I have traveled with friends in the past and had a miserable time due to differences in travel styles. When one person wants to get up early in the morning and the other one wants to sleep in until noon every day, and one wants to separate but the other one refuses. These experiences were so bad, it permanently damaged my friendships. After these few bad experiences, I decided that I should only travel with people with whom I’m compatible.
In 2012, I met someone on the internet that independently wanted to ride the TransMongolian railway. Taking this epic train journey and visiting the Gobi Desert had been a longtime dream but I was not happy with the rushed itineraries and prices of group trips. I met E on a travel companion website (Lonely Planet Thorn tree) and we talked about taking 24 days to go from St. Petersburg, Russia to Beijing, China by rail via Mongolia. This would be a long time to travel with a complete stranger so I decided to find out if we were compatible before making the 24 day commitment. I sent her the Travel Compatibility questionnaire and I answered it at the same time. In the end, our answers were surprisingly similar and we were in fact good travel partners.
I recommend if you’re traveling with strangers, or even friends or family, that you each take this questionnaire and find out if your travel styles mesh. If you’ve ever watched The Big Bang Theory, you may know about the roommate agreement – this is my travel version!
Knowing if you’re travel compatible before you go can ensure a good time. When taking this questionnaire, it’s beneficial to not just answer yes/no but to go into details to measure compatibility. When I traveled with a stranger for 24 days, our answers were nearly identical and we made very good travel partners. Feel free to add your own.
Alternatively, if you think it’s silly to do a compatibility quiz, pick out a few of these topics that are important to you and start a conversation with your potential travel partner. It’s most important to like to do similar things, have similar hours, and similar budget.
(1.) Do you prefer cities or countryside?
(2.) Do you like to drink/go clubbing?
(3.) Do you like cultural performances?
(4.) Do you like shopping?
(5.) Do you like museums?
(6.) When/how do you prefer your meals? Sit down, or on the go?
(7.) How long does it take to pack/get ready in the morning?
(8.) Do you like to “sleep in” on vacation? What time do you typically wake up?
(9.) Do you like boat rides? Train rides?
(10.) Do you like trekking/hiking? What lengths, difficulty?
(11.) What do you do with your down time on vacations?
(12.) Do you watch TV on vacation? What types? News, Movies?
(13.) Are you willing to split for a day if we’d like to do different things?
(14.) What type of accommodations do you prefer?
(15.) What budget are you on? What is your target cost per day?
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Edit 11/10/2018: I had a reader named Jeff send in the following additional questions, great suggestions:
(16.) How do you experience other cultures?
(17.) Do you like to chat with the locals?
(18.) How long can you stay in one place?
(19). Do you prefer to be fully planned or can you make your day as you go?
(20.) Would you travel with someone you just met in a dating app?
Are there any questions you would add to this list?
Edit 4/8/2019 – New questions thanks to reddit:
(21.) Do you snore?
(22.) Are you a planner/leader or a follower?
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