Jay and I had been dating for a few years when we finally flew to Europe together in 1997. It was our first flight as a couple — something that today feels routine, but back then felt huge.
Backpacking across Europe had always been a dream of mine, but I’d never been brave enough to make it happen on my own. Jay, meanwhile, hadn’t imagined going much farther than the Jersey Shore. Travel wasn’t something he’d spent much time longing for.
One night I exploded in tears over an indiscretion that, at the time, felt like the end of the world. Between sobs I said something dramatic — something like, “I always wanted to backpack Europe, but I’ve spent my life waiting for you.” He could have let me walk, but instead he surprised me. Without overthinking it, Jay said, “Then let’s do it.”
I didn’t need a second invitation. By the next day I was buying plane tickets and sorting passports, picturing romantic days wandering Parisian streets, gliding on gondolas, and eating by candlelight at tiny cafés. Our friends were convinced we’d come home engaged. Spoiler: we didn’t.
We touched down in Rome on a blistering July afternoon. We didn’t speak the language, and in my planning haze I’d neglected one small but crucial detail — figuring out how to get from the airport to the tiny pension I’d booked. There was no driver with a sign, no tour guide waiting to shepherd us; it was just the two of us and the city.
Standing outside the airport, sweat streaming, noise and people all around, irritation flared — at the heat, at the chaos, and yes, at each other. Ten minutes out of the baggage claim and everything I’d pictured felt like it might be ruined.
Instead, what unfolded was a kind of dream I hadn’t even imagined — messy, imperfect, and utterly unforgettable.
Why you should travel with your partner before marriage
Traveling together before you marry is like a condensed preview of what living as a team will feel like. It forces you to meet stress head-on, to improvise, and to see how you both react when plans fall apart. Either you discover you work well together — or you learn hard truths before you’re legally tied.
Living together gives you a sense of daily life, but infatuation and novelty can hide a lot. It takes time for the honeymoon glow to fade and for the real patterns of a relationship to show themselves. Travel accelerates that process — for better or worse — and that’s exactly why it’s so valuable before you say “I do.”
And let’s be honest: those glossy vacation photos people post rarely show the whole story. If social media had existed when we traveled, you’d have seen a cute shot of us on the Spanish Steps, but you wouldn’t have seen the argument that came before it or the tenacity it took to find those steps in the first place. A couple’s travel life can look a lot like married life — lovingly staged moments built out of a lot of ordinary stress and chaos.
Challenges you face when you travel with your partner
1. Sometimes you get lost
You will get lost. We spent three hours walking toward the Eiffel Tower, convinced it was just around the corner, only to end the day with exhausted feet and no closer. That sense of being physically turned around mirrors moments in marriage when you feel emotionally adrift — missing each other’s signals or taking a wrong exit in life. How you steer back to one another matters.
2. Sometimes you get confused and stressed
Travel throws tight deadlines and language barriers at you — like the frantic minutes we once had to buy train tickets from clerks who didn’t understand a word we said. There’s no time to panic: you either figure it out fast or miss the train. Real life hands you similar unplanned stressors — an overflowing toilet, a sick child at midnight, a dead car before an important interview. The couple that can stay calm, play to their strengths, and trust one another will weather those storms. How you cope under pressure is a major indicator of how your marriage will hold up.
3. Sometimes you run out of money
Money problems don’t care about your itinerary. I still remember wandering Venice for eight hours without lunch because the cash was gone and our train didn’t leave until midnight. Financial strain is a huge source of arguments in marriages because it exposes different expectations about lifestyle, security, and sacrifice. Before you get married, ask yourself: Can I handle tight finances? Can I put shared needs ahead of personal comforts? Who will adapt and who will panic?
4. Sometimes you stumble upon something beautiful
Then again, if you stick it out through the annoying, confusing, and stressful bits, you sometimes find magic. After hours of walking, starving and exhausted, we finally located a grocery and had a picnic near the Eiffel Tower — one of those perfectly simple moments that feels cinematic. And that moneyless day in Venice? It ended with us unexpectedly finding the Adriatic Sea — a place I couldn’t have pointed to on a map before that trip. Those surprises are the payoff of putting up with the rough parts together.
Lessons you learn when you travel with your partner
The hard things in life — job loss, illness, grief — can either break you or make you stronger. Travel gives you small versions of those pressures and the chance to learn how to weather them together. If a relationship can survive missed trains, heat, language barriers, and empty wallets, it stands a better chance of surviving bigger tests later on.
Jay and I passed that unofficial “marriage test” on our European trip. We married in 1999 and have been together ever since. The trip showed us both that we’re adventurous in spirit and willing to roll with whatever life throws at us. More importantly, it offered a peek into our future: how we’d handle stress, how much we’d stand by each other during hard times — illness, job loss, the challenges of raising kids — and how often we’d laugh through it all.
That vacation became a kind of pre-marital counseling session. We came home with an album full of stories we still tell our children. On family trips now, after hours of walking with no end in sight, Jay and I always glance at each other and say, “But the Eiffel Tower is right there,” and everyone knows exactly what we mean.
Conclusion
If you’re planning to get married, do yourselves a favor: before you buy a ring or set a date, get passports and go traveling together. An adventure trip is even better. The best outcome is obvious — you’ll be exploring the world with your future spouse. The worst? You might discover this person isn’t the one you want to spend your life with — but you’ll at least have seen some of the world while figuring that out.
