Why You Should Be Traveling With Your Spouse
…and I don’t mean to Fyre Festival 2.
Dooon’t do it.
Stick with me - I have something so much better to get you reconnected, and remembering why you love your spouse so much, all the while leaving the burnout and mental load behind.
Why You Need to Travel
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You’re a parent who wakes up every day feeling rushed to get breakfast made and on the table, and get everyone ready and out the door. This generally takes about 30 minutes longer than you hope for, and is fraught with frustrations and mishaps. Maybe you’re a stay at home parent, like me, and spend the few hours you have with kids gone or napping to clean the house and get personal tasks completed. (It’s never enough time). Maybe you’re a parent working outside the home, and the daily grind only adds to the mental load you have from managing your household. At the end of the day, you and your spouse return home to quickly get dinner on the table, and move straight into baths and bedtime. Maybe your family is already into after-school extracurricular activities, so you spend your evenings attending practices or events, grabbing fast food, and then rushing home to get to bed… just so you can start all over again tomorrow.
You’re fatigued, irritable, under immense stress, and so overstimulated and distracted. I get it because I am right there in the trenches with you. This is why my passion is using the transformative power of travel to build up marriages and families by prioritizing connection over distraction, wellness over weariness, and by reigniting a flame in place of burnout.
Marriages need connection, and our lifestyles don’t facilitate that at all. While we can choose to make some lifestyle changes, those changes rarely come to fruition. We can’t just quit our jobs, pull kids out of activities, and sit at home together all day - nor would we want to. It’s time you capitalize on a solution that can help you refocus on your spouse and your marriage, while providing multiple other benefits that will pour over into your family, and your every day life.
Why Traveling With Your Spouse Matters
Hear me out. I know what you’re thinking. I don’t need to read the rest of this because it’s not practical for us to get away. We’ll get to the practicality, but first, I want to set the foundation of the importance of traveling with your spouse - because it really matters. Your marriage is worth it. Here are some marriage-specific advantages of traveling together:
Improves communication in your relationship
Increases marital satisfaction
Statistically reduces the possibility of divorce
Couples who put their money into experiences over material items are overall happier
Travel can improve your personality, increase your openness, agreeableness and emotional stability - all great things for a marriage
Strengthens emotional connections
Quality time during travel facilitates engagement, relationship building and bonding
Better relationship quality continues even after the vacation ends
Couples who engage in self-expanding novel experiences (e.g. adventurous, interesting, challenging), report higher romantic passion and physical intimacy during and after their trips
This is only a handful of research-proven benefits of travel for a romantic couple, but don’t miss this: travel has been proven to play a role in maintainting long-term and healthy romantic relationships. I don’t know about you, but I know I want that in my marriage, and if I can get that by traveling… sign me up.
How to Make Traveling
With Your Spouse a Reality
Surely I’ve sold you on why it matters, but the next question is inevitably: “How do I do it"?” This is a loaded question, because there are so many components that influence our ability to travel, such as finances, vacation time, and in this case, childcare. Let me encourage you…
Finances
Do you know what can provide as much bonding and connection as a 7-day trip to Europe eating delectable meals and galavanting gardens? You might be surprised to find out your ol’ trusty tent at the campground down the road with a campfire, hot dogs, and S’mores can provide the same experience. Getting away with your spouse doesn’t need to be anything elaborate or luxurious to provide the benefits your marriage needs. If it is within your budget to do something more upscale, go for it!
Maybe you’re not sure what’s in your budget because you haven’t even looked at that yet. I would tell you that’s a good place to start. If you’re stumped, take an inventory of your financial ins/outs, and the check out my Saving Money Tip Sheet. This will give you a head start into figuring out how to save up for travel. Then you can start estimating costs. These are some of the budgeting steps in my signature planning process that I walk my 1:1 coaching clients through. Expense is the least enjoyable part of going on a trip, so I make sure to keep the process clear and easy to reduce overwhelm!
Vacation Time
This is a tough one. Did you know most of Europe has an average of 30 paid days off annually? Americans are known for keeping their nose to the grindstone, at the expense of their own physical and emotional wellness, and their families. We’ve got to do better, so I encourage you to be more intentional with your vacation time, when able. If you are really committed to prioritizing your marriage and spending some time away to connect, then you have to be willing to take off work only when completely necessary to save up those days.
Additionally, if you take a good look at the calendar, you can pick out every long weekend where there is a federal holiday and be strategic with vacation time to maximize your time off. Yes, these are probably going to be busier travel timeframes, (depending on where you go), but the goal is to get you somewhere, so that’s going to be part of the compromise.
Some examples of how to do this for someone who works a typical 9-5 job:
Leave after work on Thursday, July 3, 2025 and come home Monday, July 7, 2025. Here you will get a 4(ish) day trip while only taking off 1 day.
If you leave after work on Friday, December 19, 2025, and return Sunday, December 28, you can get 8 full days of vacation while only taking 3 days off. Maybe not ideal if you want to spend Christmas with you children, but you can always make it a family trip, which is just as important as I’ve laid out in my blog post Why You Should Be Traveling With Your Family.
Maybe you have a job like I used to have. When I was a registered nurse, I was required to work 3 twelve hour shifts per week. I could work Sunday-Tuesday, fly out on a Wednesday, take 6 days off and have 3 full weeks of travel, coming back on a Wednesday and working Thursday-Saturday. There are many things that are not glorious about bedside nursing, but that travel schedule was baller. (Do the kids still say baller anymore)?
Childcare
Childcare may be the biggest challenge to overcome, but I have faith in you. This may take some creativity, and stepping out of your comfort zone.
My hope is that you’re one of the lucky ones, with grandparents or other trusted family and friends nearby who are more than willing to take your kids off your hands to allow you time to connect in your marriage. If this sounds like you, then what are you waiting for??? Book that trip and prioritize the glue that holds your family together - your healthy and loving marriage.
Perhaps you feel like us… isolated on a little childcare-less island, with family thousands of miles away, and friends who are doing their best to stay afloat as well. This is where you have to get creative.
Do you have a family member who would come out to watch your kids for you? We didn’t think we did, and then out of the blue my amazing cousin, whose kids are in high school, offered to come out and watch our kids for a weekend. She had a conversation with my sister and found out we were struggling and took it upon herself to offer to serve us in this way. It has been one of the greatest gifts we’ve ever received in our marriage. Maybe someone would have offered sooner had we shared our need. (Or if we’d been honest with ourselves about truly having the need in the first place). Don’t be afraid to ask for help. You never know who might just come through for you… You can consider offering to pay for their flight - or even better, utilizing points - to fly them out at no cost to them.
As an alternative, you could fly to the grandparents, and then leave the kiddos with them while you take off on an adventure nearby (or not nearby). This might limit your destination options, but it’s still time away, which is your goal!
Do you have any connections who would recommend a reliable overnight babysitter? Do you use a nanny who would consider overnights? Do you have any friends who would gladly take your kids in for a long weekend? The answer isn’t “no,” if you haven’t asked around.
Another creative option, albeit potentially cost-prohibitive, is to take a family vacation, and pay for a friend or trusted babysitter to come along so that you have a good dose of quality family time and time alone. Using reward travel can make this more affordable.
You Can’t Afford Not To (Re)build Connection in Your Marriage
Your marriage is important. You shouldn’t feel like roommates passing in the kitchen. You, your spouse, and your children deserve to reap the many benefits of a healthy marriage and strong family unit.
This is why I am so passionate about helping parents reground themselves, reclaim their identities, and rebuild connection through the healing and restorative power of travel. So many markers of healthy and successful young adults are correlated with their upbringing. Don’t put it off any longer, and if you need help, you might be interested in some of my coaching services.
Did I miss any big obstacles? Drop a comment below or let me know by shooting me an email or DM over at Instagram!
Cheers to your upcoming getaway! 🥂
