Choose your travel companions wisely！Avoid these 7 types of travel “landmines”

Photo/Text byDextalk – Chopping Wood and Feeding Horses, Traveling the World

It’s supposed to be a joyful thing to finally get a holiday and travel with friends, but if after the trip, that person disappears from your life, you really should think hard about why. Traveling is not the same as occasional hangouts—you’ll be living together briefly, and all your flaws will be fully exposed. But there’s always a reason behind everything. If you don’t want to end up on someone’s blacklist after the trip, avoid doing these 7 things:

1. Bossing Others Around

Whether or not you’re the one organizing the trip, don’t go around bossing people. Don’t act like you’re the boss—even if you are the organizer, you should assign tasks fairly. If you keep ordering others around, they’ll definitely get annoyed. If you’re not even the organizer, contribute nothing, yet still boss people around, then that’s even worse. Basically, the whole trip will be a failure, and you’ll leave a bad impression.

2. Taking and Eating Without Contribution, Then Complaining About Everything

If you’re not contributing, don’t offer opinions. If you’re a free rider, sorry, but you really don’t have a say. If you want others to listen to your ideas, then help out first—don’t just eat and take while complaining about everyone else’s plans.

3. Complaining About Everything Like You’re in Hong Kong

Everyone knows Hong Kongers love to complain, but there’s no need to complain about everything. The Hong Kong Tourism Board hasn’t asked you to spread Hong Kong’s complaint culture, has it? Complaining non-stop will make even your travel companions embarrassed to be seen with you. Maybe you’ll get the compensation you want, but you’ll lose your friends.

4. Saying “Whatever” But Being Picky

If “whatever” were a chain restaurant, it would probably have beaten McDonald’s by now. If you say “whatever,” then really mean it. Don’t say “whatever” and then turn out to be super picky—it’ll just inconvenience the rest of the group.

5. Turning Into a Grouch and Killing the Mood

If you naturally have a sour face, please say so in advance. Otherwise, no one wants to travel with someone who’s frowning all the time. Traveling is supposed to be fun, so even if you don’t smile often, at least crack a smile for the group.

6. Asking Questions Non-Stop or Never Answering Any

Both extremes are annoying. If you’re on your phone or taking selfies non-stop when people ask you anything, maybe you shouldn’t come on the trip—if you get lost, don’t blame others. On the other hand, if you keep asking where you’re going today, how to get there, how long it takes, how much it costs, where the toilets are, where to exchange money, where to buy cheap stuff, and so on, your travel companions might be first-timers too. Some answers are in the itinerary—if you don’t read it but keep asking, you’ll be in big trouble.

7. Taking Advantage Relentlessly

Travel requires mutual compromise, but you can’t keep accepting compromises without giving any in return. If you let others pay for your stuff, but then refuse to share costs when they ask you to contribute because you didn’t eat this or that, your travel companions will think less of you. Compromise needs to be mutual and equal for everyone to get along peacefully.

Travel companions need to accommodate each other—everyone has their own temperament and personality. But the goal of traveling is to relax. If someone ruins the mood for everyone like a bad apple, they’ll definitely be blacklisted. And remember, good friends don’t necessarily make good travel companions. Everyone starts from zero when traveling—learn to respect others, and learn to respect yourself!

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