Traveling with a friend can be a wonderfully enriching experiencing, bringing you closer together and creating lifelong memories. But it can also test your bond and shine a harsh light on your differences. As the latest season of “The White Lotus” showed, friends often get into conflicts on vacation.
“Travel pulls people out of their usual rhythms, and that can bring out differences you didn’t realize mattered so much,” Sanah Kotadia, a licensed professional counselor with Balanced Minds Therapy, told HuffPost. “You’re spending more time together than you normally would, making back-to-back decisions, and trying to meet different needs with one shared plan.”
While one person might want everything clearly scheduled in an itinerary, the other might prefer to take a slower, less structured approach.
“Add things like money, hunger or stress, and it doesn’t take much for tension to build,” Kotadia said.
From flight delays and lost luggage to smelly hotel rooms and bad weather, unexpected snags are the name of the game with travel ― and it’s not always conducive to bonding.
“When people are stressed, they may take it out on their friends because they feel comfortable with them,” said psychologist and friendship expert Irene Levine. “They can blame them for problems or just become irritable.”
Conflicts between friends on vacation often come down to differences in expectations, as people have disparate interests, budgets, activity levels, wake-up times, tastes in food and itinerary goals.
“Normally, we do not have to depend on and adjust to our friends’ needs for weeks straight,” said psychologist and “Flex Your Feelings” author Emily Anhalt. “Little things that might not matter back home, like someone needing alone time or wanting to plan every minute, can suddenly feel personal.”
Over time, those mismatched expectations can lead to blowups.
“What usually sets things off isn’t some major betrayal, it’s feeling like you’re on different pages, and no one said it out loud until it got frustrating,” Kotadia noted.
The good news is that a negative travel experience isn’t a clear sign that your relationship is inevitably doomed.
“If the friendship has a strong foundation, it should be able to weather this storm,” Levine said.
“Try saying something like, ‘Can we talk about the trip? I felt a little off at times and want to clear the air.’”
– Emily Anhalt, psychologist
As with romantic relationships, just because you don’t travel well together doesn’t mean you should break up.
“A bad vacation doesn’t necessarily mean a bad friendship, but it might mean that you’re not compatible as travel buddies,” Anhalt said. “Some of my closest friendships wouldn’t survive a group itinerary or shared Airbnb, and that’s OK. A friendship can still be deeply valuable even if you’re not a match for international adventures.”
But how can you ensure you and your friend ultimately emerge from your bad travel experience with your bond intact? Below, friendship experts share their advice for remaining pals after a disastrous vacation together.
Take a little time to let the dust settle.
“Give it some breathing room before trying to process everything,” Kotadia advised.
After the nonstop togetherness of travel, you’ll want to take some time alone to let the dust settle and reflect, rather than immediately jumping into a post-mortem with your friend.
“You might need a breather to reassess the friendship and determine what went wrong,” Levine said. “One person or the other may realize they should apologize for bad behavior or words that shouldn’t have been said.”
Do your own personal post-mortem.
Take some time to think about what went wrong and why things went down the way they did. Even if you don’t ultimately go into every little detail with your friend, it’s a good exercise for yourself.
“You should do a personal post-mortem to figure out how you got into this situation,” Levine said. “Were you so eager to go on a trip that you latched on to the first person you could? Should you have discussed specifics before you decided to travel together? Should you have talked beforehand about how much time you would spend together and apart? About whether you wanted to dine at expensive restaurants or eat street food?”
Then, make sure to talk about it.
“You can’t let the trip be the elephant in the room,” Levine said. “When cooler heads prevail, friends need to talk about the conflict and what went wrong.”
Open the door to conversation and resolution with a check-in about the vacation.
“Gently debrief with curiosity instead of blame,” Anhalt advised. “Try saying something like, ‘Can we talk about the trip? I felt a little off at times and want to clear the air.’”
Focus on sharing experiences, rather than debating.
“Focus on how you each experienced the trip rather than trying to win the post-vacation debate,” Anhalt said.
She emphasized that you don’t need to win an argument or see each moment the same way in order to repair the relationship.
“Focus on your own experience ― what felt unexpectedly hard? Did you feel dismissed, out of sync, or like you were walking on eggshells? What would need to shift next time?” Kotadia echoed. “The goal isn’t to agree on everything. It’s to better understand each other’s experience and decide what kind of connection feels realistic going forward.”
You can find common ground in simply sharing that things seemed off and realizing that you both did not like the way things went.
“Just name that it was tough, and validate that probably neither of you wanted that,” said friendship expert and “Frientimacy” author Shasta Nelson. “Focus on naming the disappointment and the sorrow for that.”
Take ownership of your part in negative experiences.
“Find a place where you can apologize, where you can just say, ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you ahead of time that I wanted to do these things,’ or ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you when I was leaving to go do this,’” Nelson said. “It doesn’t mean we were wrong, but an apology means we acknowledge that our actions created some confusion, some hurt, some disappointment.”
Apologizing affirms your friend’s feelings and serves as a reminder that you still want to be friends with them.
“The more we can apologize, the more opportunity the other person has to also apologize,” Nelson added. “Apologies tend to beget apologies, and it opens a much more vulnerable conversation where we don’t have to be defensive. We’re not there to attack. We’re there to validate that our friendship matters to us and that the other person matters to us [and that] their preferences and needs, while different from ours, are not wrong.”
With time, you might even both find the whole experience a little funny.
“Sometimes all it takes is owning your part, laughing at the mess, and agreeing to never share a rental car again,” Anhalt said.
Focus on advance communication if you want to travel together again.
“In other circumstances, you might be more compatible to travel together if you have more information about each other,” Anhalt noted. “I recommend doing a pre-trip pre-brief before any trip. This is where you and whoever you’re traveling with answer a few questions before the trip to set you up for success.”
She suggested asking questions: How much alone time do you need over the course of a day or week? How would I know if you were frustrated or overwhelmed? How much planning do you want to do vs. going with the flow of the day?
“Your experience might be an opportunity to just say, ‘You know, maybe we do smaller trips together,’” Nelson said. “Ask what you learned that could inform your travels in the future? What wisdom did you gain? What’s amazing is that one bad trip together doesn’t mean all your trips will be bad. It just means now you actually know, and you won’t go in and be shocked and surprised and hurt in the same way. And you can have more upfront conversations about what you each need and what feels good to each of you.”
“Some friendships thrive in casual hangouts but don’t translate well to shared space, decision-making or stress. That doesn’t mean the friendship is fake; it just means it may have limits.”
– Sanah Kotadia, licensed professional counselor
Going forward, you can better communicate your goals and expectations and take different approaches ― like separating to do certain activities during the day before meeting up for happy hour later, or alternating which days each of you plans the trip.
“See it as an opportunity to learn about your friend and what your friend loves, and to have conversations about, what they enjoy,” Nelson said. “So even if I don’t love museums or love shopping, it’s an opportunity for me to see my friend in her happy place and to learn what makes her enjoy it so much. It’s a really friendship-strengthening thing.”
Figure out better ways to bond if you don’t want to travel together anymore.
“You might have different travel desires, and that’s OK,” Nelson said. “It just means that as a friendship, you have to make intentional time to figure out when and how you do want to spend time together, and how you can keep affirming each other and enjoying each other and laughing and sharing together.”
Trying new restaurants in your home city or going to fitness classes together could be better ways for you to bond as friends.
“A rough trip doesn’t automatically mean a friendship is over, but it does tell you something,” Kotadia said. “It shows you how each of you shows up when things aren’t easy. Some friendships thrive in casual hangouts but don’t translate well to shared space, decision-making or stress. That doesn’t mean the friendship is fake; it just means it may have limits.”
Know it’s OK if you don’t want to remain friends.
“If both people can reflect on what didn’t work and take ownership where needed, that’s a good sign,” Kotadia said. “But if the trip exposed deeper patterns, like one person always dismissing the other’s needs or avoiding any accountability, that’s harder to come back from.”
Feeling constantly exhausted, irritated and like your needs don’t matter in interactions with your friend is something worth examining.
“You don’t have to force a friendship to stay the same just because it’s been around for a while,” Kotadia noted. “You’re allowed to change your mind about what kind of connection feels good to you.”
She emphasized that it’s OK to let your relationship shift. You might gradually pull back ― or have a direct conversation if they keep reaching out and you realize you’re not in the same place.
“If a trip reveals deep incompatibilities or values that don’t align, that’s useful information,” Anhalt said. “But ending a friendship doesn’t need to be dramatic. You can let things gradually fade, or if you want closure, you can be kind and honest. Try something like, ‘That trip helped me realize we’re in really different places. I’m grateful for the memories we’ve shared, but I don’t think this friendship is the right fit for me anymore.’ It’s OK to outgrow people, and it’s OK to choose peace over forced connection.”
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