What makes a good travel partner?

Travelling alone has always been my way of visiting countries, however as any solo traveller can attest to, there are always encounters and offers to join with others. While some days I find myself feeling especially introverted and reject any potential mates on the road, other days I am more open to the possibilities that close contact with another entail.

Meeting someone for a few minutes on a bus/boat/train, or sharing common space in a hostel are some ways of preliminarily getting to know one another. When we sense a positive connection and choose to pursue it further by joining paths for a day or more, many new facets will certainly come into play.

It is generally agreed that travel time moves at a faster pace than time in our usual lives. By this I mean meeting someone for a few hours can lead to spending multiple days in close proximity to one another. Compare this to daily life when people have many different obligations and cannot spend days upon end with new acquaintances. While this means that friendships are formed at high speed, it also means that many important details about one another might only be revealed a few days into the journey when many hours have already been spent in close proximity.

It can be exciting and new to meet someone on a range of levels so rapidly, however some habits or characteristics might clash with our own, leading to tensions on the road. Since we are generally out of our comfort zone already, these tensions might feel amplified and it can be easy to lash out at the other or resent them for any decisions they might have made that led our path ‘astray’.

It is not a straightforward task to make a list of traits that are good or bad in a travel companion. This is partly because everyone will manifest their characteristics differently and punctuality in one person might be a positive whereas in another might become overbearing. Furthermore, the way we react to the same characteristic can vary widely depending on our current state of being. Some weeks I find myself highly productive, desiring action and constant movement. The following week I can be in a quieter, introspective state in need of calmness. All these feelings are constantly changing in myself and by extension, are always in fluctuation in each person who crosses my path. Regardless if I get along with the friendly traveller in the hostel kitchen, spending a week travelling around together can bring up reactions I had no way of anticipating earlier.

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