travel stress and how do you deal with it?

When did you meet my husband? What you have written about is his travel mantra to the tee. How do I deal with him? I don't travel with him. Like yourself, I have travelled with my children or with other gals.

Perhaps a guided tour would be a better option. One that includes your air rdtrip.
I am an independent traveler except on occsion now i will take full guided tours for
a much more relaxed trip.

Kristen, there was a time when my husband didn't want to travel, various reasons, none very good. I went with friends for a few years and finally he said he wanted to go with me, didn't like the feeling of missing out.. So...I planned a trip to England, where I had been several times. Knew my way from airport to train, to B and B, to small pubs, to war museums (which he loves)! And basically styled the trip around him. We even went to a horse farm! A slower pace, for me, but not overwhelming for him. Lots of of good Brit pubs and things I knew he would like. Long story short, we have gone every year (5 years now) somewhere and he is picking where he wants us to go. He is loving it as much as I do. Spain this fall... his pick. Hang in there, but if you love to travel, GO..with friend, relative, group, tour. Don't let him stop you from seeing the world. Ps -'while this may not work for very one. When stressed with travel, we stop, find a pub, have a few brews and then head for a good night sleep and start the next day again. Good luck!

It may be a case that he fears having to ensure everything goes smoothly, or being responsible on the occasions it doesn't. As you know, these forums (and the internet at large) are a great help in planning to minimise the possibility of stressful situations. Some guys are not willing to let others take charge, but if he's fine with you handling all the planning, then just reassure him and let him to be happy 'just carrying the cases'.
The key for you is to ...
1) Build in lots of buffer time to minimize stress, getting to stations/airports or changing trains/planes.
2) Don't schedule anything else for 'travel days' - take time to relax if you end up with free time.
3) Commit to minimal tours or prebooked museums etc.
4) Travel outside peak times of June to September.
5) Prebook hotels so you don't get caught out, and close to the station if that helps.
6) Know your ground transport options, always knowing a taxi is easiest.
7) Plan something easy (perhaps over 10 days) to start with.
8) Invest in an 'easy to follow' guide book.
9) Pack as light as possible.
10) Get good travel insurance for peace of mind.

Some things I've learned in my travels.
1) If possible, be aware of strikes or other hitches in transportation. Have Plan B for possible delays or forced change of plans.
2) Keep enough money on hand to cover a day's needs, including taxi rides. Have coins for toilets.
3) Build a cushion of time around activities. Make generous time for meals, relaxing.
4) If you are a reader, have a book handy.
5) Know that there is usually help available nearby. Just ask.
6) Keep valuables secure so you aren't constantly worried about losing things.
7) Get plenty of rest and nutritious food. Self-maintenance is important, including grooming, bathing, cleaning clothes.
8) Focus on quality rather than quantity in travels. A couple of places explored thoroughly rather than many places just passed through will often be more satisfying.
9)Think of travel as an adventure! Have fun!

My husband was much the same, especially regarding international travel. We started with a short 8-day escorted tour to Italy and then moved to longer trips. Still, his upper limit is about 16 days. Some things we do to keep the stress down:
1. I always book flights with reasonable departure and arrival times, sufficient layovers and seats with extra leg room.
2. I plan everything to a T before we leave but am prepared to be flexible once we get there. We always talk over what our priorities are in any given destination.
3. If on a tour, we arrive one or two days in advance to get over the jet lag. We use free time during the tour to rest, reorganize our travel gear and stroll around. We love going into local grocery stores and small eateries.
4. For tours, We only use small group tour companies such as RS or Odysseys Unlimited.

My husband has loved all of our trips and I think he has actually caught the travel bug - at least a little. We just returned from Paris and we are already talking about where we will go next.

I am constantly pondering a travel destination and activities he might actually enjoy.

Unless he's also pondering it with similar enthusiasm, I think it just might be a case of "I have to respect the way he is and not the way I want him to be". Whatever change happens will probably have to be initiated by him, sad to say...he'll have to work out his stress and being overwhelmed issues on his own (don't think change of location will help, it requires behavioral/attitude change toward travel in general).

Kirsten, you don't say where you're from but if you're an American, have the two of you traveled together at all within the States? If not, that's probably the best place to start. You'd also want to choose a location heavy on activities which he enjoys. What sorts of things is he interested in? History, sports, outdoor pursuits, art, theater, etc?

Does he dislike travel because the unknown and lots of change stresses him out, or because he's simply not very interested in new places? If it's the former, a tour might do the trick. You might want to consider, say, a river cruise which doesn't involve any change of accommodation for the duration of the trip: get on; unpack; stay in same room every night; eat in same dining room every day; very predictable.

If it's the latter, no amount of coaxing is going to help. I know people like that, and it's a lost cause, unfortunately. Even worse is to endure the complaining if they're forced to go somewhere they're determined to hate before they even get there - as happened to us with someone's husband on a business-reward trip once. If he's truly not interested, then you'll have a better time with your children!

Imagine someone wrote the following:

My wife thinks it's fun to take off on unplanned trips, doing everything spontaneously, and she doesn't appreciate that my idea of an enjoyable vacation involves activities that are stress-free. I deal with enough stress in my work life, and the last thing I want to do when I'm traveling is worry about transportation, weather, and glitches in scheduling and accommodations. I'd be happy to travel with her and our kids, as long as things are planned out in advance and opportunities for worry and stress are minimized. But she is more of a freewheeling traveler.

What advice would you give this fellow?

Wow! Thanks for many excellent suggestions!

It solidifies my own thoughts on how to tackle a trip with husband. I think a domestic (we live in the US) destination would be a good start.

None of us do tours but enjoy an outline with a few prebooked excursions. We're an active family so hiking, biking and generally physically moving is always built in. That helps the mindset for quieter days.

I love all the suggestions for low key travel! I will add them to my travel notes (yes that is nerdy but I love the planning!)

And I have also thought that perhaps the best travel experiences are those without my husband. He has ruined (wrecked and demolished) trips to the point of the entire family swearing "never again." I keep thinking he is missing the point of fun but perhaps it is me who is missing the point: not everyone enjoys travel (gasp!)

But I am willing to give it one more travel try before throwing in the towel. And if it bombs then the kids are my endentured travel servants.

Thanks again!

Lane

I wish it was as easy as planning a trip to it's entirety and my husband would be happy. When the kids were younger it was intense and stressful to take care of them while traveling. I quickly learned to just go on my own with them or never go anywhere. So it was a matter of me mustering the stamina for a vacation! Husband would happily stay home and do his own thing. Now my kids are teens and self-sufficient. Travel is a joy as they add real help as well as humor to the experience.

I am willing to plan an entirely tailored trip for my husband to experience the fun of travel. With or without the kids. His choice. But as he would say: the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and expecting a different result...

I am beginning to feel just a bit insane.

I am willing to plan an entirely tailored trip for my husband to experience the fun of travel.

Why not turn the planning over to your husband, so that he'll have some ownership/ accountability over it? People who complain or are travel-stinkers typically do the least work in making sure all goes well (it makes it real easy to blame someone else since they provided no input). Again...trying to change a man is something that women love to do and it rarely works (men don't seem to do this as much - they probably get the futility of it and move on).

"We're an active family so hiking, biking and generally physically moving is always built in. That helps the mindset for quieter days."

So is your husband the same or does he want different things? What is it that has caused him to "demolish" vacations? What trips that particular trigger?

Off the cuff, I'd say that some of the the National Parks would be great for hiking and other activities. For instance, go to Bar Harbor, Maine in early October or late September. The huge summer crowds are gone; Acadia National Park is gorgeous; there's miles of biking on the carriage roads; terrific hiking; great food; all sorts of other exploration to be had on Mt. Desert. Rain could throw a wrench in it but that can happen anywhere at all, and fog can actually be rather beautiful.

I have great sympathy for the problems of not wanting to travel together. But I also assume that there are other compatibility problems - not just travel. For us, I don't think either one of us would consider traveling without the other. I truthfully can say that we seldom if ever encounter friction while travel BUT we don't travel on a tight schedule either. Always lots of slack in the schedule to deal with potential problems. And our fourth or fifth day of travel is always completely open. Fortunately we pretty much like the same things so those decisions are easy. My only complaint is that she wants to read every plaque in the museum on every items and has no sense of pace. Which is one of the reason we don't plan things too tightly because we could keep to a tight pace.

You just have to adjust to the fact that you cannot change much. You might try an all inclusive trip to reduce any stress to a min.

I know my partner's travel tolerance level and accept it and don't bother trying to coax him into my travel style. Life is too short to push someone into something they don't really enjoy. Why press the issue? I go on overseas trips with family, friends, and very often I travel solo as I refuse to wait for a friend or family member to have the money or time to go someplace. My partner has zero desire to explore overseas. He also does not like vacationing in large metropolitan areas (likely due to the fact we live in one), and he hates being at the beach - too hot, too much sand and too many people. He doesn't care for museums. Quaint B&Bs won't work for him as he doesn't want to talk to the other guests over breakfast or deal with owners who like to chat a lot. I learned all of this very early on - like within the 1st year of dating. It wasn't a deal breaker for me. There are a few things that are travel related that he does enjoy within the U.S. - mountains & lakes, hiking and camping. A vacation, to him, is all about relaxing. He doesn't want to be on a schedule, have lots of plans laid out in front of him, or be running from town to town. When we do travel together, we actually don't have any friction as I am as accepting of his limitations, just like he's accepting of me announcing at various points throughout the year that I want to go off on my own overseas, or away with a friend for a weekend in a city where we will go to museums, cultural events and shopping. And because of this, every now and then he surprises me and demonstrates his own willingness to compromise and go off for a few days to a B&B in the shoulder season at the beach - I just have to promise to pick one that offers the option of a breakfast tray delivered to the room! And I completely disagree with Frank's assessment that if you can't travel with your significant other/spouse there are likely "other problems" in the relationship. That's a load of crap. A couple can have very different travel styles and one might be passionate about travel while the other lukewarm to it. Funny how it's usually on my solo trips that I always encounter some couple getting into an incredibly loud argument at a major tourist site - and I'm sure that most of those arguments are caused by one partner pushing the other into something they did not want to do, or beyond their tolerance level - and all because someone felt the "need" to be attached at the hip to their spouse/partner who didn't want to take part in said travel-related activity? No thanks!

Ok. As I am reading responses I am really sensing futility in travel with husband.

For starters he is an engineer so thinks very logically in black/white. Plans decreases his stress. Concrete is safe. But once you are through security at the airport, things begin to unfold beyond your control. Crowds, noise, the flight etc. Rental cars and driving is a nightmare. I drive because I get car sick. He complains. Public transportation is a better choice for us.

I like people. Meeting new people, delighting in cultural differences. He generally dislikes people. Smokers drive him nuts. He'll move tables. And ruining vacations? Ugly comments (directed at me not anyone else) without regard to volume or embarrassment. The result is that we stop talking.
Honestly I think the triggers happen when he feels pushed into a situation he doesn't want to be in. Examples where he turned nasty : beaches with the kids (Hawaii)
Driving (me at the wheel. Passive aggressive reactions to navigation help)
Restaurants (hates to spend money)
Flying with vomiting kids. Ok. This last one is not one I handle well myself but to be ignored and then glared at when asking for clean clothes from the overhead luggage? Well that was the last straw. We haven't traveled together in many years.

Things that went well?
Hiking in Hawaii.
Camping.
Driving vacation with lots of stops and an easy schedule built in. (When he drives. I take small doses dramamine. I also take heavy duty drugs to fly. Get hopelessly motion sick otherwise so I can be a vegetable on flights. This he resents too).
Never dared a foreign trip with him yet. He isn't exactly enthusiastic when I bring it up.

Though I have accepted we don't share travel, there is a part that hopes a hiking trip in Scandinavia or a WWII sightseeing trip to England and France would be fun for us both. He likes WWII stuff but likely is just as happy to watch programs on PBS about it.

I really liked the suggestion to take a trip domestically during low season to avoid the crowds.

I can either give up or take a baby steps with a smaller trip closer to home. But I am afraid past history will repeat itself despite all the cushions to make it easy. I think he knows what he likes and doesn't like and it won't change.

I think I'll save those foreign trips for my kids. They enjoy them and are great company. (Not perfect. We've had a few moments too but not embarrassing. Just annoying).

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will incorporate new ideas into the next foreign trips with my kids! :)

Hi,

Your husband has to come to grips with this: people overseas play by different rules (call them cultural cues sometimes), ie, smoke a lot more than here, are obtuse more than here, and a host of different things. When you travel you deal with that, or you can stay stressed. If he gets stressed with the of uncertainties, ups and downs in traveling, ie, missed trains, hotels messing up reservations, the crowds, the lack or absence of customer service, pickpockets, etc , etc, sitting in an outside cafe/restaurant and you're down wind from the smoke, he either moves since he has the problem with the guy(s) smoking or just put up with it. You can bet the smokers will not be the ones moving since the problem with the smoke is not their problem as they see it. I don't put up with a person who gets stressed out, flying off the handle when traveling. Split up for a few hours, rendezvous at a designated place, or more easily back at the hotel at a specific time,

Kirsten, thank you so much for starting this thread. All of the replies have helped me immensely. It has helped me to realize that I am not the only one with this same situation. Like yourself, and others, I am now either travelling solo, travelling with my children or trying to find a travel companion. In reality, it is best not to travel with my husband. He has different interests, has a bad attitude, and would rather sit at home watching TV with the dogs at his side. It is what it is. I can't change him. My current dilemma, he wants me to travel with him to his college reunion on the East coast. Now, I'm not interested.

Maybe I should have named the thread "incompatible travel partners?" Seems some of you do very well together. Some have grown together and found compromises while others have had to admit you simply cannot travel with your significant other.
I do feel a stab of envy when I see couples as tourists in my own home town. (We get a lot tourists from all over the world).

However, there are other joys in life that can be shared too. Travel is just one of many.

My husband likes to hunt. I LOATHE it so am never expected to go with. That is not a big deal for him. He doesn't ever wistfully ask me to join.

Sorry there are more of us who travel without our partner but glad too that we are not alone! (If that makes sense).

After 25 years together, living in the moment and finding joy there is getting easier.

Arg. I sympathize with you on the motion-sickness problem. I do OK on planes unless it's a really bumpy ride but windy roads (in bus, car or other sort of vehicle) and/or riding in a back seat make me positively green. Boats on an active sea can do it too, and forget helicopters altogether. There's nothing worse because you can't get away from it, and once sick, you can be ill for hours. Dramamine knocks me out so that's no fun either.

People fortunate enough to have strong stomachs don't realize how miserably debilitating it can be. But thank heavens for European trains! I've yet to feel queasy on any of them.. as long as I don't ride facing backwards. :O)

Going back to Behavioral Science courses I've taken, as I remember, a lot of stress comes from feeling you don't have control of whatever is going on. So for me, the way to avoid stress is to plan well. And that includes not only having an itinerary well coordinated with train and bus schedules but also having some alternates to use if the first plan doesn't work. Fortunately, I enjoy the planning part.

I would embrace most of the suggestions posted above by David (djp_syd) of Brisbane.

If you get through the Canadian hiking trip, you might want to think about a trip to Scotland and England. Go in September when the kids are back in school. You can hit some WWII sites and then got walking in Scotland. You can probably do it all by train. Go to Dunkeld and or Aviemore and go hiking. Come home at night to a great pub. Limit the number of places and relax. Does he golf? Don't try St. Andrews, but rather a local club like the one near Dunkeld or near Aviemore.

Pam

I have a travel bug and I like to think it's contagious. The only way to find out for sure is to get your husband traveling and see if he catches it.

Start in his comfort level, cruises and/or guided tours, where the itinerary and lodging are planned and there's a captive audience of people to meet and get to know. Supplement these with a few added days traveling independently at the end - maybe with hotels already booked and not a lot of uncertainty.

I think at one time, I felt responsible if something went wrong and that was stressful for me. Today, however, I realize things go wrong and it's not the end of the world. Go in expecting something to go wrong, it will. There is always a way to work around it, and it's often the most memorable part of the trip (generally a pleasant memory).

You can help reduce your husband's stress by insisting on helping. If he feels he'll be responsible for every detail, it will be more stressful. Dividing the load (whether it's planning the day, carrying stuff, picking the restaurant) with a partner reduces stress. I've had travel partners who expected me to do everything, they were just there to be entertained. I find that stressful.

You can also deal with stress by leaving yourself a little room in the itinerary for things going wrong. For example, I wouldn't plan a Baltic Cruise by flying into Copenhagen and expecting to go straight from the airport to the ship shortly before it sets sail. Give yourself at least one day and night slack time to see some sights, get a night's sleep and adjust to the new time zone. If something goes wrong, a canceled/delayed flight, trains are on strike or something else, you've built in some time to deal with it so it doesn't affect your main plans.

I always reduce stress by carrying on my bag (and stick to under 20 lbs in a normal carry on). Not checking luggage eliminates worrying about lost or delayed luggage and gives you less to worry about on the road. It also gets you out of the airport and on your way faster - arrival in Europe is one of the most stressful times because you're tired and jet lagged. I normally take public transit into town but you can reduce stress by simply splurging on a taxi straight to your hotel.

If you get to your hotel and they can't find your reservation, have a few alternatives in your back pocket in case you need them (though in my experience the hotel will generally help you find a place to stay). If the restaurant you wanted to try is full, ask them for a recommended nearby place. If you miss a train, consider it a learning experience and figure out the next one (either by yourself or with help from the ticket agent).

Going back to the original question, if you have to 'deal' with your spouse/partner while traveling, it might be best to leave him home where he wants to be. That will make most of your stress disappear. I think if you have one person you can happily travel with then you are lucky. (I am lucky). But it is OK to not have anyone. Traveling with someone who doesn't want to be there or travels in a different style than you is miserable. Your travel stress appears to be your husband, so leave him home. There is nothing wrong with spouses liking different types of things. Travel costs a lot of money. I will not waste money traveling with someone with whom I don't travel well. My husband and I travel very well together, but he is older than I am and starting to not want to travel or thinking soon he won't, so I will leave him at home then, as he did when he was younger and I couldn't travel as much due to work demands. Solo travel is EXTREMELY fun so just go your own way. It is wonderful having only yourself to please, which is seldom the opportunity we have. Wray

I have a just couple of issues to deal with when traveling with my husband. #1 is snoring. At home, I can get out of bed and just go into another bedroom to sleep but I can't do that in a hotel room. Earplugs don't help all that much but I've used them. What I try to do is rent an apartment that way I can at least try and get some sleep on the couch if the noise level gets to be too much. That didn't work so well in Venice this year as we were only spending 3 nights so I went with a hotel room. I didn't get a lot of sleep in Venice but oh well. We were in Venice! #2 is my husband doesn't like to spend the money that it costs to travel to Europe. We've been twice in the last two years & he's insisted on taking a break in 2016 so I've planned a group trip to the Smoky Mountains in TN with our 3 children, their spouses and our 3 grandsons. I would definitely travel without him if he insists on a longer break. We're not getting any younger and there are a few more countries I'd like to visit before we pack away our luggage permanently. And Paris always seems to call my name!

My husband grew up in a very dysfunctional family and equates the unexpected with bad news. Since travel contains many unexpected moments it just doesn't work well for him. I'm fortunate I have someone to travel with and I leave him at home to watch the house and the cats :-). He's happier and so am I.

Fermented grapes seem to work well!