Keeping the Relationship Spark Alive on the Road

Posted: 07/22/2019 | July 22nd, 2019

This is a guest post by Ant, who used to blog at Positive World Travel, a travel blog that focused on couples travel tips. Their blog is no longer in existence.

When traveling the world as a couple, there can come a time when your relationship “spark” loses some its brightness. While exploring new cultures and racing around the world, it‘s easy for your relationship to fall to the wayside or end up in a rut.

I’m talking from experience.

Our relationship has become boring and mundane a few times, but we‘ve found many ways to keep igniting the flame over and over again. The important thing is to try and keep your relationship as fresh and as exciting as the countries you‘re visiting.

Here are a 6 ways Elise and I have found to keep our relationship interesting while we travel the world:

1. Organize a Date Night

As corny as it might sound, going out on an actual “date” can do wonders for your relationship. It can get monotonous sightseeing, eating cheap meals, or cooking your own food day in and day out, so making time for a special night can be something to look forward to.

Elise and I plan a date night every two weeks. We spend a little extra money, go to a nice restaurant, and dress up as best we can. We spend that night not talking about our website or what we did that day but rather talking with one another, putting our dream caps on, and playing the “what if” game.

Elise loves to chat about our eventual wedding, and even though it can drive me crazy at times (I never knew you could talk so much about floral arrangements!), date nights are a great way to share and chat about her — err, I mean our — dream wedding.

Date nights give you the opportunity to listen and reconnect with one another outside the traveling experience.

2. Be Spontaneous

Traveling as a couple can take its toll on each of you, and this tip is one of our key ingredients to success. Elise likes our travels to be somewhat planned, and I try and mix things up and be spontaneous, which keeps her thinking because she doesn‘t know what I have planned next.

If you have extra time in the city you‘re in, head out for the day and just act on a whim. Do activities you hadn’t considered before. Try some romantic activities like booking a massage together. Or try something more fun and unconventional when traveling, such as seeing a movie or going bowling.

Traveling doesn‘t always have to be about sightseeing. You can spend time doing “normal” activities that you did back home, too.

3. Embrace Celebrations

Even while traveling, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries is important to any relationship. It doesn’t matter if you‘re in the middle of nowhere, because the fact that you‘ll go to a little extra effort and get creative will always make your partner happy.

Once when we were camping, it was Elise’s birthday and we were far from any nice restaurants. So, the morning of her birthday, I woke up early to blow up 23 balloons and then gently placed them throughout our tent. I woke her up to an out-of-tune singing birthday candle and a dry piece of cake I found at a corner store the day before. She was delighted that I had gone to the trouble of making her birthday a little special even though we were camping.

We spent the rest of the day at a deserted beach, and Elise says that it was one of her best birthdays ever.

4. Plan Surprises

Even though you‘re traveling on a limited budget, a surprise every now and again will always excite your better half. Elise knows that I‘m a sucker for dark chocolate, and I always get excited when she‘s been out to run some errands and jumps on the bed with both hands behind her back when she gets home. I love that she thinks of me while she‘s out. It brings joy to our relationship.

Try to surprise each other with little touches here and there. Even a small gesture can work wonders.

5. Face Your Fears Together

Doing activities that one or both of you have a fear of can bring you together and bond you. Sharing a fear and overcoming it will definitely bring the spark back and a sense of achievement for you both.

Elise has a small fear of heights, and she has regularly pushed herself to confront this fear over the past 18 months. She has jumped out of planes and off cliffs into fast-flowing rivers. Each time she faces this fear I get so proud of her and it deepens my love for her.

Supporting your partner and giving them the encouragement they need to face their fears or overcoming them together is an instant bonding moment shared between the two of you and only strengthens your relationship.

6. Get Intimate

It has to be noted that sex is an important part of every relationship, and when you’re not having any, you‘re bound to be fighting more. Traveling in dirty environments and staying in shared accommodation can be a dampener to sexual relations. Finding time for a romp when there are train schedules to work out, long and sweaty bus rides to take, or a day battling annoying touts can be difficult.

Spending a little extra money from time to time and staying in a private room is the best way to find some alone time, as having sex in hostels can be quite tricky otherwise. Elise and I do this from time to time to make sure we can have intimate moments together. It’s worth the extra time and money. Trust me.

***
Even couples that have been together for years and years all need to take time out every now and again to make sure the spark is still there. The most important tip is to work out what works for you as a couple. Elise and I always make sure we not only have time for long-term travel and all that entails but also for making our relationship work on the road and keeping the spark alive.

Even couples that have been together for years and years all need to take time out every now and again to make sure the spark is still there. The most important tip is to work out what works for you as a couple. Elise and I always make sure we not only have time for long-term travel and all that entails but also for making our relationship work on the road and keeping the spark alive.

Ant is one half of the dynamic duo who used to blog at Positive World Travel. They wrote about their experiences and thoughts on what long-term travel is like as a couple, though they no longer blog.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight
Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation
You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

• World Nomads (for everyone below 70)
• Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with?
Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and that will save you time and money too!

Do You Give to Beggars Overseas?

“Now, if I buy all your flowers, you’ll go home, right?” said the Aussie girl next to me.

“Yup,” said the little girl selling roses as she handled the bundle to my friend.

We were in Bangkok and I was watching my Aussie friend take pity on a little Thai girl selling flowers to drunk backpackers on Khao San Road in Thailand. She bought all the flowers, feeling good about herself and confident that she had kept a little girl from staying up all night, sending her home to get rest for school tomorrow.

“Oh, what the hell!” I heard her say about 30 minutes later. I looked up and there, across the street, was the little flower girl, selling a new batch of flowers. She avoided us this time.

My Aussie friend was clearly disheartened. She felt as though she had done some good, only to realize a cruel reality of Thailand: kids don’t go home until their parents say so. After spending many years in Thailand, I knew this was going to happen. My other friends and I had warned her not to buy all the flowers, that the little girl’s parents would just send her out again. But she didn’t listen.

And now that I’m back in Thailand and I see beggars and little kids again, wandering the streets asking for money, I wonder if giving is doing any good or just supporting a flawed system. In much of the developing world, you see kids selling trinkets and flowers to Westerners. You see parents begging with a kid “asleep” in their lap in order to gain sympathy. After all, the parents know what we know: it’s hard to say no to a kid. You automatically feel bad for them. You think about the poverty they live in, the life they lead, and think, “Well, I’ll give a little bit and help out.”

If people weren’t giving, those kids wouldn’t be there. And as much as people protest and shoo the kids away, many other people open their wallets in hopes of doing some good. We look at the woman with the baby in her arms, reach into our pockets, and go, “OK, just a little bit.”

When I see these beggars on the street, I’m often torn on what to do. On the one hand, I don’t want to perpetuate the system. I don’t want the children to be out selling trinkets instead of learning in school. I don’t want parents using their children as a shortcut to quick cash. I don’t want kids to be used as emotional blackmail. I want them asleep at 10pm, not dealing with angry, drunk tourists who are annoyed at them.

Yet I know that many poor families often do this out of necessity. They simply need the money. I often think about Bangladesh. Back in the 1990s when child sweatshop labor became the cause du jour, the focus was on Bangladeshi sweatshops. There were boycotts. A crying Kathy Griffin. An uproar. Legislation. Clothing manufacturers cracked down on suppliers who hired children. Child labor decreased, and Westerners could sleep easy.

Yet years later I remember reading a newspaper article on a study that followed up on what happened to the children in Bangladesh. Turns out, they didn’t go to school. They ended up on the streets as beggars. The families needed the income for food. And if they couldn’t work making clothes, they could work on the streets.

The need for food trumps all other needs.

I remember once walking past this guy and his kid in a part of Bangkok I went to often with my friends. The man sold some junky stuff I didn’t want. But one day I walked past him, and the desperation, the pleading in his voice just made me stop.

“Just look. Please. Please,” he said.

I’d never seen such a sincere look of desperation on someone’s face as I did that night. I don’t know if it was all part of the “get money” game, but I just couldn’t look at that guy with his kid and stuff no one wanted and not be moved. I pulled out my wallet and handed the guy 1,000 baht (a little over $30 USD). He was dumbfounded by the money, but I just couldn’t walk past him anymore without helping. The sadness in his eyes was just too real…just too palpable.

Giving money to beggars often represents more than a black-and-white choice between supporting and not supporting a flawed system. Many of these people lack any real social support structure that can help them out of poverty. Thailand has no social assistance program. (Neither does most of the developing world where you see such abject poverty and so many beggars.) They’re on their own.

And so despite hating the system, I usually give. If there’s change in my wallet, I give it to the homeless and beggars of the world. It’s simply too hard to say no. My heart breaks for them.

And I know that’s sort of the point. They feed on your sympathy. It’s hard, especially with the kids.

What do you do? Do you give? Do you not give? What’s the answer here? Is there one? I’m interested to know how you deal with this situation as you see it unfold around the world.

New York City Finally Opens the Second Avenue Subway

After a 96-year wait, the Second Avenue Subway in New York City has finally made its debut.

When it comes to the Second Avenue line, New York took the phrase “better late than never” a little too literally. In the century it took to open the line, more than a few of those that helped make it happen thought they would never see the day.

“We were young,” 93-year-old Felice Shea, who worked with her local community board to plan for the line in the '60s, told The New York Times. “We thought it was going to happen. It took a little longer than we thought.”

Amid intense (negative) speculation, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had in December promised the Second Avenue Subway would indeed open on New Year's Day. Lo and behold, Cuomo celebrated the opening on New Year's Eve with an underground soiree, and Upper East Siders on Sunday were able to enjoy a very unusual sight: A brand new subway line.

The Q line, which previously ran to Queens from midtown, now goes up the island of Manhattan along Second Avenue up to 96th Street.

Here, photos of some of the effort that went into building the new subway line.