When travelling with friends puts your friendship to the test

Travelling with friends can either bring you closer together or make you question how you became friends in the first place.

We asked four women to share the trips that tested their friendships, from becoming the designated planner to dealing with a bridezilla and third-wheeling on their own holiday.

“I felt more like her boyfriend than her friend”

We’d been friends for many years but had never had the opportunity to travel together. When we finally had the time and money, we decided to go to Bali. We’d both been there with different groups before, so we knew the place well enough and I thought it would be an easy trip.

Instead, I quickly realised she wasn’t going to be much help at all.

She wouldn’t book Grabs because her phone battery was always dying, yet she never brought her own charger and constantly depended on mine. She didn’t make reservations for restaurants we had planned to visit and even when it came to ordering food or speaking to locals, she would look to me to do it. For context, we’re both Malay and both speak Bahasa Indonesian.

She would also whine whenever she was hungry or tired, and by the end of the trip, I genuinely felt more like her boyfriend than her friend. At one point, I even thought, “Now I know why her relationships never lasted long.”

Safe to say, that was the first and last trip we ever took together.

“One friend got an entire bedroom to herself while the rest of us squeezed into one”

The four of us had travelled with one another on separate occasions, but never all together. After being friends for about five years, we were excited to finally do a group trip to Melbourne.

The flight was great, the first day was fun and everything seemed fine. Then we checked into our two-bedroom apartment.

That was when the trouble started.

Apparently, Friends A and B had previously travelled together and had issues sharing a room. When Friend C and I suggested swapping the room arrangements, Friend B said she couldn’t share with Friend C because she snored. She couldn’t share with me either because apparently I move too much in my sleep.

Basically, she couldn’t share a room with any of us.

This caused a lot of tension and Friend A ended up sleeping on the couch, with some of us rotating throughout the trip, while Friend B had an entire bedroom to herself.

What made things worse was that she wasn’t apologetic about not telling us any of this before we booked the apartment. She also didn’t offer to pay more for having a whole room to herself and insisted that we continue splitting the accommodation four ways, even though three of us were essentially sharing one bedroom and the couch.

Are we still friends with her? Nope. The three of us are much happier as a trio now and still travel together quite often.

“I was embarrassed to admit the bridezilla was my cousin”

I’d never travelled with such a large group of women before going on my cousin’s destination bachelorette. Apart from my cousin, I only knew a handful of the girls. The group was a mix of family members, friends and work colleagues she was close to.

I already had my reservations during the planning stage. With so many people suggesting different activities and working with different budgets, it was difficult to reach a consensus. But since it was her bachelorette, the bride ultimately had the final say and we eventually settled everything.

Then we arrived at the villa and the term “bridezilla” really came to life.

My cousin suddenly decided she wasn’t feeling half of what we had planned and wanted to change the itinerary, including activities and meals that already had reservations. Because it was her party, everyone tried their best to accommodate her.

The girls were actually really nice about the whole thing, which somehow made me even more embarrassed to be related to her.

The unexpected upside? I became good friends with some of the women on that trip and still hang out with them today. Some of them, however, are no longer close to my cousin.

I wonder why.

“I became the third wheel on my own holiday”

My friend and I have known each other since childhood and had travelled together plenty of times, so I never expected Greece to be the trip that tested us.

We’d talked about going for years and when we finally made it happen, the first few days were amazing. Then, one night, she met a guy she really connected with. I was happy for her and when she spent the night with him, I didn’t think much of it.

The problem was that he then started joining us constantly over the next few days. Suddenly, I was third-wheeling on my own holiday.

One night, she asked if he could stay over in our hotel room. Since we were sharing the room, I said no, so she decided to stay at his place instead. What she forgot to tell me was that she was leaving, and what I forgot was that she had our room key.

I ended up stuck outside until the hotel concierge took pity on me and gave me another key.

I tried to make the best of the rest of the holiday, but when we got home, she casually told me she wasn’t planning to keep in touch with him. When I asked why, she said she had simply wanted to have a “vacation boyfriend” for once.

I was baffled.

We’re actually still friends to this day, but after Greece, I made sure we had very clear boundaries whenever we travelled together, especially where “vacation boyfriends” were concerned.

Thankfully, we’re both married now, so that problem has solved itself.

If there’s one takeaway from these travel horror stories, it’s that being great friends doesn’t always mean you’ll be great travel companions. Sometimes, all it takes is one trip to find that out.