Travels With Julia

By Tom

Ayvalik, Turkey

The most common question that Julia and I get about our travels, both from people we meet along the way and from friends and family back home is "What's it like to spend some much time together while you're traveling?" People comment on how difficult it must be to spend all day, every day for many months straight with just one another. Julia's mother frequently gets asked "After the two of them spend 9 months traveling around the world together, do you think there's even going to be a wedding?"

And it's true that budget traveling for a long period of time does test a relationship. We have a set budget for every day, every activity, every aspect of the trip. Neither of us have any of our own money; it is all shared. We have to agree upon practically every expenditure. Sometimes this is easier than others, and when you're living on a joint budget of $50 a day for all food, lodging, travel and activities, a small amount of money means a lot. Usually we are good about allowing the other person to make the purchases that they need, but sometimes it is easy to lose perspective. For instance, in Nicaragua I was the one "treating myself whenever I wanted" (I bought one milkshake for probably $1.15) and Julia was at one time "buying all of these crazy souvenirs" (she bought a head scarf in Istanbul for roughly $3.80 so she could enter mosques and holy sites). To save money, we usually split our restaurant meals and supplement with snacks which means that we also have to agree on what we both want to eat. Julia created the budget for the trip and I've mostly been the one keeping track of funds and making sure we stick to it. This can sometimes create the feeling that Julia is asking me for money when she's finding out if we have enough left in the daily budget to afford something, but for the most part it has worked well and we've been on or under budget for every place we've visited so far.

Julia conquering me in the Gladiator's ring at Ephesus

Because we're planning a lot of the trip as we go, all of these decisions have to be made jointly as well. Where will we go next? How long will we stay? Where will we stay? What meals will we eat each day? All of these decisions have to be discussed and agreed upon. Luckily, this has gone quite smoothly. We're used to spending a lot of time together and having to come to a lot of agreements. We lived together for two and half years before the trip started, during which time we moved around quite a bit so life was never easy or repetitive and required a lot of consensus-building. In fact, we've both decided that we have had fewer disagreements while we've been traveling than we did while we were back home. It turns out that finishing a Master's degree, planning a wedding, moving across the country, and planning a round the world trip all at the same time is more stressful than simply deciding what to have for dinner.

The only time Julia is not a good travel companion is during any long distance motorized movement, when she instantly falls asleep. Since she was a baby, long car rides or plane rides have put Julia to sleep so consistently that now when she is getting tired and cranky I threaten her that I'm going to drive her around the neighborhood until she takes a nap. So while I look out the window and enjoy the passing scenery of whatever foreign land we are visiting, Julia is peacefully curled up next to me dreaming away. It feels like I am traveling alone sometimes and I tease Julia that she is sleeping her way around the world.

Julia sleeping her way around Costa Rica...

...and Nicaragua

Still, when she is awake, we sure do have a lot of fun together. I'm amazed sometimes at how easily we get along and how much we agree on. Today, for instance, we were thinking of taking a lunch boat trip around some of the Greek islands off the coast, which would have been only $10 a person including lunch. But we found out the reason they are so cheap is because the boats are essentially floating party-barges for hoards of Eastern Europeans downing expensive drinks in the bar while they dance to blasting techno music. It's so nice that I'm traveling with someone for whom that is not their idea of a good way to see the Greek Islands.

The most difficult time for traveling together is when we roll off the bus into a new town. Many times the buses don't stop for long periods of time so we both become very dehydrated due to the lack of available bathroom stops. This of course does not improve our moods. But we're also stressed and disoriented in our new place, we have all of our valuables on our backs in crowded and chaotic bus stations, and it is frequently the middle of the afternoon and thus the hottest part of the day. It is frequently the perfect combination of ingredients for some tense conversation. We've solved this problem (somewhat) by agreeing to just decide on a hostel ahead of time and bite the bullet and walk straight to a trustworthy looking taxi driver and ask him to take us there. This has mitigated bus station fights to the point that they only occur about half the time.

Even though we enjoy each other's company, there are days we need to spend an afternoon or a few hours on our own, not necessarily because we're getting on each other's nerves but so that we can have some quiet time to ourselves. We also really value all contact from friends and family. Every email sent to either one of us from mutual friends or family are usually read by both of us several times and we both check the blog several times a day to see if there are any comments to our most recent post (which more often than not, there are none). It's like talking to outsiders is our addiction and we both push and shove each other like children for the first chance to read the latest news from home. When we are able to do internet phone calls to our families (Skype), we've both very possessive of our call time; eager to get in front of the camera and be the one talking. 


   We were also adopted in our hotel for the last two nights by two lovely tour groups, the type that my mom and sister usually take. The first was a group of Canadians who had been together for 10 days already and brought us into their tightly knit group for a fun evening of drinks on the veranda which eventually ended with me busting out pictures of Sylvester to show everybody (no, I'm not kidding). The second was a group of mostly Aussies that invited us out for dinner with their group that included a plate full of whole minnows, bones, tails, heads still intact (and no, I'm not kidding about that either). So friends we've met along the way, as well as contact from home, is our most prized possession on this trip.

Even with all of the time we get to spend together, we sometimes strongly miss each other when one is away for only an hour or two. At one point after we arrived in Istanbul, I got homesick and ached with missing Julia just because she fell asleep before I did. I've learned that despite occasional difficult times and the many hours spent together, there's no one I'd rather see the world with than her.

My beautiful and wonderful travel companion