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Traveling in itself is fantastic. Combine it with friends, and that makes it super-awesome! Undeniably, well-planned trips are the best. So, why not create one with friends also?
Traveling with friends has its surprises, exposing our best and worst selves. So, making a trip with friends carries the perpetual risk of friendships breaking.
Here are five smart tips for planning an incredibly memorable trip with friends:
Discuss Travel Goals
Although you’re reasonably compatible with friends, sharing some interests, people expect differently when considering travel. So, it’s best to determine what everyone desires. By and large, people have a wide range of travel interests, from relaxing on a pristine beach to visiting historical monuments to soaking up nightlife at the world’s best night out spots.
Figure out everybody’s top 3 priorities, identify the most favored themes, and look up places suiting your shared preferences.
Also, the time of year concerning seasons and the amount of leisure time everyone can spare make specific destinations a better choice than others. So, discussing travel goals together is the best way to start planning a trip with your buddies.
All in all, there’s no correct or wrong travel destination. Simply choose what clicks and feels apt for everybody’s situation. A trip with friends is sure to be fulfilling if everybody invests some time in planning a getaway that satisfies each others’ wants.
Keep in mind that making a trip with buddies doesn’t necessarily mean you need to spend each minute together. Leave a little room in your travel itinerary for alone or “me” time, ensuring that everybody will feel at ease while pursuing their interests.
Meet up for discussing Budgets
While it’s best to fix the travel budget well in advance, make sure to approach the subject cautiously. Avoid money-related discussions through indistinct group texts and lengthy email chains. Instead, discuss the travel budget face-to-face. Since it’s about money, meet up at one of your friend’s houses and talk over dinner to reduce the awkwardness of the discussion.
First and foremost, determine every person’s greatest spending limit such that everyone will be happy while also staying realistic. It’s a good idea to create a budget in web-based applications such as Google Docs, letting everyone monitor the expenses instantly.
Use mobile-friendly apps like Splitwise to split the expenses appropriately among each other so that at no point in time will anyone feel cheated or compelled to spend above their spending limit.
When it comes to booking accommodation or hotels, discuss whether you all should book separate or shared rooms. Also, consider if you’d rather pay individually for sightseeing tours.
To make it simpler, let one of your friends book the hotel rooms for everybody, another take care of the car rental charges, you could probably cover gas, while another friend could pay for the group excursions.
Meals could most likely ignite arguments when making a trip with friends. Invariably, there’s someone who hardly eats or drinks, and also rarely tips.
That said, decide on following the good old buddy system. This way you join together with a couple of your friends in the entire group and share the expenses.
For instance, if you three buddies order beer, and if you pay for it, the rest should give you cash immediately or sometime later.
Divvy up Responsibilities
Don’t leave the entire task of planning to one person in the group. By sharing the travel duties, you’re dividing the pressure among everybody, making it much easier for every individual. This also averts any resentment in your friendship.
Why not make an elaborate list of what’s essential for your trip, and allocate tasks to everybody as ahead of the trip as possible? One friend can search for the best flight deals, you could browse hotel websites, while another could research fun activities that the entire group will enjoy.
If you’re planning a dirt biking trip with friends, let one of them look up reliable motorcycle accessories for having a memorable adventure together.
Food is an important element of any trip. So, one of you could look up information about the traditional cuisine of your travel destination and share the knowledge with the rest. This way you all are already aware of the food scene there.
Communicate Communicate Communicate
You’ll certainly enjoy doing your share of the travel duties and crossing off the to-dos one-by-one from your list. However, during the process, don’t forget to communicate with the rest of your group. This way you’d know if any of your friends have concerns about the trip, say, the time of departure.
Provide everyone with an opportunity to share their opinions on all trip-related decisions freely. Since group dynamics is a delicate matter, never let things rankle. Prevent fiery arguments and have calm, frank discussions, instead. Constantly communicating with your friends is the key to making your trip together successful.
Be open-minded
Making a trip with others, for that matter, even with friends increases your social durability. The reason is that despite all the hard work of trip planning and lunchtime meetups, you’re bound to face challenging situations — for instance, a loud and heavy snorer or a constantly sloppy friend.
The trick lies in slightly lowering your expectations and keeping an open mind in such situations. Presume that one of your friends will be a bit more fussy about hotel rooms, or slightly more anxious about expenditures. So, try to be flexible and expect to have to compromise at times.
Conclusion
So, now you know what goes into planning a trip with friends. Travel goals, travel expenses, sharing of responsibilities, consistent communication, and flexibility are vital to have a sound travel plan. So, without hesitation, invite your buddies to a travel plan chat over a nice and simple dinner. One should look forward to having a great experience with them, making priceless memories together.
