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The ideal traveling companion knows how to be independent and how to be part of a duo. Having similar tastes isn't really a requirement; respecting your travel mate is. The other key attribute is to find a travel companion whose sense of adventure is similar to your own.

While it's great to travel with a good friend, sustaining the friendship through some of the mundane details of the journey can become tricky. Your ideal travel mate, then, is someone with whom you can set up mutual guidelines for your trip. Once you know what you value about a trip, you're more likely to be able to spot someone in your entourage of friends who is likely to have similar values and so make a good travel mate.

Are you an adventurer looking for jungle walks, likely to rent vehicles and take off into the interior? Is it vital for you to learn about local culture, visit artisans, taste local cuisine? Or are you a beach fiend, lazing the blessed rays, content to turn over every twenty minutes or so? Will you be found deep into silence, waves and a good book? Is it important that dinner have wine and candlelight, or would a roadside stand and local specialties please you more? Know what you really want out of your journey, then communicate that clearly with potential traveling companions.

A plan needn't be restrictive, but it does give a structure on which your potential travel companions can determine whether the two of you will be a good match. My travel partner (we're two middle-aged women) has similar values to my own. We respect local culture, want to know more about the area of the world we're visiting, and we're both fascinated by the history of a place. We each like to eat well, but our culinary tastes diverge at some points. And we have other differences.

My friend loves to walk the beaches for hours each afternoon and I can only take about half an hour of that before I'm counting how many grains of sand are under my toenails. My friend would rather visit a market; I'd rather visit a museum of art. I love roadside or market stall food if it's the local sort, but my friend is leery about street food, and I understand her hesitations. I'm a water baby, but my friend doesn't swim well and is somewhat frightened of the water. So how do we deal? Compromise? NO! Then both of us lose some of the zest generated by who we are. Not at all. We make a special agreement before we leave.

Here's the gist of our agreement:
If there's time, we breakfast together and share our plans for the day.

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