7 lessons learnt through travelling as a couple
We are Romy and Luke, a couple who live in Malta, Europe. Our relationship started as friendship, but then, as we got to know to more each other, we started to feel that we share some common beliefs. A kiss sparked our relationship and we haven’t turned back since then. We have now been a couple for more 2.5 years, and have passed through many experiences together. In April 2016, we got engaged and we are getting married in June 2017. Our wedding is important to us, but instead of wedding planning, we decided to travel.
Some people might perceive this as an irresponsible move. Others might call us brave, and leave it at that. But for us, this wasn’t just a rash decision. We believe that everyone should live their dream life. Dream. Believe and Make it Happen is our mantra. With that in mind, we decided to quit our jobs, and travel so that it could serve as a means of investment in our relationship. Before leaving, we did not know what kind of returns this investment could give, but now, 2 month into our travels, we are certain to have gained the following 7 benefits for why we chose Travelling over Wedding Planning.
Spending more time together
Naturally, whilst travelling we are together 24/7. This fact alone is the ultimate test for the relationship. By being together for longer, we get more opportunities to share time together. Most of the time we’d be without internet, which forces us to connect through communication. Above that, there’s the fact that we are each other’s the only-person-I-know. Therefore we are put in a situation where we are kind of forced to talk. And that is good, because through conversation, you connect two minds together.
Creating memories together
“Happiness is only real when shared”. That quotes resonates to us because right now we are enjoying beautiful days that will surely remain ingrained in our memory. 15 years from now we’ll be looking at what we are doing today and be proud of what we did. We will tell each other that it was fun travelling together to awesome places, meeting new people, and discovering different cultures. These happy moments will always leave their positive mark on our relationship, because we will always see each other as that person with whom I share amazing experiences.
Learning about each other
By being together on this adventure together, we are bound to take decisions. Like where to go to eat, or where to go, and how long to stay. These conversations, and just by being together and observing each other, have helped us further understand what we like/dislike. We learnt different things, and of varying importance, like that Romy loves her breakfast, and that Luke doesn’t do multi-tasking. By knowing these little bits of information about each other we are reducing the frequency of our miscommunication. For example, if Romy tells me something and she seems that I am focused on something else, she knows that I wouldn’t have listened to what she said.
Learning to compromise
Every human being has their own characteristics. Someone might like something, and someone else would despise it. Thankfully, we generally tend to have a similar opinion about matters, however sometimes we do have un-matching ideas on how something is to be tackled. Furthermore, there are some things that we couldn’t agree to disagree about, because they had a big impact on the relationship. For example since we don’t have a job, we can choose to wake up at what time we want to. Luke is a night person, who used to sleep at 3am when single, and Romy used to sleep at 10pm when single. If both of us kept the same lifestyle, our living patterns wouldn’t match, and we’d completely ruin our travels. So we had to start waking up together, which meant sleeping at the same time. We reached a compromise to sleep at midnight, and wake up at 8:00am – like that both of us are happy. So through travelling together, we’re having the opportunity to train ourselves not to get aggressive when there’s something that we’d like to do differently, we find ways in which both of us can be happy with the final outcome.
Creating rituals together
Since, as explained above, we are waking up together we had the possibility to create our own morning ritual. The first alarm goes off, we let it ring. Upon the second alarm we get up, make coffee, and stay in bed to read a common book. So far we are enjoying the benefits of this newly routine. Soon, we will be adding our training plans & breakfast to this morning routine. We will keep this routine throughout our travels, and even after our marriage which will serve as a grounding for us as a couple. Every day, we start the day together, on the same page. Hence we’re seeing how we want to live our lives.
Shaping our future
Right now we are at a very important stage in our lives. We are starting from nothing, but have the opportunity to be in a position where we can choose the type of life we want to have. We are starting from a blank page. We both don’t have a job, we don’t have a home, we don’t have any obligations. But now, we want to start having responsibilities, like having a job(s) that we love doing, and that gives us enough time to enjoy our life. Choosing a home that fits the lifestyle that we want to live. We are now taking the time to reflect on what type of life we want to live so that when in a year’s time we go back to Malta we’ll be able to continue living the dream life over there, and not end up at some job daydreaming of the awesome time we had in 2016/2017.
Build something together
Right now we are working on something that ties our passions together. Romy’s passion is travelling, and even though Luke loves travelling because it gives him the thrill of adventure, his passion is business. By leaving our jobs, we are now without income, and therefore thinking of ways through which we can make money through our travels. We have created this website as a means to record our memories. This also gave a purpose to our travels – that of inspiring people to live their dream life, and to give tips to other travellers so that they can travel cheaper and see more.
If you want to know more about Romy, click here (who is romy). And if you want to know more about Luke, click here.
