So, you’ve met a nice young lady or a nice young man, and things have been going well. You’ve been going out for a few months or so and it’s getting round to the summer time and you feel like you should go away together. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy – you don’t want to put too much pressure on your fledgling relationship – but a week or so in a different country would allow you to relax and spend an extended period of time together.
Booking a holiday with a partner is a very different proposition to booking one with friends. An argument with mates can be forgotten a couple of hours later, but an argument with a relatively new partner can break the relationship. It’s best, then, to plan ahead to ensure that things don’t take a turn for the worse when you’re hundreds of miles from home and it’s too late (or too expensive) to sort them out.
1.Decide that a holiday is something you definitely want to do
There’s nothing more awkward than booking a holiday with a partner which isn’t due to take place for at least a few months, and then the two of you split up before you’re due to go. Then you have to mess around trying to get as much of your money back as possible when you probably don’t want to have to talk to each other, let alone work together towards a common goal. Be honest with yourselves and ask if the relationship is one that could go the distance, and then book. If it’s just a bit of fun, you may as well save yourself the bother!..
2.Focus on relaxation
When you’re choosing your destination, it might be an idea to favour calmer options over ones that are going to involve a lot of rushing around from place to place, like you’d end up doing if you went to Disney World. Use the time you’re not lying around to relax and talk – the less you’re doing, the more difficult it’ll be to get into arguments and put a sour spin on the day and the holiday as a whole. If you’re the type of people who like to keep busy throughout the day, though, who are we to stop you?.
3.Gauge your compatibility before booking
Make sure you both know what you’re looking for with regard to where you’re staying and what you’re expecting to do. If one of you wants to stay in a cheap hostel with questionable cleanliness while the other wants to stay in a clean hotel that will be more expensive, that’s something you need to resolve before anything is booked. Similarly, if one of you wants to lounge on the beach but the other wants to go and see the sights, you’ll have to make compromises there as well. If there’s something specific that you want to do while you’re away, then make sure you bring it up before you leave – it’s not fair dropping it in on the day..
4.Book it together
Don’t lump all the responsibility of booking the flights and accommodation all onto your partner unless you genuinely don’t have any interest in where you’re staying or how much your flights are going to cost (and if that’s the case, why are you bothering going away at all?). Being fully involved during the booking process means you can work together to save as much money as possible (conduct a flight comparison to make sure you’re not paying any more than you have to) and there won’t be any surprises for either of you when you get there. …
5.Be flexible when you’re there
No matter how well you plan a trip, there will always be the potential for things to come up and derail your arrangements. If that happens, go with the flow – if it’s a cock-up with the hotel, don’t make a fuss and calmly sort the problem out with the hotel staff. If it’s something that ends up changing your plans when you’re out, like an attraction you’d planned on seeing being unexpectedly closed, just accept it and find something else to do. Nobody likes a scene-maker or a sulker, so put your best foot forward and shape up… (image credit)
If you follow these five steps you’ll be on your way to an affordable, memorable first holiday away together. In terms of destinations, think Europe rather than anything more extravagant – we’ve already noted that it’s best not to put too much pressure on this holiday being particularly amazing (hopefully there should be plenty of opportunity in the future for amazing holidays), so a long weekend city break in Paris or Rome or a week on the beach in Greece (avoiding those islands full of lairy students) or Spain should do the job nicely.
