If you’re looking for inspiration for your next vacation with bae, Alvi and her fiance Alex have you covered.
The two have at least 8 countries together during their four-year relationship.
From Japan to Singapore, and a few other countries in between, the couple discussed their favorite destinations and offered travel advice to traveling couples:
Travel Noire: What’s your favorite country so far and why?
Japan is our favorite country that we’ve visited. It was a strategically a long layover trip and we packed both days full of activities. Even with a full itinerary, we never felt overextended.
Getting around was surprisingly easy and made the days feel much less busy than they were. During our two-day stay, we ate delicious food, saw the cherry blossoms blooming and were able to see many of the sites in Harajuku and Shibuya.
TN: What’s the best part about traveling together?
The shared experiences, having someone to share those moments and perspectives with. Traveling is so personal most of the time, especially when you travel with different groups or rotate travel companions that to be able to see the world together makes the experiences that much more rich.
Having each other takes the already awesome experience of being immersed in new cultures even better by giving us someone to share it with. Also, what we learn on one trip (i.e packing cubes!) we can lift and apply for the next trip.
TN: What advice would you give traveling couples?
Patience, communication, and flexibility are key. Things happen. Flights get canceled, bookings forget to get made, baggage gets lost, exchange rates fluctuate and even the best-laid plans fall through.
What’s important for couples on trips isn’t just trying to mitigate those things, but the ability to roll with the punches and be flexible enough to enjoy yourselves anyway.
With so many things that are out of your control while traveling, the thing you can control, like your responses, can make or break the trip. You have to be patient with one another to work through any incidentals that come up. You’ll need to communicate well and be flexible enough to pivot as a result of these incidentals.
Our secondary advice for couples traveling is to invest in global entry (together) and buy packing cubes! The $100 we spent on global entry was worth it. The first time we got to breeze by the customs line on our return to the states (not to mention the TSA pre-check that’s included), and packing cubes really do making packing and unpacking so much easier!
