Over the my year in Poland, I've been blessed with the opportunity to travel extensively around the continent (and 5 days in Morocco!). These trips have been with new friends, long-time friends, family, and solo. Traveling solo seems to strike the fear of God into many people, however I've found that traveling with friends and family can be significantly more difficult!
The upside of traveling with friends is always having someone to snap a picture, delight over an unexpected foreign treat, and never eating alone. I went with a group of Fulbrighters to Morocco and it so much fun to watch the sunset on Marrakesh as we listened to the Islamic call to prayer on a rooftop terrace with other Americans who enjoy the unknown as much as I do. My sister and I explored the mountains of Zakopane, Poland together...a six hour hike that would have been pretty boring in the rain on my own.
The downside? Everyone has different expectations for traveling...various budgets, sleeping habits, food preferences, and sightseeing priorities. My sister can go a whole day on one meal, whereas I want to eat three decent meals. She was happy with one or two sights a day, I usually explore for a solid twelve hours. In Morocco, some of us wanted to eat in nice restaurants while others preferred to eat in the market square.
One of my last trips before returning home was to Alesund, Norway with two American and two Polish girls. The friend that organized the trip suggested everyone meet up beforehand to discuss our expectations. This was an INCREDIBLE idea! It allowed all of us to discuss what vacations and sightseeing mean to us.
If you're going to be traveling with a lot of people, I highly recommend you discussing some of the following items:
The upside of traveling with friends is always having someone to snap a picture, delight over an unexpected foreign treat, and never eating alone. I went with a group of Fulbrighters to Morocco and it so much fun to watch the sunset on Marrakesh as we listened to the Islamic call to prayer on a rooftop terrace with other Americans who enjoy the unknown as much as I do. My sister and I explored the mountains of Zakopane, Poland together...a six hour hike that would have been pretty boring in the rain on my own.
The downside? Everyone has different expectations for traveling...various budgets, sleeping habits, food preferences, and sightseeing priorities. My sister can go a whole day on one meal, whereas I want to eat three decent meals. She was happy with one or two sights a day, I usually explore for a solid twelve hours. In Morocco, some of us wanted to eat in nice restaurants while others preferred to eat in the market square.
One of my last trips before returning home was to Alesund, Norway with two American and two Polish girls. The friend that organized the trip suggested everyone meet up beforehand to discuss our expectations. This was an INCREDIBLE idea! It allowed all of us to discuss what vacations and sightseeing mean to us.
If you're going to be traveling with a lot of people, I highly recommend you discussing some of the following items:
- Overal expectation for the trip
- Time for leaving the hotel/hostel in the morning
- Specific sights everyone wants to see
- Eating habits
- Comfortability with divide and conquer
I consider myself a pretty low key planner so this seemed like overkill at first. But, I promise it was worth it in the end because we had a basic understanding of where everyone was coming from! And because we talked about these things beforehand, it was easy to call for an expectations check when we were trying to make a decision. While Norway wasn't completely free of someone being frustrated with decisions, it significantly alleviated many of our potential problems.
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