Marriage is tough, no matter where you are. It’s long term, day in day out, nose to the grind constant work.
Every decision you make is centered on what is best for each other, not just for yourself – difficult, as by nature we are pretty selfish.
You get sick of the sacrifice and often, when you are tired, resentful, angry, frustrated and unhappy, a return to singledom looks so inviting.
These feelings are pretty normal in marriage, as both I and Craig have felt them at times, and I know many of my married friends have felt them too.
When you travel, often these feelings can be amplified up to 11/10. The new place, the new environment, can often bring a new perspective – not always in a good way.
But travel can also help strengthen marriages and relationships. It can be life-changing if you are in need of ways to reconnect and rebuild a bond.
In this guide, I’ve listed some of the ways travel has strengthened our marriage, and some of the lessons we’ve learned about love on the road.
How Travel Strengthens Marriages and Relationships
Often we are never told about the difficulties of marriage and long-term relationships and how to work through them.
It’s all romance and weddings, blissfully rocking babies to sleep (ha ha ha), and happily swinging in the rocking chairs during the retirement prime. (Except for me it would be a hammock, and trust me, I’d be in it because I won the hour-long argument for shotgun rights.)
So here is an honest look into our marriage, and some of the things that we have learned about travel and how it’s helped us keep relationship satisfaction and intimacy.
1. Travel teaches you how to put up with each other’s idiosyncrasies
I can’t stand how he sits on a toilet for 20 minutes and it drives him nuts how I always leave the butter out (Yes Mum, I know it drives you crazy too).
Think of the mile-long list you have of things that annoy you about your partner. When you travel 24/7, there is no escaping the irritants, you just have to learn to live with them.
We’ve learned to work around these annoyances and adapt to them.
We’ve learned to make fun of them and love each other regardless (but really 20 minutes?).
It’s important to turn those annoyances into appreciation, because when you realise there may be a day without them, you’ll soon start to miss them.
They still drive us nuts, but not enough to take us to the divorce courts.
2. Travel helps you learn about each other’s values
When you travel, everything else in your life gets stripped away: possessions are stored in boxes, friendships are placed on hiatus, and expectations placed upon by others are gone.
For the first time in your life, you can be yourself.
Suddenly you get to know the real heart of your partner (and that can be where relationships turn south! At least it can save you years of heartache finding out later).
It can also be a great way to get a deeper understanding of your partner. You learn about their passion, you see what makes them spark, it’s more about their hobbies and interests and more about their worries and things that get them excited.
You learn much more intimate details about them, and why you may have different interests, you may also find you have similar goals and views on life.
Once you know what lies at the core of your partner, it is difficult to not see that when you return home and go through trials and tribulations.
3. Travel teaches you to share
There is no longer any separation of what is mine and yours when you travel, except for your clothes and I do have a habit of wearing his UNC sweaters and spilling food on it at the worst times!
You now own little and life becomes about experiencing special moments together.
You’ve spent months planning and saving and now your combined dream is being played out.
You don’t have girls and guys nights out. The friendships you form along the way are now your common friends.
You start to morph into this one person—which can be kinda scary. But don’t fear, you don’t have to lose your identity, more like take on a second one.
Two souls become one and that one can be the unifying strength you need to get through any major relationship hurdles in the years to come.
4. Travel gives you lasting memories
This is one of the biggest saving graces for our marriage. 20+ years of travel has given us a solid memory bank to pull us through some of our hardest times.
“Look at all we have done during our relationship. We can’t throw that away!”
In times of stress we can quickly recall that time we went horse riding in Bryce Canyon, or to bring more laughter in our life the time we rode ostriches in Africa, or when we just want to feel chilled, the Jack Johnson concert in the forest by the lake in Raleigh.
I couldn’t ever imagine the memories of incredible adventures in over 40 countries and setting up homes in 5 different countries, suddenly disappear.
As we say on this blog it is all about the memories!
Travel more. Create better memories.
5. You learn how to work through challenges together
Think of most of the challenges that pop up in your life: work, family, friendships, unhappiness.
A large percentage of it is individual problems where one has to help the other, it’s not often something both of you have to brainstorm and problem solve together.
Travel teaches you teamwork and communication skills. It teaches you how to work together to overcome obstacles.
When you are travelling the problems are yours to share. So again, you become that one person.
That one mind has to be able to split to see the other’s needs, but bring it back to what is best for the one goal. How can the one mind use each other’s strength to come to the best solutions?
6. You develop more than a romantic relationship, but a friendship too
When you are traveling together, you aren’t just going on a romantic getaway to have quality time together and be intimate, you are away to get to know each other and to develop something lasting.
What happens when there are not many other distractions is you form a friendship within a relationship.
When it’s just you and your partner, you have to work to keep the lover part to your relationship going, sure, but soon enough you have more than that—a best friend.
People find it weird that Craig and I do almost everything together and I tell him everything. Why? He’s my best friend. I actually enjoying hanging out with him.
When I have a problem, Craig is the first person I turn to to help me solve it.
I trust he’ll support and encourage me and give it to me straight. I know this, as for most of our marriage I have only had him to rely on. There’s a lot of strength in that trust and support.
7. Travel forces you to deal with it and find the solution
Marriage is an easy thing to get out of, 72 days after the wedding you can decide you’ve gotten to know this person too much and those irritating things are too much to bear forever!
There are no divorce courts you can run to when you are sitting in the tray in a pick-up truck on a dusty road in the middle of nowhere in Africa and the wheel falls off mid turn.
There are no counsellors to steer you past the crash collision course brought on by frustration, tiredness and budget travel fed-upness.
You have to find a way to deal with it.
You vent, swear, pick up your backpack and storm off. And storm until the anger diminishes and you realize you don’t like trying to figure this out on your own.
So you both come together – volatile feelings in check – heck you might even have a bit of a giggle at your predicament.
You sheepishly scuff your feet in the dirt and try to work out what next. And then you erupt into fits of laughter when 10 minutes later that old rusted crumbling pick-up truck comes bumbling down the track, wheel back on and ready to pick you up and continue on your journey.
30 minutes later you come back and by this time you are cuddling again.
8. You can push each other out of their comfort zone
Strong teammates play to their strengths and support each other’s weaknesses. They inspire, encourage and motivate.
On our travels, we have participated in many adventurous physical activities that have put one of us out of our comfort zone. We relied on each other to make it through.
Craig always using his strength to help carry me over the line, protect me, and encourage me to keep pushing through. It was that same we-are-in-this-together strength that got me through childbirth twice.
Mentally, when things got too much, whoever was in the clearer frame of mind could bring clarity to the moment and help the other to refocus.
A long-term relationship will only survive if you see yourself as moving towards a common goal as a team.
9. Travel gives you a destination to be romantic
Travel presents you with ample opportunities to have the romantic moments every couple needs: camping under the stars on the Great Rift escarpment in Malawi, watching sunrises on the world’s tallest sand dunes, picnicking under the Eiffel tower, or bike riding through the Yangshuo countryside.
If you need more affection from your spouse, being in a romantic destination is really all you need to get the spark back and work on building happier relationships.
This isn’t just about improving your sex lives, but about building emotional intimacy.
The break from everyday life and saying goodbye to the usual daily routine, and being in a place where you are focusing on being romantic, can really do wonders for your relationship.
Variety is the spice of life—you know it!
10. Travel allows you to share what you love
I think I can safely assume that by travelling the world together you are both doing what you love.
There will be times of compromise and you may have to ride the odd camel to help your partner check off their bucket list, but at least you are filled with happiness and can share experiences that you know are helping to fill their cup.
Joy is a powerful glue – the most magical of all emotions.
Think about those joyful experiences and fun things you have had with your family and friends. The laughter of them for years to come is what holds you together. When you travel there is an overabundance of joyful emotions – that is some sticking glue!
I also feel safe in saying people are generally better when they travel, because they are doing what they love.
They are looking after their own interests, discovering new things, learning more about themselves, exploring beautiful parts of the earth and meeting new people.
The wowser moments just keep coming and sharing them with you is your partner. There’s nothing better than doing what you love beside the person who is also doing what they love and together you love each other.
How many loves was that? Enough to get the picture.
Over 20 years of marriage later…
They have been bloody great years, but there have been moments when I thought we wouldn’t make it.
We’ve had financial difficulties and lifestyle constraints that have brought a lot of inner turmoil and suffering.
You know the type that says run and start all over again. The statistics say that 1/3 out of marriages faced with crises such as these would fall apart.
But we haven’t and I truly believe that the strength of our bond comes from our life of travel.
Travelling long-term with your partner can definitely break you, but it can also give you a boost to repair any damage, to put other obligations aside and focus on each other, and at the end of the trip, come home with higher levels of satisfaction in your relationship.
Sure, there is the risk that travelling the world with your partner could be the recipe for disaster, but so could staying at home.
The recipe for a solid relationship could be building a settled life together too.
I believe travel can build a deep foundation that will hold you steady during those rocky times.
We all need a firm foundation and solid steel pylons to hold the walls of the house together.
And to Craig, doing 24/7 with you has been tough wonderful. Sure don’t ever get sick of you!
Can you get off the toilet now? (I need you to put the butter away).
More Relationship Travel Tips
- Tips for couples travel to help you survive!
- Principles for creating awesome travel experiences every time
- Italy Honeymoon destinations for unforgettable romance
- Honeymoon in South Africa itinerary
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how travel can strengthen a long-term relationship or marriage? Do you have other tips for keeping the love strong? When has it been tested for you and how did you pull through OR did travel break your relationship? Let us know in the comments.