Coping with your travel companion
Communication, flexibility keys to smooth trip
By Marnie Hunter
CNN
(CNN) -- No matter how carefully you plan a trip with a friend, a romantic interest or a new acquaintance, there will probably be moments of frustration and conflict along the way.
Even after the dates, destination and length of the trip are settled and the tickets have been purchased, there's still the possibility that problems could come up on the road.
Here are a few tactics to smooth out potential wrinkles before you depart and defuse tension when it crops up:
Plan the trip together
This seems obvious, but sometimes one person takes the lead and tailors the trip to his or her interests. Planning together allows for a more diverse and balanced vacation.
"Some people like to sightsee a lot, other people don't. Some people want to walk, some people would rather use public transportation," said Dorlene Kaplan, president of ShawGuides, a publisher of guides to educational travel and career programs.
"So it's finding out how compatible you are in terms of the things that you're going to be doing, the places that you're going to be going, how much time you're going to be spending together," said Kaplan, who also runs TravelChums.com, a ShawGuides site that helps solo travelers find like-minded companions.
Be clear about budgets
Vacation-time is not exempt from squabbles over money. Different budgets and mind-sets about leisure spending can leave travel companions at odds over what to do next, said Andrew Sharp, a psychiatric nurse practitioner at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"Some people will want to go to an exclusive restaurant when others weren't prepared to do that," he said.
Discussing budgets before the trip will minimize misunderstandings and help travelers see when there's room for a splurge.
Kaplan recommends figuring out how shared costs will be handled -- will they be split as you go, drawn from pooled resources or settled up at the end of the trip?
Find out about lifestyle
Differences in lifestyle can be a rude awakening if they haven't been discussed in advance.
"There's nothing worse than being in the room and up at 6 a.m. when [your companion] wanted to sleep until noon," Sharp said.
"Sleep patterns can be very disruptive to those that don't hold the same pattern," he said.
The same can be said for dietary and other restrictions. Anticipating those differences in advance helps people adapt to each other more quickly and graciously.
Drinking habits may also be an issue, as alcohol tends to heighten conflicts.
TravelChums covers these and other questions on its pre-trip questionnaire.
Gauge coping tactics
Ask questions and draw from what you know about your companion to anticipate how they may respond to stressful situations. Is this person generally patient and flexible?
Sharp recommends asking a potential travel companion about their best and worst trips. What happened? How did that person respond?
Knowing a little bit about how your companion deals with adversity is advised, even if you would have done things differently.
"It's not so bad if you've kind of predicted that that's how they're going to behave in certain situations, than if it hits you by surprise," Sharp said.
Compromise
Be willing to make some concessions in the interest of having a good time.
"Agree to disagree. Do you really want to expend your energy harboring anger or ill feelings on what is supposed to be your vacation when what you should be doing is relaxing and enjoying it?" Sharp said.
He recommends purchasing travel journals for yourself and your travel companions as a way to reflect on the trip and defuse some of the frustration that may come up.
Take a break
Split up when tensions are high and divergent interests are pulling you in opposite directions. Be sure to set a time and meeting place and have a backup meeting set in case of an unforeseen delay.
"People tend to feel like they have to stick together when they are together on a trip," Sharp said. "And anybody with someone breathing their air, so to speak, 24 hours a day needs a break from the other person."
