Adventuring Together: What If Your Partner Doesn’t Want to Travel?

Adventure is a State of Mind

What If Your Partner Doesn’t Want to Share Your Travel Adventure?

Do you like to travel? Does your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/partner? Uh oh! If you didn’t give the same answer to both questions, there could be some frustration in the relationship when it comes to travel adventures.

When people say they want to travel but haven’t done so, it is often the result of having a partner who is unwilling to travel with them. This situation can be frustrating, but it doesn’t necessarily have to stop anyone from taking the trip of their dreams. To address the problem, however, you need to figure out why your partner doesn’t want to join you in your travel adventures.

The Why

There are a number of reasons why someone might not want to travel. These include being afraid to travel, a lack of experience (often contributing to being afraid), not being a “good” traveler, financial concerns, and genuinely having no interest in leaving home.

Talk to your partner about which of these reasons best explains their not wanting to travel with you. Once you’ve figured out the reason why, in most cases, you can address the problem rather than just complaining that your partner doesn’t want to go anywhere. Let’s tackle the reasons one by one.

Fear

Fear of the unknown is an experience most of us have at some point, and traveling to a new place obviously presents a lot of unknowns. If your partner expresses anxiety and fears related to traveling, talk to them about what those fears are specifically.

Identifying a fear is the first step in overcoming it. Just sharing our worries out loud with someone takes away some of their power. And once we’ve identified worries specifically, we can also identify ways to address them.

For example, if your partner is afraid to travel to another country because they don’t know the language and they are worried they won’t know how to order in a restaurant or how to ask where the restroom is, you can develop a plan to address this. It might be learning some basic words and phrases in the local language or making sure you have a good translation app on your phone. Or, you and your partner could decide to join a tour group so that there will be guides to help you with the language.

If fear of the unknown is the primary reason your partner is reluctant to travel, another way you can encourage them to join you is to provide them with something familiar. When traveling abroad, I personally tend to avoid international hotel chains, mostly because I want to stay somewhere different for a new experience. For some people, however, being able to stay at a hotel they are somewhat familiar with from back home can provide them with a little extra emotional security when they are in a new city in a new country and nothing else around them feels familiar.

Another possible source of travel anxiety is past negative experiences. If your partner is reluctant to travel because of a past experience, talk with them about what happened. Is it something that is likely to happen again? Are there steps that can be taken to reduce the possibility? For example, if they were stranded in an airport for two days because of a snowstorm, that fear could be eliminated by agreeing to only travel during the summer.

Lack of Experience

Sometimes your partner may say they don’t want to travel when what they really mean is they don’t know how to travel. Maybe their family didn’t take vacations when they were a child, so they don’t even have much experience traveling in their home state, let alone traveling to another state or country. If the problem is a lack of experience, there is also likely some anxiety, although your partner may not have admitted that (even to themself) yet.

The best antidote for a lack of experience is… well, experience. We forget that even things we easily do now as adults were a little overwhelming or scary the first time we tried them. Do you remember the first time you drove a car? For most adults, that activity now is done on a daily basis with little thought, but it definitely wasn’t that easy the first time!

If your partner has said they don’t want to go on a travel adventure with you because of a lack of experience, consider using a scaffolding strategy. Start small and easy. If they have little travel experience of any kind, try a weekend trip to another state. If they’ve never traveled out of the country, consider making your first trip abroad to a country that speaks the same language as you.

As an added incentive, add in some activities you know your partner is familiar with and likes. Maybe your golf-loving partner isn’t as excited as you about the idea of visiting Scotland… until you remind them that St. Andrews in Scotland is the birthplace of golf. Their entire attitude about the trip could change when you suggest golfing one day during the trip.

When my husband, Greg, and I first began traveling together, he was a fairly anxious traveler, mostly due to a lack of experience. When I initially suggested trips abroad, his first instinct was to say “no,” but I usually managed to convince him by pointing out opportunities to go fishing in many of the places we were visiting. He wasn’t as excited as me about taking the trip, but he looked forward to new fishing experiences. Once we were there, he enjoyed most of the rest of the things we did and places we visited. Over time (thank goodness!), he’s actually come to love traveling as much as I do, whether or not he manages to fit in some fishing during the trip.

The Not-So-Good Traveler

I don’t want to call anyone a “bad” traveler, but there are clearly people who struggle with many aspects of traveling. What’s amazing is that many of them continue to travel, despite their struggles.

Some individuals become extremely uncomfortable when they aren’t able to maintain their daily routine. I’m sure you’ve known people who eat the same thing at the same time every day for lunch or always take the exact same path for their daily walk. What’s impressive, to me, is that many of these people are courageous enough to still travel, despite their discomfort.

There are also many other reasons why individuals aren’t comfortable with travel. Some people may be very extroverted and struggle if they don’t have enough social interaction when they’re away from their friends. Others may be introverted and dread having to interact with strangers. There also could be sensory issues, such as hating crowds or loud noises, or physical and mobility issues, such as difficulty with stairs.

All of the above might be reasons why your partner is hesitant to join you in a travel adventure. It may be that they’re actually being considerate of you and don’t want to ruin your trip because of their struggles.

Again, talking about the concerns is the best way to figure out whether they can be addressed so as to make your travel adventure together possible. Compromise is going to be the magic word in this situation. For example, if your partner has mobility issues, you won’t be able to plan a hike in the Alps together. You can, however, travel together to the Alps and if you really want to hike, you can do that on your own or with a local tour for one day. Your partner can enjoy the day in a ski lodge drinking hot chocolate and admiring the view, and the two of you can spend the rest of the trip doing fun activities together.

Similarly, if you are interested in different activities or have different levels of inherent adventurousness, can you travel together but occasionally schedule different activities to enjoy separately?

Alternatively, traveling with a group of family or friends can give you each someone to share interests and activities with. For example, I’m quite happy to let Greg go fishing with someone else so that I don’t have to!

Finally, know your partner’s limits and respect them. If your partner is someone who likes their routine at home, try to stick to that routine as much as you can, including trying to eat meals and go to bed at approximately the same time as you would if you were at home. It’s great if they suggest doing things differently – such as going to dinner later so you can enjoy a restaurant in a Mediterranean country where the restaurants might not even be open at the time you usually eat dinner at home – but let your partner initiate stepping outside of their comfort zone. It may seem that you’re catering to your partner’s needs, and you are, but remember – they agreed to go with you on that trip, and that was a huge compromise on their part!

Financial Concerns

Travel can be expensive, although it often isn’t as expensive as people anticipate, especially if you’re traveling independently rather than paying for a cruise or tour group. If your partner is reluctant to travel because of the expense, spend some time researching and estimating the actual cost of transportation, lodging, food and beverages, and admission prices. Once they see them in black and white rather than a vague worry about how much it is going to cost, your partner might be more willing to start making travel plans.

Oftentimes, with a little extra time and effort, there are strategies that can reduce the cost of your travel. Getting creative and working together to figure out ways to make the trip more affordable can actually be fun and create a feeling of cooperation and teamwork with your partner.

Unfortunately, there are definitely times that the trip is going to stretch the budget. If that’s the case, you and your partner can make plans to start saving now. Even a fairly large amount of money can be manageable if you divide it into smaller amounts, such as saving a few hundred dollars every month for several years. You might have to wait a few years for your dream trip, but it will be worth it!

When someone tells me ‘no,’ it doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it simply means I can’t do it with them.

Karen E. Quinones Miller

An Absolute and Final Refusal

It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea, but there are some people who have absolutely no interest in traveling! Can you believe it?! Many people love traveling as much as they love staying home, but there are some people who only love staying home and have no interest in visiting other parts of the world.

My best advice, if you love to travel, is not to commit to sharing your life with someone like this! But, I know… sometimes we can’t control who we fall in love with.

And then there’s the fact that we all grow and change over time. Maybe travel wasn’t that important to you when you first met your partner, but as you’ve gotten older, you’ve developed a curiosity about the world. Unfortunately, they haven’t done the same.

It’s also possible that you aren’t that interested in traveling, in general, but you’ve developed a strong desire to take your dream trip to a specific location.

Again, talk to your partner about why they don’t want to travel. If you have at least one travel adventure you really, really want to take and your partner makes it crystal clear that they have no interest in leaving home, you may need to accept that this is the situation.

Acceptance means that you don’t try to force or manipulate your partner to travel with you. Acceptance does not mean that you have to give up your travel dreams. You just have to find a way to go on those travel adventures without your partner.

Finding an Alternate Travel Companion

Sometimes traveling without your partner means going someplace by yourself. Other times it means finding someone else to travel with. Trips with friends, such as the stereotypical “girls weekends,” are fun options if you’re interested in doing things that your partner doesn’t want to do, including if your partner doesn’t like to travel in general.

I’ve been lucky through the years to have many friends and family members who love to travel, so I haven’t had difficulty finding someone to join me in my travel adventures. Multiple times, however, I’ve had people tell me that their partner doesn’t like to travel and they’d like to take a trip with someone, but they don’t know how to find that person.

If you’re looking for a travel companion, the first step is to make your search public – tell your friends that you are looking for someone interested in the same travel adventure as you. With acquaintances and coworkers, find ways to bring up the topic of travel.

Attend travel-related activities where you could potentially meet others also interested in traveling the world – for example, if you want to travel to France, take a French language class through the local college. Or if there is a community center in the town where you live, check out whether they have any French cooking classes. Keeping your eyes open for opportunities related to where you want to travel will often put you in the right place at the right time to meet like-minded adventurers.

Whether you’re seeking out a new travel companion or you’re just looking for interesting places to visit, don’t be afraid to strike up a travel conversation with a stranger. Fortunately this is easy for me to do since I’m genuinely interested in hearing where others have traveled and what they enjoyed most about their trips. Such conversations might even result in you beginning a friendship with someone who is also looking for new friends to travel with!

If you do find a friend who is interested in possibly traveling with you, before booking a flight together, make sure to discuss your personalities and travel goals to make sure you’re compatible as travel companions. If you’re not sure what questions to ask, I shared some suggestions in this earlier blog post.

Regardless of whether you need to find a new travel companion, “train” your partner to be a more willing to traveler, or design your travels to be a better fit for your partner, your partner’s reluctance (at least initially) to be a brave, wise traveler doesn’t have to prevent you from exploring the world.

Who are your favorite travel companions? How did you figure out that you were both (or all) interested in sharing travel adventures together? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments section below.