CLASS 4 TRAVELLING ALONE24. Read the article Good companion or bad karma? Sum up the key ideas. Make a list of advantages and disadvantages of travelling alone. Draw a picture of a perfect travelling companion. Make a list of topical vocabulary. What makes a perfect travelling partner? GOOD COMPANION OR BAD KARMA? The Times June 25, 2005 Your travelling buddy can make or break a trip. Rob Penn discovers how some find out the hard way “He travels the fastest who travels alone,” Kipling wrote. Certainly the hardiest explorers and voyagers regard solitude as the natural condition of travel. Most of us, however, like to travel in pairs. The benefits of this are obvious: it is safer, and you can divide the load of books, sun cream and lavatory paper evenly between two rucksacks. Arguably, who you travel with is the most important decision that you have to make before a trip. Where and when to go are matters that fall naturally into place once you have decided who your partner is. But what makes a perfect travelling partner? In practice, many of us fail to consider the question. We simply head off with a good friend, often with disastrous results — the rigours of travel can turn a mild-mannered mate at home into a grizzly gorgon on the road. Ideally, you want to travel with a kindred spirit. Xanthe Woodhead, 18, from Oxfordshire, who is now on her gap year in South America, believes that this is vital: “You must have an interest in the same things. If one of you wants to spend a week nosing around temples and the other is an adventure-seeker who insists on going jet-boating, then you have a problem.” Equally, travelling partners should share the same degree of sociability. As Sam Ware, a 33-year-old chef who has driven around Australia three times with three different partners, says: “Trappist monks travel in pairs just as well as It girls. But put a Trappist monk and an It girl together in the back of a Jeep on the Karakoram Highway and you’ll have fireworks. Everyone has their ups and downs, but in general you do need to share the same enthusiasm for meeting people, which is one of the greatest goals of travel.” On the practical side, it is helpful if travelling companions also share similar tastes in hotels, food, music and books. Xanthe Woodhead adds: “It is crucial to be on the same budget. The easiest way to fall out is if you want to stay in different places and can’t afford the same things.” While it is important that there is commonality in several key areas, ideal travelling companions should have a host of minor personal attributes that complement each other: you are, after all, a team. In a perfect world, you would cover between you all the qualities highly prized by inveterate travellers — curiosity, optimism, empathy, toughness, skill with languages and, of course, a sense of humour (which no one should ever leave home without). For Jonny Bealby, 41, who spent four months riding horses across Central Asia with a blind date to make a television programme, choosing a fellow traveller boils down to a simple formula: “You need to decide if you are a leader or you like to be led, then find a partner who is the opposite. Two Indians and you are going nowhere; two chiefs and you will kill each other. Riding across the Steppes, we were two chiefs. It went wrong from the start.” One serious consideration when choosing a partner is — should you travel with a loved one? I set off around the world on a bicycle nine years ago with a girlfriend. Three months in she realised she disliked bicycles and loathed me. “It is the ultimate test of a relationship,” said Tamsin Bruce-Gardyne, 39, a political lobbyist from London. “I went to Thailand with a boyfriend for six weeks. We split up after three but carried on travelling together and sharing a room. It was hell. But last year I spent three fantastic months in Chile and Brazil with a new boyfriend. When you are travelling you spend so much time together, often in a confined space, that you quickly find out how compatible you are. We’re now married.” What makes a good travelling partner changes with age — in your teens, you want a buddy with a good nose for a party and a way of dealing with thieving tuk-tuk drivers, while in your seventies, you hope for an accomplice with spare reading glasses and a sense of direction. Serious travel writers, like hardened boozers, tend to work alone, and when a companion does make it into a travelogue, it is usually as a goofish foil to the author. There are exceptions: James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, who made their celebrated tour to the Hebrides in 1773, excelled in each others’ company, while in On the Road, Jack Kerouac’s semi-autobiographical account of a journey across America, it was the freewheeling Dean Moriarty who enriched the author’s travels. But perhaps the adventurer and writer Robert Louis Stevenson knew best: for his trip through the Cevennes, he found reliable and unstinting company in one Modestine: a donkey. Rob Penn is the author of The Sky Is Falling On Our Heads — a journey to the bottom of the Celtic Fringe (Sceptre). Comment on the following statements:
25. How about holidays apart? Read about couples choosing to do their own thing on holiday. Is this desire for independence a sign of an unhealthy relationship? Sum up the article by filling in the chart.
“SEE YOU IN A FORTNIGHT, DARLING” She likes luxury; he prefers roughing it. More couples than ever are choosing to do their own thing on holiday. Gemma Bowes finds out why
'We are pretty compatible but whenever we go away together we end up arguing,' says Sarah. 'I'm happy to lie by the pool with a paperback while Adam wants to be doing something every second of the day. After a disastrous holiday in Cyprus two years ago we decided we'd both be happier doing our own thing.' Sarah and Adam are one of a growing number of couples choosing to holiday separately. Holidays can be a valuable chance to spend time with your loved one away from the daily routine, but for many couples they are a source of conflict. Relate, the couples counselling agency, reports that its waiting list increases by 20 per cent immediately after August. 'Research seems to indicate that the numbers of people travelling separately are on the rise,' said a spokeswoman for Thomson Holidays, 'And the lone traveller market, a third of whom have a partner, is now worth £1.6 billion a year.' Explore, which offers adventure trips for groups of between 12 and 16, says that on a typical tour up to half of the participants are travelling without a partner. Most people are not abandoning their partner altogether as a holiday companion. Now that many of us have more than one holiday a year, we don't have to choose between going away with a partner or friends; we can do both. But is this desire for independence a sign of an unhealthy relationship? Not necessarily, says Christine Northam of Relate. 'It's a sign of greater wealth and more choice. People don't feel they need to be joined at the hip to be a couple. It's a sign of emotional health to be confident enough to express yourself; it gives you more to talk about and enriches your joint experience. As long as they negotiate before they make the decision and are both happy, there's no reason why it shouldn't work. It's when someone just says "I'm going off to do this" that you have a problem.' We talked to five couples about why they holiday separately. Beach babe /Rough rider Lucy I've been on lots of trips without Greg. He's into roughing it and I like five-stars. I've been with friends or my mum to Iran, Madagascar, Lebanon and a cruise to Norway. I always give him the option of coming so he can't com plain I didn't invite him. We have no children so we might as well do it while we can. The idea of sitting on a beach fills him with horror. He'll join me sometimes but if he spots a bicycle he's off. He recently spent five months biking halfway round Australia, which I didn't fancy, he invited me but he knew I'd say no. He went cycling in Russia for three weeks last year and I went on a group holiday to the Galapagos islands and the island of Bonaire to go diving. I was on my own for five days; it was fine but it felt weird going out for meals alone. We later went back there together because I wanted to share it with him. Diving is one thing we do have in common and can do together. Greg Lucy prefers her holidays to be fairly static, on the beach or round the pool, whereas I prefer to be active and out in the wild. If she wants to go somewhere I wouldn't dream of stopping her. Most of the cycle trips I do are camping ones. In Australia I spent five months under canvas, sharing a tent with another woman, who is a friend of mine. It was difficult for Lucy to come to terms with; it involves a lot of trust and it was hard for me because I wasn't sharing the tent with the person I wanted to be sharing it with. We always chat about what we want to do each year. I once spent five months cycling across Russia before I had a partner, but I missed out a small bit and talked for years about going back to finish it, so Lucy made me go and do it so I would shut up. I can do luxury occasionally; we did a beach holiday in the Maldives. I told her I was going to be diving and if she wanted to see me when we were there she'd have to learn to dive, so she went to Turkey for a week beforehand and did it. Hopefully I'll carry on doing these trips, seeing different parts of the world and meeting people. I've got lots of ideas of where to go next, but she asked me a while ago not to go for more than a month so I'll have to find some shorter trips to do. One of the lads/ Girl about town Bryan I've been on a lot of weekends away with friends and entertaining clients for work. Skiing, to Le Mans in France for the motor race, gambling in the Bahamas, lots of golfing trips - you play for two hours and really get to know each other. Until recently we had a chalet in Verbier, Switzerland, and we'd go as a family a few times a year, skiing at Christmas, and in the spring and summer. Going with friends is very different to going with the family; you just don't have the responsibility of looking after the others. With mates, you discuss different things, tell different jokes, are more irresponsible. We stay up late, eat when we want and have beers at 10 in the morning if we feel like it. I took my two sons skiing last winter with five of their friends, all lads, and five dads. It let us bond with the children. They'd just got to the age when they can go away without their mums, and we'll keep going. We coped very well without our wives. They worried that we wouldn't make sure the kids had clean clothes and early nights, which we didn't - but it didn't matter. Shirley My holidays are totally different from Bryan's. There are lots of giggling, silly women. I go on girls' weekends shopping and to spas and on an annual trip to the Algarve where my daughter's childminder has a second home, with nine of her friends. We share our innermost secrets and agree it never goes any further. We've all got families and careers; everyone is used to being very organised at work and looking after the kids, so it's great to go away, have no responsibility and nothing to think about but yourself. The only major decisions are whether to sunbathe on your front or back. Things just flow. One time we all went skinny-dipping in the pool. On a holiday without the family I totally shut down; with the family I still have to think about the kids. It can be fun but it's more stressful. Action woman/ Stay-at-home farmer Karen I used to be a fitness instructor so I'm quite active. I go for walking weekends with friends to Wales and Derbyshire. I recently did the Inca trail, my first long-haul trip without Paul. I didn't even think about trying to persuade him to go. I know he wouldn't have enjoyed it; he's a smoker and not very fit and the trip was quite strenuous. I went with a friend and it was fantastic. With a partner you tend to bicker a lot but with a friend you're a bit more tolerant. My luggage was lost for the whole trip and it was just as well my friend was there so we could share clothes. Paul never goes away without me. I want to see the gorillas in Uganda but if I don't go it'll be for logistical reasons, not because I'll miss my husband. Paul When Karen said she was going to Peru I didn't mind, but I didn't want to go. The history doesn't appeal and it would have half-killed me climbing that high. Modern farming doesn't keep you fit because it's not the physical work it used to be. Being a farmer, it's hard to get away. When she went I was flat out with the harvest. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, it makes you appreciate each other, but when I come home to a quiet house it feels very strange. Hopefully we'll do a big trip together one day, but not an active one, or I'll have to get fit first. Veteran adventurer/ Quilting queen Dick It would be a miracle if we both liked to do the same thing; I'm sure it helps our marriage to do different things. I like physical adventure and she doesn't. I climbed Kilimanjaro two years ago and I go skiing with a group of golden oldies every year, usually to the French Alps. I did four weeks' camping in Africa in 1995. Jenny didn't want to do it - she wouldn't have liked the hiking, she's not into camping and we were chased by an elephant at one point. She wouldn't have liked that. I like meeting a new bunch of people and chatting them up. You can open up and argue if you're never going to see people again. I would do that less if my wife was there as I was brought up to debate everything but she thinks all arguing is fighting, so she gets upset if I do it. I'm trying to talk her into going to Peru to do the Inca trail. Jenny I go away with girlfriends. It's fun getting together and chatting with like-minded people. I've been to Florida and Madeira where we walked the Levadas, saw lovely gardens and visited markets. I'm a bit of a quilter. I went to Seattle in 2000 to a huge exhibition there. There was lots of chit chat and it was very girly. I've realised I'm not a ski type. I tried it in my youth and when we lived in America and realised I was spending a lot of money to sit in the snow! First-time trekker/ Man about the house Fiona I've just got back from 14 days' trekking in Thailand, my first holiday without my husband. It was mine and my friend's 50th birthdays this year so we decided to do something different to prove to our families we weren't past it. Our husbands were so shocked when we booked. I'd never been as far afield before. It was great, totally different to going away with my husband; it's nice not to have to worry about anyone else. My husband's not very adventurous and can't cope with the heat. I hope to go on more similar trips now. Geoff When Fiona told me she was going to Thailand I was a bit concerned. I was worried about the safety side of it. I've never been away without her. But did I want to go? You must be joking! It's the sort of thing I'd never dream of doing. There's only one mad one in this family. But you can't stop people's dreams.
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