14 Couples On How Their Relationship Changed For Better (Or Worse) After Traveling Together

1. “My boyfriend and I were flying back from a trip to Arizona to see his parents and on the way back we hit turbulence and I mean major turbulence that shook the whole airplane and caused a stewardess to actually fall down in the aisle trying to get to the intercom to make sure people buckled up. It went on for thirty minutes too and several times we were literally falling. My man took my hand and stayed calm the entire time. He was clearly worried but compared to other people on the plane crying out and saying things like ‘oh God’ he was a rock and he just kept telling me everything would be okay. It said a lot about how he handles stressful and scary situations and he made me feel safe.”

—Cherie, 23

2. “No matter how much you think you love someone, you can learn to hate them after not eating a real meal or sleeping for 24 hours while waiting for a flight inside a Chinese airport. Airport terminals are where love goes to die.”

—Skye, 26

3. “Girlfriend and I went to a music festival for the weekend in Iceland a couple years ago. We talked about it and decided we’d both pack really light. Apparently light meant three suitcases to her and constant complaining once we were in our hotel room about all the things we forgot. This trip is when I learned that not being able to cut loose every once in a while is a pet peeve of mine. You shouldn’t have to take your whole apartment with you just to get away for the weekend.

This is a whole thing in our relationship that we haven’t worked out yet.”

—Maurice, 27

4. “This is about my ex-boyfriend. He and I went to South Korea for a week’s vacation. I’m second generation American and while I’d never gotten the impression he didn’t like Korean things I sure found it out on that trip. Dude literally complained about the language barrier the whole time. He complained that there wasn’t more Western food available and that he couldn’t watch Netflix in Seoul. Fucking hell, dude, why travel if you’re going to be this big of a bitch about it?”

—Esther, 24

5. “My now husband and I spent a week camping and hiking in Alaska before we were married. You never know how that kind of this going to go but after a brief period of fighting at the beginning of the week we really settled into this amazingly thoughtful and cooperative groove where we worked together as a team. He’s the best travel companion I’ve ever had.”

—Maggie, 26

6. “Went to Brazil with some friends including my boyfriend for Spring Break Junior year of college. Dude spent the entire time gawking at Brazilian girls openly. I get it, they’re beautiful, but the amount of disrespect he showed was a real turn off. I dropped him half way through the trip and ended up hooking up with one of the locals and spending most of my time with him instead. It’s like, get a clue, if you ignore me then you don’t get to keep me around.”

—Anna, 22

7. “I learned just what a chill person my girl is when our luggage got lost on a trip to the Bahamas two years ago. I mean, she was annoyed but she absolutely did not let it ruin her good time. We just went and bought some basics and spent the first half of the week changing in and out of two outfits. It was actually more fun than if we had our luggage with us and when the airline found our stuff four days later it was a total afterthought. Her whole attitude saved the trip.”

—Jim, 29

8. “My husband talks when he’s bored, a lot, and when you’re traveling, as we all know, there’s a lot of boredom. I finally had to tell him to stop talking to me because I was going insane. So, we learned that in order to travel together he has to talk less and I have to expect to be low grade annoyed the whole time.”

—Sam, 24

9. “News flash to those who don’t know, when you’re hostel jumping in Europe not everywhere is going to have a washing machine available so pack more than two pairs of everything. A boy I dated briefly couldn’t understand why he couldn’t expect the world to just provide washing facilities for him no matter where we were. Ugliest American traveler I ever knew.”

—Janice, 24

10. “Girl I was dating back in 2010 actually complained about mass transit options when we went to London for a few days. Within a single day she developed this ridiculous proud American persona where she suddenly felt like everyone should have a car and there shouldn’t be so many subways and buses. And that’s when I began to hate her and realize what an infantile moron she was.”

—Martin, 27

11. “My girlfriend and I went to Tokyo together and quickly realized how sloppy we were compared to literally everyone in the entire country including every inanimate object. Like, our seats on the subway had it together more than we did appearance wise. We just laughed it off and decided that ‘ugly American’ was apparently also a literal description. Japan has its shit together and we bonded closely over our disgusting and hairy appearance.”

—Mack, 23

12. “You can learn a lot about a person from the kind of shoes they wear to the airport for a twelve hour flight around the world. If they wear heels and a tight dress because they want to look good that might be a sign that they don’t understand what they’re doing. Prepare your body because they’re going to be complaining about their choices for the next three days and asking why no one told them what to wear even though you told them ‘wear something loose and comfortable’ no less than three billion times.”

—Vincent, 27

13. “My wife and I both learned patience but we had a headstart on it since we both knew that travel can be stressful (we hadn’t traveled together before). However we were traveling with another couple who had not learned this lesson and fought nearly the entire trip about the stupidest shit imaginable like what what an appropriate vacation bedtime is. So, I guess what she and I learned is that we’re solid and everyone else is crazy.”

—Nathan, 30

14. “Long-term boyfriend (now fiance) and I actually learned a lot about each other just from whirlwind holiday trip last Christmas. I learned that he needs to be the one manages tasks and planning and transitions and that he wants me to steer him and acknowledge his efforts in this way. I learned that I need him to be able to set the itinerary. It’s weird that this was the lesson that we took from our trip together but it’s valuable info. Once we both realized that’s what was going on it was easy to see how this held true in our relationship as well. We’re both much better for it.”

—Jude, 25