Planning to jet off to a beach destination for spring break? Or, planning a spa and wine weekend with your closest girlfriends? Traveling with your friends creates a bond you’ll always share. But, conflicts can easily arise when your travel styles, priorities, and budgets don’t align. Luckily, guest blogger Lara Stewart has you covered with her five best tips for traveling with friends.
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Five Tips For Traveling With Friends (And Keeping Your Friendship Intact)
Whether you are traveling for a spring break trip, a destination bachelorette party, or an epic road trip, you’ll find five tips listed below for traveling with your friends.
1. Travel With Friends Who Have Similar Travel Styles
Before even planning your trip with your friends, be clear with your priorities. Do you want to be pampered at a luxury resort? Do you want to explore the local surroundings? Are you hoping to attend local events?
When you experience local festivities, you’ll come home with unique stories, cherished memories, and plenty of photos for your Instagram. On the other hand, an all-inclusive resort vacation can be the relaxation you need to unwind and reset.
Both kinds of trips — or a mixture of the two — can be fun to share with your closest buds as long as you all want to share the same kind of travel experience.
RELATED: Best Friends’ Getaway to All-Inclusive Resort in Costa Rica
2. Agree On Your Travel Budget Before The Trip
Now, the next task is to make sure you don’t spend all your money at once! Travel requires budgeting, and you and your friends should agree upon a budget that is comfortable for everyone going on the trip.
As you begin planning your trip, research your desired travel destination to determine costs related to transportation, accommodations, activities, and dining.
For example, if you want to go to Tulum or elsewhere in Mexico’s Riviera Maya, check into special packages offered by hotels and resorts. When it comes to all-inclusive resorts, be sure to carefully review the benefits included in your package. Some are truly all-inclusive, while others place limitations on meals or premium liquors and wine.
If you and your friends plan to spend your vacation drinking by the pool, a bar tab can quickly add up. In that case, it may be financially beneficial to stay at an all-inclusive resort where all drinks are included in the upfront cost.
On the flip side, if you or your friends don’t drink alcohol, you are likely better off staying at a hotel or resort where food and beverage are billed a la carte. The option you select just depends on the kind of trip you’d like to have.
As you can see, it’s best to be honest with yourself and your friends about where your priorities lie for the trip. Then you all can choose a destination and accommodations that fit your budget and travel style. This will ensure everyone has the relaxing vacation or exciting adventure they seek.
3. Pack The Essentials In Your Daypack
While traveling, you may want to pack everything in the coolest suitcase to take the burden of a heavy bag off your shoulders. Trust me, that is the worst mistake you can ever make.
When traveling, you should make sure you have easy access to your travel documents, toiletries, and medicines.
Unfortunately, luggage can get lost or stolen along the journey. Luckily, that is usually covered by travel insurance. However, that won’t help you in the moment when you need your medication, identification, or sunscreen. Even if you don’t need any medication, I bet you’ll want to touch up your makeup before that group selfie. 😉
While one can hope that nothing goes wrong, it is always better to be safe rather than sorry.
For more packing tips, don’t miss:
- Costa Rica Packing List: 10 Things You Should Take
- What To Pack For Peru – A Guide For Women Traveling 2+ Weeks
- Five Must-Have Hygiene Essentials For Women Traveling In Peru
4. Leave Unplanned Time To Explore Your Surroundings
When you plan a trip with your friends, try to pick a destination where you can experience something new together. Maybe that will be learning to surf along Hawaii’s iconic Waikiki Beach or taking a class to make authentic Mexican food in Playa del Carmen!
While you’ll want to plan out some of these activities, especially those that require reservations, don’t restrict yourselves to only those activities you have pre-planned. Many times travelers fall in love with places they find while simply exploring their surroundings. So, wrangle up your friends, grab your camera, and go explore!
Here are some ways you can explore the local area:
- Eat the regional cuisine at a local restaurant
- Take a hike or walk around town
- Go shopping at local boutiques and shops
- Browse a market to see what food is locally grown or produced
- Experience the local nightlife at bars, music venues, and nightclubs
- Rent bicycles to pedal around town or on a bike path that connects to a neighboring town
5. Keep Your Travel Bucket List In Mind
What is on your travel bucket list? Skydiving in the Swiss Alps? Snorkeling in the Maldives? Learning to cook traditional Italian food in Tuscany? Pick some activities from your and your friends’ bucket lists, and add them to your trip itinerary!
Even your transportation around your destination can be bucket-list-worthy. If you’ve seen the Back to the Future movies, I’m sure you know what hoverboards are. Try taking one out for a spin while exploring a new destination!
Instead of walking, driving, or relying on public transit, try:
- cycling around a wine region
- motorbiking around a Greek island like Paros
- taking a Segway tour of an urban metropolis
- kayaking between breweries in a waterfront beer city
- scootering around a quirky small town
As you travel with your friends, get out and explore by going to local festivities, listening to local music at concerts, and eating local delicacies. Be sure to have packed all of your essentials in your daypack, keeping documents safe at all times. If you do all that while sticking to your planned budget, I’m sure your squad will have a blast traveling together.
About The Guest Blogger
Lara Stewart is a fitness expert and gym owner obsessed with physical health and healthy eating. She has in-depth knowledge about the fitness needs of the body and how one can stay healthy on a budget. Lara also regularly writes for Scooter Scouter.
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- Guest Post: Five Tips for Visiting Playa del Carmen and Tulum in Mexico’s Riviera Maya
Save the image below to your Pinterest travel board to easily reference this post before future trip planning!
Where would you like to travel with friends?
Traveling with my own friends, I’ve visited such destinations as the Riviera Maya in Mexico, the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, Napa Valley wine country, New York City, and Las Vegas. In the future, I’d love to take girls’ trips to New Orleans, Austin, and Traverse City, Michigan. Please leave a comment below telling me about the best trip you’ve taken with your buds or where you’d like to take a group getaway someday!
Good points here, Erin! While I haven’t travelled too many times with my galpals, I’m glad to say I’ve been able to successfully navigate 9 trips with my now 17 yo daughter over the years and much of this advice still applies 🙂 We have another European soujourn planned for this July/Aug to Netherlands & Belgium (yay for dark chocolate!!) so Xing fingers that the world situation stays on good stead & we can execute our plans.
btw, since you’re a travel lover like me, you might like this wearables system I’ve taken on every trip since 2007 (& I also use it every day, whether at home or away). It foils pickpockets and makes life easier as allows me to keep vital items always on my body. Things like my cellphone, passports, ID/cards, etc…
Major diff is you can use use it ANYwhere, so it’s vastly more versatile than any money belt or necksafe++. There’s a short demo on home at portapocket.com ; many kits are also available via amazon for affiliate income. I hope this may be useful for you. Cheers! xo
Hello,
My name is Kyle Kroeger and I’m a travel blogger for my site ViaTravelers.com. I’m looking to collaborate with other bloggers. I recently quit my job to become a travel blogger full-time (eek!). Exciting and nerve-racking so I’m looking to grow together with other travel bloggers as well. I specialize in SEO-oriented topics that will drive traffic, making it a win-win for both of us.
Are you accepting guest posts? If so, I can send a few topics that would fit your site’s existing articles. In exchange, I’m happy to have you guest post on my site as well.
Cheers,
Kyle
Thank you for your interest in guest blogging, Kyle! I’ve emailed you to discuss potential collaboration between our blogs.
I love your ideas and you are right about traveling with someone with similar travel style. It can make for a long trip otherwise! Also, I agree to not schedule every moment because there is something that always ends up popping up you want to do once you get there.
Traveling with friends who have similar travel styles can make all the difference! You’re so right that things always pop up when you travel.
Such a fun post! I adore traveling with friends, though mostly I travel with my family. These are great tips and I think it’s always important to save some time for exploring what you want to at that very moment, being spontaneous is one of the best things about traveling with friends for me as traveling with kids doesn’t always allow for this.
What a great point that spontaneity is sometimes easier when traveling with peers than with children!
I think your first point is so important. I’ve been on trips with friends that don’t have the same vacation vision as me and so it may the trip less-than-desireable!
Yes! You all have to be on the same page about the kind of trip experience you want and how much you are willing to spend on it.
Yes! These are great tips! I’ve had an interesting experience with friends who had a completely different plan than the rest of us.
That is always a tricky situation, Kim. Unfortunately, it’s also one many of us have experienced to some degree when traveling in a group setting, and it can really tarnish a friendship. So, if I could add my own tip to this guest post it would be that it is OK to split up from the group when you want to do different activities. However, this should be done with safety in mind, i.e. using the buddy system and/or setting up a meeting time and place to join back together.
We haven’t picked out a destination just yet. I am so excited about using your tips when we finally make this trip.
I hope these tips help. 🙂 Wishing you and your friends safe and fun travels together wherever you go!