Love Languages and Travel

Adventure is a State of Mind

Have you heard of the Five Love Languages? It’s a popular self-help book from 1992 by Gary Chapman, and it’s popular enough that the title has slipped into common-day usage.

What Are Love Languages?

The basic premise is that we each tend to express love in the way that we would most like to receive love. The problem is if the people we are trying to express our love to “speak” a different love language, they will not fully feel the love we are trying to share with them. Similarly, if someone expresses their love to us but in a different language than our preferred one, we will not feel that love as fully as we do in our preferred love language.

The five types of love languages are:

• Acts of Service
• Gifts
• Physical Touch
• Quality Time
• Words of Affirmation

If you want to learn more about the five love languages or figure out what your preferred love language is, you can read about Chapman’s theory and take a quiz here.

Love Languages and Travel

So why am I bringing this up in a travel blog? I’m making the assumption that if you are planning a trip with someone, you likely love them… or at least like them. And I believe that understanding the concept of love languages can help you interact with your travel companions in a way that enhances everyone’s enjoyment of the trip and strengthens your relationships. This is whether you are traveling with a partner, other family, or friends.

Figuring Out the Languages

Do you know your preferred love language? If not, take the quiz in the link above or search the internet for another quiz (there are a lot out there!) and then come back here.

Do you know your travel companions’ preferred love languages? If not, you can ask them to take the quiz.

There’s also a way to make a pretty good guess at what someone’s love language is – look at how they tend to express their love and affection to you. For example, if they frequently give you gifts and seem to enjoy doing so, it is likely that their love language is Gift Giving. On the other hand, if they rarely give gifts but are the first person to step up and volunteer to help when you need something, it is likely that their love language is Acts of Service.

The key to making the most of the love languages is to try to understand what that language is for others so you can express your affection for them in a way that they can fully absorb, even if that is not the first thing that you think of when you want to show them that you care.

Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.

Muhammad Ali

How to Use This Knowledge

So, what are the ways you can use this information with your travel adventures? Using the empathy that you gain from figuring out others’ love languages can help you understand what is meaningful to another person. This knowledge can then go a long way toward making a trip extra special for them. Let’s go through them one by one.

Acts of Service

Planning a trip is certainly an act of service as you are investing your time and energy into creating a travel adventure for those you are traveling with. If you are thinking that you want to take the lead in planning your next trip, make sure to also check out these other blog posts:

• How to Start
• How to Create a Travel Goal
• Time and Money (aka Reality) – Part 1
• Time and Money (aka Reality) – Part 2
• Research – How to Stay Safe When Traveling
• Research – What to See and Do
• Research – Places to Stay
• Research – How to Get Around
• Research – How to Get There
• How to Plan Your Travel Days
• How to Create a Home Base

Even if you are not the planner, there are ways that you can engage in acts of service with your fellow travelers. I have scoliosis and a life-long history of back problems, so my husband, Greg, is usually very quick to offer to lift my bag into the overhead bin on a plane or the overhead rack on a train. It is something he does without question or complaint, which I greatly appreciate.

Maybe you are traveling with companions who could benefit from your help. Even if they don’t need assistance, there are often little things we all can do for each other throughout the day that will make it easier for the other person.

If you know Acts of Service is the love language of the person you are traveling with, be on the lookout for ways that you can help them out.

Gifts

Many people buy souvenirs to take home as gifts for others, but if you know that your travel companion’s love language is giving and receiving gifts, you can pay attention to things they seem to especially enjoy during your trip and surprise them with a small gift while you’re still sharing your travel adventure.

My friend Melissa’s primary love language is Gifts, and she is a very skilled and thoughtful gift giver. During a trip to the United Kingdom and France with her, her daughters, and my niece, Melissa observed how much I enjoyed the gargoyles at the different churches we visited. She organized the rest of our group in purchasing a small gargoyle replica for me as a souvenir and thank you for planning the trip.

The trip itself can even be a gift. If there’s someone you want to travel with and you know that Gifts is their primary love language, you can give the trip itself or some part of the trip as a gift, which will likely add to the enjoyment of the experience for that person. For example, consider planning a surprise trip for your partner. Or if you are traveling with a friend and you are each paying your way, you might surprise them with a special experience on one day, such as a massage or a visit to a unique restaurant.

Physical Touch

I don’t know what it is about travel, but it seems to bring out physical affection in many of us. I know that Greg and I tend to hold hands more when we are traveling, and I’ve observed this in others as well. Maybe it provides a sense of safety and comfort when you’re in a new place, but it also may be that you feel closer to your partner when you’re away from the distractions of home.

I know some couples with children at home find travel liberating for their sex lives because if they are traveling just as a couple, they don’t worry as much about being overheard or interrupted by their children.

But physical touch can change even with friends while traveling. Many countries have a different sense of personal space than what we have here in the U.S., and sometimes we can enjoy trying out different ways of interacting when we’re immersed in a different culture. For example, Greg does not kiss his friends on the cheek when we are at home, but when we visit France, we both practice “la bise” (touching cheeks and making air kisses) when greeting new French friends. (We haven’t been back to France since before the Covid pandemic, so the culture may have changed according to this article.)

Quality Time

This happens to be my love language, and I personally believe that it is the love language that is the most natural fit with travel. Obviously, if you’re traveling with someone, you’re spending time with them. (Hmmm, I hadn’t thought about it this way before, but my preferred love language may be another reason why I love to travel so much!)

Given that you’re away from the normal demands and interruptions of life at home, there’s also a very good chance that you are less distracted and more present in the moment. This means the time you are sharing is likely to be better quality time.

My husband, Greg, is my favorite travel partner, and I know that our shared travel experiences have brought us closer together…even when some of the travel has been stressful. (That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?)

I’ve also enjoyed traveling with my nieces and nephew – sharing a travel adventure with them when they were right at the age that they were transitioning from teenagers to adults helped me get to know them and appreciate them as friends rather than as the little kids I had known for years.

Traveling with my parents gave us memories and stories to share. I now hang on to those memories as treasures as I am losing them.

And, finally, traveling with other relatives and friends has cemented the bonds of our relationships. Traveling with friends can give you a completely different perspective on who they are when you are sharing lodging, spending the most time together that you’ve ever shared, and sometimes working through stressful situations. In every case, sharing the experience has strengthened the friendship, and when we’ve traveled with couples, a friend’s less well known partner has often become a close friend by the end of the trip.

As an added bonus, traveling with some of our friends and their families when their children were young has also strengthened the friendships we have with their children. Many of those children have now become adult friends whom I still enjoy. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll be sharing travel adventures with them as well.

Words of Affirmation

Many people I know say that during vacations, they end up talking more with the people they spend their everyday lives with than they do at home. This is probably because of having fewer distractions than when you are at home (provided you put your phone away), but also because you are experiencing new things and want to talk about your shared fun.

Use your travel adventure as an opportunity to verbally let your travel companions know that you appreciate them. This might be by making sure to thank them when they help you out, but it can also be an opportunity to let them know what you appreciate about them and what has made them an especially enjoyable travel companion. Let them know why you love sharing your travel adventure with them specifically.

After you return home, you can still share words of affirmation with your travel partners by bringing up the trip and letting them know how they contributed to making it memorable.

Sharing Your Love Language

On a final note, don’t be afraid to share your preferred love language with your travel companions. It might help them to understand you better. This is helpful during the trip as well as after you return home, especially if it is your partner or someone you spend the majority of your time with when you’re not out having adventures.

All of us can enjoy receiving and giving affection with any of the love languages. They’re all positive behaviors, after all. The key is understanding that we all have a preferred way of receiving affection that just feels, well, more loving to us. Knowing what another person’s love language is and trying to share with them in that manner often helps them to feel more special. And feeling special adds to the experience you’re sharing during your trip.

Who do you plan to travel with next? Do you know their love language?