“I have found that there is no more reliable way to know if people like you or hate, than to travel with them.” - Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894).
I love to travel - alone or with friends, with my family or work colleagues. Some trips were unforgettable, others ended in disaster - not because everything went awry, but also because I thoughtlessly approached the choice of a travel companion.
Here are a couple of tips for finding a travel partner.
Take it for granted: there are no ideal partners
People are not a jigsaw puzzle; it will not work to put together a perfect picture. The plus is that there is no need to look for one hundred percent coincidence - there is enough similarity in one, the main thing.
This can only be found out on a journey, in practice. I didn't want to go to Poland, but my friend said that she would go for the weekend, and I agreed. I was right: I was not impressed by Poland, but it was so much fun that the negativity from what I saw faded into the background.
Be honest with yourself
Some people laugh at failure and move on. I am not one of them - I take shoals at my own expense, I am sensitive to failures, I do not like difficulties. Recently I went with a psychologist friend named Cyril to St. Petersburg. He constantly gave advice in his personal life, work, criticized almost everything, from the choice of the menu to the clothes. Hanging out after a psychotherapy session, I suppose. He remains my friend, but on the fourth day of the trip I hated him, and on the seventh I wanted to kill Cyril. Practice has shown that joint tourism is not suitable for us.
Admit it: everything is changeable
Travel patterns change with age. As teenagers, we rode dogs to St. Petersburg - electric trains, with transfers, to a concert - and returned in the same way. And tomorrow we went to study and work. Now I choose leisurely and measured travel without a guidebook at the ready. I like to walk without a checklist and plans full of ambition.
Learn to be slightly English
In Albion, there is a phraseological unit "hard upper lip": this is the name for people who keep firmness in the face of difficulties. It is better to travel with a confident and determined person than with a whiner and a hysterical person. Toughness in the circumstances helps to be flexible in the rest.
Learn languages - or find someone who speaks the language of the country you are traveling to
Traveling with a linguist may seem tricky, but the benefits are clear. Finding transportation, buying drinks, ordering food, getting directions and staying away from questionable places in Marseille is easier with a francophon friend than alone. Without a tongue, I risked waking up on a ship at sea, like the victims of military recruiters in modern times, or not waking up at all.
Opposites attract
Keep everything balanced - extrovert and introvert are made for each other. With a classmate in college, we went on a group tour - the only ones from the entire course. A trip to the cities of the Golden Ring - Sergiev Posad, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Suzdal, Vladimir. We were poorly acquainted, there was a lack of conversation topics. Jokes helped: as a child, my reference book was a collection of anti-Soviet jokes, a bold red volume of six hundred pages. Petka, Chapaev, Felix Edmundovich and Vladimir Ilyich helped to find a common language - this was the beginning of friendship. Actually, I like to travel with lovers of contemporary art, avant-garde and constructivism.
Choose independent
The first long trip to Europe in 2007 was crowned with success because I traveled with a person who agreed that during the trip you can part and meet: I stayed in Germany, and she took a ferry to Stockholm. We met 2 weeks later and caught up in Rotterdam and The Hague.
Another case: I met an interesting person, a professor, a medical doctor from Astrakhan. All his life he studied leprosy (leprosy) and directed the institute for its study; it was in a Moscow cafe in 2005. Three years later I met him in Helsinki, where he arrived for a medical symposium. He agreed to put me in the room, and we traveled to Russia by train, together.
Discuss 2 subtleties: money and time
Traveling with those who are always late and those who have to wait are exhausting and annoying. As an owl, I have a hard time tolerating people with a morning schedule getting up at dawn, and their activity diminishing with dusk.
The difference in budget is no less discouraging: if you are traveling on a budget, and your friend is on a grand scale, the conflict is inevitable, at least - inconvenience. Good luck if you agree to pay for accommodation, museums, cafes, restaurants, bars and excursions.
Be honest about personal habits
Snoring? And a friend? It can be unpleasant if your sleep is a bit, and the horses are dying from the snoring of the neighbor outside the window. The output is noise-canceling headphones: they are easy to carry, and the benefits are enormous. The same shit with social media, YouTube videos, chatting on the phone or going to the toilet when the door is not locked.
An analysis of your life with your spouse and children will probably tell you a couple of things that drive you crazy. Ask your travel companion about them - and neutralize the negativity in advance.
A sense of humor will save
If everything on the road goes to hell, humor may be the only salvation from a rash step under a train or jumping off a bridge. In Prague, before a date with a girl, a pigeon shit on me. The travel companion waited for me to laugh in order to defuse the situation (a manifestation of the highest tact!), And only afterwards announced that it was for good luck.
Communicate
Discussing problems will defuse the atmosphere and clarify the atmosphere.
Take a moment to break up
In other situations, parting is the best solution. Better a horrible end than endless horror. Let the infinity of irritation from everyday life be replaced by a slight longing for friendship that has remained in the past.
Loneliness may be preferable to company
Is your itinerary planned down to the smallest detail, and you are not ready to make compromises? Choose a trip yourself, without a travel companion.
Joy is also brought by trips in which you share impressions and events with each other, and in splendid isolation, without worrying about who will say or think what. If you managed to find a like-minded person (especially one willing to divide the travel expenses in half), you hit the jackpot.
