3 Things to Keep in Mind when Traveling with Friends

Going on a cruise vacation with your friends lets you bond over an adventure together. However, traveling with others isn’t always the easiest feat. Here are three things to remember when you’re vacationing as a group:

1. Personality

Keep your traveling companions’ personalities in mind when planning and traveling. Make the most of who each person is – for example, if there’s one friend in your group who always need to know all of the details, ask him or her if he or she would like to have the biggest hand in organizing the planning. This gives your group a huge advantage, since the person most well-equipped for that kind of job is taking charge. Similarly, it will prevent your more detail-minded friends from feeling like they have no idea what’s going on.

If you have one or two friends who come up with the best ideas, but are terrible at following through, have them team up with whoever is in the organizational role. When your idea-generating friends see something fun, they can simply pass the information on to the good planners in the group. This gets all members of your group involved and playing to their strengths. Obviously the world isn’t split evenly between people who are good at organizing and people who aren’t – there will be more nuance in a real-world scenario. The principle remains the same, however: Use your group’s characteristics to your advantage whenever possible.

2. Compromise

Unless you happen to be friends with people exactly like you, there’s a decent chance you’re not all going to agree on every leg of your trip. That’s totally normal, and doesn’t have to ruin your vacation in the slightest. There are plenty of ways to make sure everyone has a great time.

Be willing to compromise and make decisions. If you have two ideas that create a schedule conflict, one easy way to choose is to take a vote and pick whichever one appeals to more people in the group. However, a vote isn’t going to always work. For example, you might end up with a tie, or you could have a situation where most of your group is pretty much neutral but one or two people are wildly enthusiastic about one option. In these circumstances, it’s best to go with whoever is the most excited. If going on a particular tour is very important to someone in your group, there’s probably a good reason – odds are high you’ll all enjoy it.

Finally, it’s OK to split up if your group just can’t come to a decision between one option or another. You don’t have to be all together the entire time – in fact, taking some time apart could prevent anyone from getting burnt out or socially exhausted during the trip.

3. All about fun

The most important thing to keep in mind when traveling with friends is that, ultimately, it’s all about having fun. The easiest way to deal with the kinds of stress that can hamper fun is to talk about them before your trip.

Admit to yourself and to your companions that there’s a good chance any one of you might get frustrated with the group at some point during the trip. This kind of frustration is OK, and as long as you talk about it beforehand it’s unlikely to make that big a dent in your trip. Make a rule that anyone who needs time alone can take it without causing any hurt feelings among the group. This way, if anyone needs time to recharge, they can do so without giving the impression they’re angry with anyone else.

Giving your group the freedom to not have fun will, surprisingly, likely make the trip far more enjoyable. Once the pressure is off to be in a good mood during every moment of the trip, you’ll be able to quickly recover from any bad moods and get back to appreciating your time together.