Dating a Traveler: Why Dating a Nomad Is Hard

Traveling can be fun but dating someone who is always on the road may give you one of the most complicated dating lives ever. When you are in a young relationship, you want to find as many opportunities and excuses to be around your partner as possible. If they love to travel and are always away from home, you’ll be fighting against their schedule just to be together.

As a partner, you will be torn between encouraging your partner to follow their passion for travel, a passion that actually makes them happy, and asking them to stay home so you can spend more time together.

Dating a traveler is by no means the easiest thing in the world. Here are some reasons why.

They Focus More on the Present than the Future

Someone who likes to travel a lot probably has an innate sense of the present and most of their plans will revolve around what they can do today, this week or this month and not what you two could be doing a year or two from now.

If you are in the relationship for the long-term, making arrangements for the future or initiating conversations about sharing an amazing life together into the future are important things, but they become very hard.

Since you don’t want to pressure them with talks of commitment lest the relationship take a nose dive, you will play it safe and this might end up hurting your relationship in the long run.

It’s a Typical Long-Distance Relationship

No matter what your partner tells you, you are in a long-distance relationship. Your relationship will take the character of a long-distance relationship as you are always miles apart and the only way you can communicate is by phone or through internet platforms.

People looking for a serious committed relationship dislike long-distance relationships as much as they dislike non-exclusive relationships. If you’re looking for something serious, dating a traveler will be frustrating.

When Trips Last Longer than Intended

When your partner says they will be away for just one week and they return 11 days later, it becomes hard to schedule activities as you also have other commitments you have to meet such as work and school.

Their unpredictable schedule makes it hard to schedule fun activities you can engage in together to make your relationship grow stronger.

Their staying away longer than expected may be due to no fault of their own, though. There are several factors outside of their control that might conspire to keep them on the road longer than they intended. It’s easy to understand and forgive them when this happens a few times. Nonetheless, when they make it a habit, it will strain your relationship.

Fear That They Might Stray

Everyone who is in a relationship with a nomad has at one moment feared that their partner might cheat on them while they are away. After all, they are always interacting with other travelers who share their passion for travel and the connections they form might lead to them cheating.

When couchsurfing or at a hostel hostel, they will be surrounded by other awesome travelers. Some of these travelers will be solo travelers who really love adventure. While you can trust that your partner will never stray, the feeling really never goes away.

Unreliable and Inconsistent Communication

One of the most important things that hold relationships together is communication. The moment you stop communicating with your partner, things start to go downhill.

When your partner is always on the road, it becomes hard to consistently communicate with one another. Further, there are a lot of nuances to communication that will be lost in a phone conversation. Only a face-to-face interaction can convey all the feelings and thoughts you are trying to pass.

Your Ideas of Vacation Might Differ

You and your partner might be far apart on how you want to travel together.

There is a huge difference between a backpacking trip in Vietnam and a week away at an all-inclusive resort. Maybe you don’t like staying in hostels and would rather lay on the beach, but that’s not adventurous enough for your partner. They like the cultural immersion that comes with nomad life.

This can cause a rift because you struggle making plans together. It’s important that even if they travel in their own time, there’s some compromise on location when you plan to go together.

You Just Miss Them

It is very likely that you will sometimes have feelings of loneliness when your partner is away. This is understandable and is actually expected. The feelings are manageable if the trips are few and far between. However, if they are a constant feature of your relationship, coping becomes hard and you might start to feel miserable.

You can try to cope by cultivating new hobbies and finding things to do when they are away to make sure that you can always have a good time with or without them. Ultimately, you are responsible for your own happiness.

Exhaustion

After a long trip, particularly if it was an adventure trip, your partner might feel exhausted. They may come home looking to take a day or two of rest. This can put a strain in your relationship as the expectation is that you’d be spending quality time together when they get back home.

Since they are not always home, you want to take advantage of every moment they are around to bond and do fun things together. Their being exhausted after a trip means that you have to reschedule all the fun activities you had prebooked.