I recently stumbled across a blog post by a young man bemoaning dating a girl who loves travel. The post outlined the aggravating draw backs of having her being gone “all the time,” and always thinking about the next place she was headed. Once I got done yelling at my computer screen, I started to write this post in my head. Here goes:
One of the greatest pieces of advice my beloved grandmother, (who loved to travel by the way), gave to me was to marry a girl that you can sit across the breakfast table with for the rest of your life. Somehow I followed this wise advice and found just that person. Travel definitely played a role in why I asked Luci to marry me. Travel makes you smart, interesting and sexy! So what makes a traveling girl so great?
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Smart Women Travel
The most dynamic and interesting women I have met in my life have been travelers. Call me crazy, but travel really makes people interesting. One great example is the Evelyn Hannon, the Jouneywoman. If you haven’t checked out her blog, you must. She continues to criss-cross the globe in search of adventure and fulfillment. I hope she doesn’t kill me for saying this, while she is advancing in years, it hasn’t stopped her from her mission to explore and discover. Now she supports and encourages other women to follow in her footsteps. What a great example.
Smart women travel. One attribute that comes shining through with traveling women is their ability to delay gratification. They are willing to scrimp and save for 6 months to spend two weeks in the Tuscan country side. Sacrifice is a critical life lesson for relationships. It is a cold hard fact: the best things in life take time and effort. As poor newlyweds putting ourselves through college, we had to be creative in our travel destinations. We both did internships in areas that had interesting places to discover. Every weekend we would map out where we wanted to explore next ….on one tank of gas. Traveling women find a way to make it work because discovery is so important to them.
Travelers tend to be readers. Another appealing aspect of finding yourself a traveling girl is they tend to be well read. As many of you loyal Fighting Couple readers know, we do extensive trip prep. This involves reading about interesting angles of our trip. Yes, my traveling girl reads Frommers and Rick Steves. But she also read, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” before we visited Savannah, GA or “1453” about the fall of Constantinople before visiting Istanbul. The potent combination of reading and exploring makes living exhilarating.
Traveling Girls are Dreamers and Doers
The travel industry has marketing the dream down pat. You are bombarded by these high gloss destination magazines of white sandy beaches and cool breezes blowing the palm trees. They offer the eyes of the beholder an escape and a dream. The thing about traveling women is, they see these dreams…then they make them happen for themselves. One of the quirky things about Luci is that she wants a destination to look just like the dream. We have a good laugh occasionally when we both say…this doesn’t look like the brochure. On the other hand, we have visited places that we will never blog about because they are just that pristine and amazing and we want them to stay that way. Traveling women make their own dreams come true. For those of us that are lucky enough to love these women, we are invited along for the ride.
Traveling Women are Selfish?
Traveling women are intriguing to me. While family is undoubtedly important to these wander lusters, they elect to leave home and family behind occasionally to focus on their own self-improvement. Many mistakenly view this as selfishness. Dive a little deeper and you see a person investing in themselves to be a better mother, wife, sister or friend. How is this selfish? Reaching out, and understanding the world around you is the exact opposite of self-focus. Taking the education that travel can dish out: appreciating beauty, understanding diversity, experiencing first hand real poverty, making friends, learning the difference between needs and wants are all lessons learned on the road. In turn these lessons are taught to our children. How much more powerful is a lesson on valuing diversity to a child coming from a person that has visited the Soweto or Auschwitz? Likewise a lesson on poverty having slept in a grass hut in Swaziland?
Travel is Hard
Traveling women know how to do hard things. I am not naive enough to believe that intercontinental travel is for everyone. It is certainly not. It is exhausting, it can be expensive, and certainly takes a lot time. Travel at times means learning a new language, culture and adjusting to unfamiliar cuisine. It means dealing with ambiguous situations. The dangers of travel are real and common. One of the dividends of travel is that it makes you stronger and helps you to exercise common sense and problem solving. How are we going to find the right train to Fontainebleau or how am I going to find my wife I left at the Louvre because I was hungry? As you face a challenge, meet it head on and achieve your intended goal, you become resilient. Would we have been bitten by leaches staying home and working in our cubicle? Not likely. Travel can be fraught with disappointment and difficulty. At the same time there is something reassuring about getting yourself lost and working your way out of the situation.
Where Do You Find Them?
The travel blogging world is dominated by women! It really is. Us guys are way too slow to value the education that can come from leaving the home port and discovering the globe. Maybe we do travel but, we just don’t write about it. Traveling women are easy to spot. They are constantly posting pictures of food and interesting road signs on their social media sites. Pinterest pages of “traveling girls” are cram packed with green Peruvian jungles, rolling Tuscan vineyards and Irish blessing memes. Traveling girls have a twinkle in their eye when they talk about the next road trip they are planning. Guys, go get them!
Candidly, finding a traveling girl has changed my life for the better. Regardless if we are in remote Africa or climbing Machu Picchu as we explore together, I continue to be impressed with my bride’s passion for the new and unknown. She chooses the path less traveled, and that has made all the difference for us.
The guy who misses his girl definitely has a point, since she’s just going to disappear sooner or later, but if you have to choose between an interesting person for a month, or a never-left-home person for a decade, I’d pick the adventurous type. There are so many worthwhile life lessons to be learned out on the road, particularly regarding how to handle problems and be okay with them, and those are important qualities too.
Eytan-Thanks for you comment. I couldn’t agree more. The lessons learned from travel and many and valuable. Cheers-Mike
This is a ridiculously amazing, beautiful and honest post! It’s like a ‘love letter to travelling women’…just don’t tell Luci ;)
Yes! You get it!! Traveling women ARE awesome – as are our male counterparts!
-Diane
http://wifewithbaggage.com
OMG – the author is talking about me, talking to me and talking for me! Wonderful blog post.
So, the dude should just go travel with his girlfriend. That’s what I do.
I cant say I find it easy to forge relationships not when I’m constantly moving far far away
Lovely post, so romantic :) and Diane as one half of a traveling couple, I totally agree!
THANK YOU!!! I have the privilege and pleasure for traveling abroad for my PhD research for long periods of time (semester-length stays). Unfortunately, my husband can’t come with me except for shorter visits because he has to stay home, work, and care for our cats. I hate leaving him, since he’s my best friend and I miss him terribly, BUT I also know that our relationship is even stronger because he can let me go and we can survive being apart. I get a LOT of flack from our friends and our relatives in particular, who can’t seem to understand why it is actually exciting to me to embark on these trips. Not only are they 100% necessary for my career, I truly think they make me a better person: more able to deal with stress, more independent and able to rise to challenges, more open-minded, and definitely more comfortable with pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Life is short and I can’t imagine not taking advantage of these opportunities– in the end they will further my career but also help me better fulfill my dreams and ambitions which in the end are part of our collective dreams and ambitions!! My husband’s support means everything to me and I am sure that Luci feels the same way about you. Glad I found your blog!!!
Megan-Thanks for your comments. Being away from your loved one is so difficult. I cant imagine what you must be going through. Sounds like he is a great guy. Cheers-M
Thanks you guys! Go traveling couples!-M
Thanks for your kind comment! We salute you traveling girls!-M
Right on! Thanks Diane-M
Toni-Traveling women are amazing! Cheers-M
I adore every word of this. :)
Thank you kindly-M
Getting weird looks, pity or criticism for traveling alone is something I’ve felt :) Thanks for the article. It’s nice to know some people get it :) http://trekity.com/traveling-alone/
Thank you for including the traveling mothers in your post. Some do see it as selfish. I am very lucky to have a supportive man by my side that will travel with me as much as possible, but also understands that sometimes I have to go alone for my sanity (and for work), and isn’t afraid to help me raise our children. We are strong, hardworking, caring, loving, maternal, guilt ridden, adventurous, insane, exhausted, wide-eyed, wanderlusting ladies who want to show the world to our children, and expand our own minds at the same time. So, thank you… again. I needed this tonight :-)
Keryn-Thanks so much for your kind message. Traveling women are amazing-M
I couldn’t agree more! I couldn’t marry someone that hated to travel or hated the fact that I travel.
Suzy-We couldn’t agree more. Travel adds so much to the depth of a person. Thanks for featuring us in your stumble segment-M
hey is here any one lost his girl
Well said!
Great post, lets hope more man will come to their minds ha ha ha
Lets hope so! Thanks for your comments Marysia.
You are right when you say that travel on it’s own is not selfish but a kind of therapy to be a better person ! study english abroad
You are right when you say that travel on it’s own is not selfish but a kind of therapy to be a better person ! study english abroad
Love it! As a traveling girl myself, I know it can be way too challenging to find people who understand. Your post is my top pick for this weeks Travel Thursday Blog Carnival! The post is now live at http://vagabondette.com/travel-thursdays-blog-carnival-1st-edition/ Check it out and I hope to see your submission next week as well!
Thank you! what an honor!
good article! oh and nice reference to robert frost :)
Such great points you make about travellers not being selfish, about being dreamers and doers. Wonderful blog post, thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your kind words.
Just found this post and it is all true, I am smart and clever and not selfish, LOL. Actually, travelling with a person really is the decider if you can make it through all of lifes hurdles in my opinion, as a couple. When Gordon and I started going out, we went overseas together pretty quickly and it worked out brilliantly. We were and are in sync tho he doesn’t fight and I do; but we do compromise and thoroughly enjoy one anthers company. I love him but thats not to say I like hi and I am sure that is vice versa. Great post
Can attest to that m8, travelers make the best companions in life and in love <3 even if you do have the occasional fight about where to go and what to do :D
I love this post. Women have gone a long way and are still battling the norms and expectations of society but now we’re going beyond and finding our own path by travel. I think it intimidates and scares some guys because women who travel are strong, confident and fearless. But who doesn’t want a women like that in your life? That means we have learned more, experienced more and we appreciate more. Doesn’t sound too selfish to me ;)
Hi Mike,
Thanks for this post. My wife will appreciate it as well as other traveling women around the world. It’s crazy that guys can go off on their own and not have some of the same comments as these other courageous souls who also happen to be female.
Specifically I love the comments you made about women and the idea of being selfish. This whole idea is completely false and I can’t see why it’s different for me. Like you mentioned having a deeper understanding of this world and growing more self-aware through travel makes for a better person. This would translate to better decisions, better parenting, and better relationships in general. Your examples are so on point!
I’m so happy to be able to say I’ve got myself a girl who can travel the world and even though she’s not always confident in each step she displays courage stepping out of her comfort zone each and everyday. There’s no greater joy as a husband than seeing this happen.
Great work on this post! I know it’s an older one but keep em coming! Thanks again.
Love from the Philippines,
Mark