Did something a bit different with this post! We took turns sharing about our experience as we planned and then embarked on our Croatian adventure. Two friends, but two very different people, we talk about why traveling with a companion can change how you travel.
Lindsey:
Eventually we just have to pick somewhere, I texted Madie. We were firing off ideas about where to take our long awaited girl’s trip across the globe. We’ve talked about traveling the world since the early days of our friendship. After each of us had scored the points to book international flights, our dream was going to become a reality.
This will not be our first or last trip together, but it would be our first international trip together. (We don’t count the cruise we took to Mexico after graduating high school.)
We really would like to go just about everywhere, so I finally said, “Italy. Let’s go to Italy. Eventually we just have to pick somewhere.”
A few weeks later I was watching the stunning scenery of cascading waterfalls in a nature video at work and asked, “Where is THAT?”
“That,” my coworker informed me, “is Croatia.”
I immediately texted Madie. “What about Croatia?”
Madison:
It just so happened that at the time, I’d just gotten deep into a new show called Timeless. My favorite actor on that show was, in fact, Croatian. I’d been seeing photos of it all over his instagram for weeks and weeks.
My immediate text back: “Let’s do it!”
We set up a mutual Pinterest page for ideas, started doing some individual research on what we’d like to see, and set up a date for brainstorming a generalized itinerary.
Something you should know about us: Linds and I have always been different as human beings, and those differences have only solidified as we’ve both gotten older and settled into who we are as adults. I love large cities and lots of people. Linds prefers the wilderness and a more chill vibe. I’m an obsessive over planner and a control freak. She’s a bit more laid back when things don’t go according to plan. I’m a night owl. She’s an early riser. I could go on and on.
So of course, we knew planning and then surviving this two-week adventure would be interesting.
Lindsey:
One of the things I love about our friendship is that despite how very different we are, we compliment each other well. As we prepped for this trip I was reminded of our very different styles. Still, I appreciate that Madie makes me think about things that maybe I wouldn’t have. I’m also grateful that hanging out with her encourages me to experience places that I might not have. And of course, I’m grateful she thinks of the things I certainly didn’t…
We went ahead and booked each place we were planning to stay. However, we did not further plan our adventures in Croatia. Correction: I didn’t.
A couple of weeks out from the trip Madie let me know she’d typed up a document with a few ideas. She shared Google doc with me and I absolutely laughed out loud because the running document featured ideas for each location, a packing list, and a what-to-wear-where clothing chart.
(Strolling along the waterfront in Split, Croatia.)
It’s important to note that without reviewing this document I would have left behind an international adapter (Madie had this express shipped to me since I was about to leave for Ireland: she’s a keeper!) and we might’ve missed some of the highlights of our trip.
Opposites attract and all that jazz. But seriously, I think traveling with someone very unlike yourself encourages you to experience a place in a way you wouldn’t, and for them to do the same.
Madison:
I’ll admit, the doc was a bit much, especially since we expressly said we were going to try to be more spontaneous with our day-to-day adventures while in Croatia. In my defense, I’m a serious over-packer, and the document helped ensure I only packed a carryon and backpack for the trip. (If you know me in my personal life, you would be very impressed that I managed to accomplish this.)
To be entirely honest, I most likely wouldn’t have even considered what it’d be like to lug baggage across the country had I been traveling with someone else. Linds may be grateful that I thought of an international adapter, but without her I would have shown up with three things of luggage to haul around Croatia. Most of which would have been unnecessary and more cumbersome than helpful.
I think one of the things we do really well is compromise. Part of this is because we’re both people-pleasers, but I think the larger reason for this is because we love and respect each other’s differences (and have had a lot of practice over the past decade of friendship). Linds is 100% right — there’s a level of give and take when you travel with someone who is different than you.
One of the things I love most about traveling with Linds is she pushes me outside of my comfort zone. I like to have things mapped out. I like having an organized itinerary, but that doesn’t leave much room for unplanned adventures. Lindsey, by contrast, opens herself up to in the moment adventures and new experiences. She is willing to let the wind take her. Just think about how we even came to visit Croatia in the first place!
Probably my favorite dinner of this trip was sitting out on the patio of our Airbnb in Brâc one night, just talking about the trip so far and catching up on each other’s lives back home. Earlier that day, we stumbled upon a farmers market and picked up prosciutto, cheese, tomatoes and avocado to make a makeshift charcuterie plate dinner. We had Johnnyswim playing in the background. There was a random cat chilling under the table eating whatever prosciutto we would drop down to him. We had a bottle of locally made wine to drink.
Had I planned out every minute of every day of this trip, we wouldn’t have found that farmers market. We wouldn’t have spent that night just relaxing and reveling in the fact that we were halfway around the world from our regular lives. That memory will forever exist because Lindsey pushed me to just let our trip unfold day-to-day.
Lindsey:
Alright so now that she’s got me feeling all emotional…
Traveling with another person can be truly great or quite disastrous. I think it’s important to either find someone very much like yourself (similar interests and ideas about what they want to experience when traveling) or at least someone very complimentary to your own style. I’m grateful that though very different, Madie and I share similar thoughts on what we we want to experience. Though we sometimes have different ways of getting those experiences.
Plan, or don’t plan, your trip the way you want. But I certainly suggest a traveling companion that helps change your perspectives, challenges the way you usually do things, and splits the meals that are too big but never makes you share ice cream…
