who you may remember from my previous post, “A Month in Asia With My Tinder Match”) and I have been to a dozen countries together, from the fjords of Iceland to small mountain towns in Japan. We travel together a lot, and travel is an important part of our relationship. But we also have differences when it comes to our travel styles and the amount of time we each want to spend traveling (as I’ll describe further down).
Justin and I never had an explicit conversation about whether or not I would continue to travel on my own once our relationship got “serious” (i.e., fully monogamous with a shared home and finances). He simply respected the fact that I have different needs when it comes to travel and has supported me when I’ve booked trips independently.
Despite this not being a problem in our relationship, traveling without one’s significant other can be a heated topic of conversation. I’ve heard plenty of stories about boyfriends or husbands that expressly won’t let their partners travel alone or judgmental family members who say things like, “You’ll have to stop traveling like that when you get into a relationship.”
On the other side of this, I often meet travelers on the road (in hostels, bars, or co-living communities) who express fascination about my relationship with Justin and our ability to make it work when I go off on my own. Like Lucy, it’s common for long-term travelers to avoid committed relationships in order to maintain their unique lifestyles because they are afraid that solo travel and a relationship just don’t mix.
So, I think it’s time to set the record straight and share my story about independent travel while in a relationship. Here’s why I travel without my boyfriend, and how we make it work!
1. Solo Travel is Part of Who I Am
We all have our hobbies and passions, the things that light us up and make life worth living. Travel is mine.
All the major choices in my adult life have been influenced by my pursuit of travel. I worked very hard throughout my twenties to build a career and lifestyle where I can travel for months at a time. This was a goal of mine since childhood when my grandma would tell me stories of her trips around the world and I stayed up late watching documentaries on the Travel Channel, dreaming of what a life of travel might mean for me.
When I travel alone, I feel empowered and fulfilled. I also feel like the most courageous and confident version of myself. It’s the boost I need to overcome my frequent feelings of impostor syndrome and remind myself, “I can do anything I set my mind to.” In 2014, when I solo traveled to Iceland after leaving an abusive relationship, I hiked across a glacier (with cleats, an ice pick, and everything!) and got a tattoo of the glacier’s name the next day. The tattoo is an eternal symbol of what I’m capable of.
Even during the hardest periods of my life, my fierce independence has allowed me to come out stronger on the other side. Yes, I can hike a glacier, navigate through hectic train stations in cities where I don’t speak the language, and I can create an unconventional life where I get to live and work on my terms. Solo travel reminds me of all these things and makes me feel unstoppable. It inspires me to do more and be more in all aspects of my life. It’s an integral part of who I am.
So why would I give all that up because I’m in a relationship? I could never be with someone who would ask that of me. And, fortunately, Justin never would. He respects and genuinely appreciates who I am (and the things that make me, me), which is a big part of why we’re together and have such a strong bond. He loves that I have an adventurous spirit, and I love that he gets me and that we understand each other so well. I don’t think he’d want me any other way.
2. It’s Important to Challenge Myself
I believe that it’s vital never to stop challenging yourself. This could be by advancing in your career, starting a business, being a great parent, or constantly taking yourself out of your comfort zone by solo traveling.
I’ve consistently challenged myself in my professional life, including starting a career in tech as a high-school dropout with no experience and founding multiple businesses (I wrote all about my unconventional career journey in my book, The Remote Work Era). This has allowed me to create a life of flexibility and travel.
But the challenges that come from solo traveling can be even more varied and enriching than the business ones. Each day by yourself in a foreign place presents a new challenge, be it trying to communicate across language barriers, exerting yourself physically through activities like hiking or biking, the challenge of opening yourself up to strangers, or just trusting that things will be okay when it feels like they’re going horribly wrong (if you don’t at least one travel horror story that you now wear as a badge of honor, you need to travel more!). And, yes, loneliness is also a challenge worth overcoming from time to time.
I never want to stop challenging myself. It’s what keeps things fresh and helps me prove my mettle, and solo traveling is my favorite way to do so.
3. I Want to Live My Dreams While I Have Greater Flexibility
I’ve noticed that many people will put off their dreams, especially dreams of travel, till later in life. They’ll perhaps say they’re waiting until their career is more established or until X thing happens before they take that step to go to the places they’ve always been drawn to. And when in a relationship, a lot of people will use the excuse that their partner doesn’t want to go with them.
I reject that mentality entirely.
Whether we want to admit it or not, life gets more complicated the older we get. I’ve experienced this myself as a 30-year-old with more responsibilities, worries, and things “tying me down” than I had when I was my friend Lucy’s age.
It’s okay to “settle down” to a degree and gain more responsibilities as we get older—that’s a normal part of the human experience. My home, pets, relationship, and family give my life meaning, and I wouldn’t want to be without them. But I make a point of balancing those things with as much travel as I can manage in order to optimize this time where I have more flexibility than I might five years from now (especially when considering the possibility of having a child one day).
I also believe that the younger you are when you travel, the greater overall impact it can have on your life. (This can also be said for traveling during a transitionary period in life.) The people you meet and the things you learn and experience when you’re not completely “settled” can transform your life, not just be a side note to a life and worldview you’ve already defined. My solo travels throughout my twenties (and now early thirties!) have inspired my work and my writing, introduced me to lifelong friends, changed the way I see the world, and motivated me to see and do even more.
Additionally, I want to travel to all the places on my bucket list while I’m young, physically agile, and full of energy. I love hiking, despite not being the most physically fit person on the planet, and I want to do somewhat challenging hikes in all the locations I visit. I also love the adrenaline rush of going from the airport to a night club to a 10-mile hike with nothing but a few hours of sleep and equally tired friends by my side to encourage me. I know this won’t be possible forever, and the time for me to do it is today.
None of us know what the future may bring, and time is something we can never get back. So if you and your partner have different bucket list items or different levels of interest in travel, I think it’s important to take whatever time you can to explore and have the experiences you’ve always dreamed of on your own (or with friends). Holding off on doing these things just because you’re in a relationship can only lead to regrets and even resentments down the line.
4. We Have Different Travel Styles
Yes, my boyfriend loves to travel—but he might say that he just “likes” to travel compared to my complete obsession and reliance on travel in order to live my best life.
Justin and I go on multiple trips together each year, but he is also happy being at home. He loves snuggling with our cats, working on technology projects in his fancy home office set-up, building things in our garage, playing video games and streaming with his friends, and running in Golden Gate Park (which is a few blocks down the street from us). He thrives on the stability of home life in the beautiful space that we have invested so much time and love into making our own. And I adore that about him.
I love our home, but I need more frequent travel adventures to feel happy and thriving (at least a few months of travel every year). On top of that, I like to travel a bit differently than Justin does. While I love staying in fancy hotels or cozy Airbnbs together, I also enjoy the experience of roughing it in a hostel or staying in a co-living space where I can meet new people from all over the world. As an introvert, that’s just not Justin’s speed. He also likes to stay in one place for longer periods of time when traveling, while some of my trips are more fast-paced.
Given our slightly different travel preferences, it makes sense for me to check some things off my bucket list on my own. And while I’m gone, I know Justin is living his best life, enjoying his work and hobbies, and doing all the things that are personally meaningful to him. We can support each other from afar and truly have the best of both worlds.
5. Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
It’s a cliché for a reason—distance really does make the heart grow fonder.
Whenever I leave for a solo adventure, I’m reminded of how much I truly love my boyfriend, and he’s reminded of how much he truly loves me.
When we were preparing to part ways during a recent trip to Greece (he was going home to San Francisco and I was going onward to Bulgaria), Justin and I shared some unforgettable, tender moments together. We had a beautiful lunch with a view of the Acropolis and talked about all the things we would miss about one another, taking the time to affirm each other in ways that couples should do all the time but sometimes forget to. We took lots of selfies together to look back on when we were on our own. We showed each other extraordinary kindness and attentiveness, and Justin even washed my hair in the bath while whispering how much he loved me. I will never forget that. Traveling together has brought us so much closer, but so has temporary periods of separation.
I cried when we went to different terminals at the Athens airport, but they were mostly happy tears, because loving someone so much that it hurts to be away from them is a beautiful thing. And being so supported by my partner means the world to me. (Literally.)
Contrary to some people’s beliefs, solo traveling while in a relationship doesn’t mean that the relationship isn’t serious. For Justin and I, it means it’s very serious, because we care about each other enough to respect the other’s passions and needs. Time apart also shows that we have lots of trust and confidence in our partnership.
And whenever I leave, I know that we’ll be reunited in what feels like no time at all. And those reunions are always beautiful.
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