How to choose your perfect travel partner. Tips & tricks

Hello, do travelers, and welcome back to the Wihdaily!

Today we are going to talk about five things that you need to think about when you are picking a long-term travel partner.

So I am not going to give too much more of an introduction for it — I’ma just jump right in.

The first thing is that you want to look for in a travel partner — or be as a travel partner, I should probably put in there — is someone who has the ability to stay calm and be adaptable.

Whether this is a trait that you have or a trait that they have — one of you needs to have that trait because things happen when you're on the road. And it's really, truly important that when things get messy, someone needs to be there to just, you know, bring everything down a notch, and maybe suggest an alternative, figure out a solution, without taking a bad situation and blowing it up into something worse.

The second trait that you will want to look for when you are choosing a long-term travel partner is somebody who is social.

For smaller trips, this might not seem like such a big deal. You know, if you're a social person, you can make friends, you can meet friends, you can introduce your partner to those people — all is well.

But for a longer-term travel, not only are you going to want to make friends for the both of you, but at a certain point you're gonna want to be able to make a friend and go off and do an activity — and know that your travel partner has the ability to do the same.

You know, split off, do something a little bit different, take some space, make some friends, and then meet back and discuss your adventures.

The third quality kind of goes hand-in-hand with that second "being social" quality — but it is stepping outside of your comfort zone.

Even if you aren't that person, it really helps to have someone that's traveling with you who is willing to stick their stuff out there, who is willing to step outside of their comfort zone and try something new — something that they might not think that they are into.

But if the two of you are traveling together, something that you want to try that might not be up their alley, it’s important to have someone who will maybe consider trying that thing with you.

And on the flipside — someone who might be able to give you that little push that you need to step outside your comfort zone as well.

And to balance that characteristic out, you also want someone who is going to let you do your thing — even if it isn't something that they are into.

This doesn’t have to be a stepping-outside-your-comfort-zone kind of thing. But maybe you have a friend who just is not into skydiving — that's not their thing. But you want to go do that, and that's something that's really important to you.

There's a difference between a person stepping outside their comfort zone and giving it a try, and just knowing full-well that that's not something that they're willing to do — but you should still be able to go out and enjoy and do your thing without having to worry about whether that person, your companion, is going to be not so pleased with you.

I think that the biggest mistake that people make when they're choosing travel partners is that they just grab a friend from home who seems like a ton of fun and is always really free-spirited, ready to go — and yeah, that's what you want in a travel partner — and off they fly.

And then you land, and then that person with their super free spirit and adventurous lifestyle says, “I'ma peace out and go do something else,” and there you are left standing. What do you do?

You need someone who — if they want to go off and do their own things — they're gonna let you know that that's what they want to do. They're gonna help you make a plan.

You're not gonna find yourself up in the morning with your bags packed, ready to catch that train, and just hoping that they're gonna show up and be there.

You want to know that at the end of the day, after all of the fun and adventures that you have — together or separate — they're gonna be there for you.

Those are my five traits — of many fantastic traits — that I recommend looking for when you are picking a travel partner for long-term travel.