Different lifestyle habits & preferences: 4 struggles of travelling with friends & why it’s still worth it

Travelling with friends is a ton of fun.

After all, what’s better than seeing beautiful sights, eating delicious food, and spending time with people you love?

But let’s be honest — it’s not without its challenges.

Suddenly, you and your friends are spending just about every moment — waking, sleeping, eating — together and differences that you didn’t even realise existed between you suddenly become very visible.

As a result, tensions can definitely flare up.

Travelling with friends can be a real test of friendship; ask just about anyone who has travelled with friends before, though, and they’ll probably tell you about some high-stress moments when they weren’t sure that their friendship would make it through the trip.

Despite it all, though, travelling with friends and sharing those monumental life experiences can be incredibly rewarding and meaningful.

Here are four reasons why this is the ultimate test of your friendship, but still super worth it.

Reason #1: Different lifestyle habits

We all have our own day-to-day lifestyle preferences and habits, and these small quirks don’t always feature very prominently if you’re just meeting your friends for a meal or hanging out for half a day.

Travelling, though, is a whole other ballgame.

All of a sudden, you’re spending 24/7 with each other and all of your own preferences and habits suddenly come head-to-head with your travel mates’.

Maybe one of you likes to be asleep by 10pm, while the other tends to stay up until the wee hours of the morning watching Netflix.

If not anticipated or planned for, these differences can potentially clash and result in frustration or annoyance, which could really taint the vibes of what is meant to be a fun and refreshing holiday.

However, it’s important to keep in mind why you’re travelling with these friends in the first place: they’re people you care deeply about, whose company you value, and whom you want to make good memories with.

So with that in mind, try to preempt any potential lifestyle clashes before setting off on the trip and be sure to practice open communication and mindfulness toward each other’s preferences, in order to find suitable compromises that can allow you to have an enjoyable, stress-free holiday.

Reason #2: Different styles of travelling

Day-to-day lifestyle quirks aside, you and your travel mates might just have very different approaches toward travelling.

Perhaps one of you likes to plan ahead, so that every minute of every single day has a set itinerary, while another person prefers spontaneity and chasing the unknown.

This could lead to some unhappiness due to vastly different expectations.

These preferences are also important to communicate far ahead of time, perhaps even before booking the trip, so that you have the chance to discuss whether travelling together is indeed what you want to do or if you might be better suited with other travel buddies who are more aligned in their travel style with you.

If you do indeed want to travel together despite having such vastly different styles, the trip can still be a huge success by leveraging off of each of your strengths and finding a way to ensure that everyone has the experience they want.

For example, the planner could handle the logistical planning to ensure that there’s a rough framework for the trip, while blocking out some time within the schedule for the spontaneous one to lead the way on an unknown adventure.

Reason #3: Different interests

People have a wide range of priorities when they travel: one person might want to eat at a specific restaurant that some in the group aren’t so keen on, while a couple others may be very excited to visit a museum that the rest would find boring.

When travelling with friends, it’s only natural for everyone to be excited to see and do different things based on their varied interests.

And that’s totally okay — this doesn’t mean that you have to all follow one person’s idea of a good time and forgo your own interests.

Instead, have a conversation beforehand about what each of you wants to prioritise doing on the trip, and allow yourselves the flexibility to break off into smaller groups to do different things some days.

At the end of the day of going off on your separate adventures, it can be fun to come back together and live vicariously through each other’s stories of your experiences.

Reason #4: Different budgets

A huge part of planning and executing a trip is figuring out the budget.

This can get complicated when travelling with friends if you have different financial abilities or budgets, because it will impact everything from what type of accommodation you want to book, to whether you eat food from street vendors or dine at Michelin star restaurants, to the types of experiences you want to buy tickets for.

Thus, it’s very important to have a conversation about your financial boundaries and how much each of you is comfortable spending on the trip, even before the planning of the trip has gotten into full swing.

Being on the same page about how much you plan to spend — or at least finding a way to compromise and stay within your own budget — will make the rest of the trip much smoother and avoid major conflicts about money while you’re trying to enjoy your travels.

Klook’s 8th birthday sales

One thing that can help with planning a trip that works for everyone in your group’s budgets is finding good deals.

From Sep. 30 to Oct. 14, Klook is celebrating their eighth birthday with eight days of deals, with each day featuring promotions for specific destinations.

Destinations include Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, and countries in Europe.

The promotions will include one-for-one deals and up to 50 per cent off promos, with an 18 per cent off promo code released at 8pm daily for that day’s destination.

There will be promo codes of up to S$80 off available.

You and your friends can also try to save money by spinning the Joy Roulette daily over the course of the two weeks, for the chance to win promo codes of 8 per cent off.

Some of the featured deals will include:

20 per cent off a day tour to feed alpacas, visit Nami Island, and visit either The Garden of Morning Calm or bike along Gangchon Rail Park in Korea:

20 per cent off a day of exploring the Great Barrier Reef in Australia:

50 per cent off a guided day tour of Toledo and Segovia in Spain:

29 per cent off a four-day Swiss travel pass, allowing you unlimited rides on the trains, panorama trains, boats, and buses of Switzerland:

Travelling with friends is worth it, despite the difficulties

While travelling with your friends may not always be a walk in the park (although you could literally choose to find a park to stroll in, if that’s something you want to add to your itinerary), having open communication and setting healthy expectations ahead of time can help your friendship withstand the test of holidaying together.

With a wide range of activities available and a convenient booking process, Klook can be part of making your trip with friends even smoother and more enjoyable.

Ultimately, once you’re able to successfully work through the inevitable differences that may arise, it can actually strengthen your friendship and give you amazing memories together that will stay with you for a lifetime.

This sponsored article brought to you by Klook made this author want to go on an adventure with her friends.

Top photo courtesy of Hui Si Loh.