Last year — for the first time — I traveled solo throughout Eastern Europe while I had my then-fiancé/now-husband waiting for me back home in Australia. To solo travel voluntarily while in a relationship isn’t something that seems to be on many people’s agenda. The assumption is that once you’re in a long-term relationship, it’s expected you’ll travel together but what if you simply want, or need, to go traveling on your own without your partner in tow?
In preparation for my solo travels, I attempted to read up on the topic of solo travel while in a relationship but there was a noticeable lack of articles addressing this subject. There are countless articles extolling the virtues of singles solo traveling but hardly anything on solo travel while in a relationship. It’s widely accepted for someone unattached to be traveling on their own but it’s not as common to come across someone in a relationship who is traveling alone. Yet, the reasons behind the decision for a single person to solo travel are equally applicable to why a person in a relationship would choose to solo travel. After my brief brush with solo travel, I now realize how beneficial solo travel can be not only for yourself but also for your relationship. Here’s why.
1. Solo traveling will let you reconnect with yourself.
It happens to the best of us. In a long-term relationship, you can unwittingly find you and your partner turning into an entity rather than two separate beings. It’s a natural progression when you spend a lot of time with someone. However, in the midst of all of this, you can sometimes forget yourself, your goals and those dreams that you harbored before you met your partner.
Solo travel allows you to reconnect with yourself, to reflect and evaluate on personal endeavors and ambitions. What is it that you really want in life? What do you want to do with your time? Are you happy plodding along the path you’re currently on? Solo travelers often speak about going on a journey of self-discovery and this is especially important for those in a relationship in order to remind yourself about what matters to you.
2. You’ll have permission to be selfish (for a little while).
Relationships are based on the fundamental principle of compromise and every relationship would fail miserably if it were completely one-sided. Solo travel allows you to be selfish and to think only of yourself – if only for a little while. There’s no needing to meet halfway, there’s no needing to come to an agreement – it’s entirely up to you how you want to while away your days, whether that be indulging in retail therapy, trying out all of the gelato places in town or spending your afternoons reading in a bookshop cafe. It’s fine to be occasionally selfish: in fact, it’s healthy! There are times when we simply need to put ourselves first for our own self-preservation and there’s nothing wrong with that!
3. You’ll refresh your daily conversations with new stories to tell.
In long-term relationships, conversations about everyday occurrences such as grocery shopping and crabby co-workers become the norm, which isn’t to say that this is a bad thing – it’s just a reality of life! By solo traveling, you will return armed with stories about your adventures to share with your partner and ultimately refresh those daily chats. Solo travel can help inject spice back into long relationships as you swap stories from the road.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider