I Travel Without My Husband ... And Our Marriage is Better Off For It

Couple-with-Luggage
Couple-with-Luggage

Sometimes the best vacations happen on your own. (Photo: Thinkstock)

Not long ago, I had a moment of reckoning in my marriage. Every time my husband and I talked about traveling, we couldn’t agree on where to go. While he rhapsodized about camping in the California desert under the stars — in bone-chilling January, no less — I dreamed of staying in a cozy cottage on northwest Ireland’s verdant coast and hanging out in pubs.

Traveling-Alone
Traveling-Alone

You like to lounge, he likes to hike. (Photo: Thinkstock)

This impasse was no one’s fault. Rather, it was the result of two highly individual (and occasionally stubborn) people with different passions and needs. I craved adventure and foreign travel, while my husband preferred outdoor activities closer to home. I loved the bustle of cities, their eclectic neighborhoods and cultural offerings. He found cities loud and overwhelming.

Related: My Friends Bailed, So I Mastered Machu Picchu Alone

Two years ago, I had the chance to visit Oslo. Now who wouldn’t want to see this gorgeous Norwegian city, with its architecturally stunning opera house perched deliriously above the harbor? Or its compelling Viking museum? Or experience its trend-setting cuisine?

Solo-Travel
Solo-Travel

Let your hubby hit the wilderness alone while you hit the spa. (Photo: Thinkstock)

My husband, for one. Give him a mountain, a river and a sleeping bag, and the man was perfectly content. So I went to Oslo alone, and had a fabulous time.

When our kids were small, our ideas about travel were far less an issue. I could hardly go traipsing off to trek Machu Picchu, as much as I might have liked. Instead, we reached a détente by taking car trips up the spectacular California coast, or along the base of the magnificent Sierra Nevada. Sometimes we’d get crazy and head to Hawaii. But most of the time, we found plenty to amuse us in Monterey or Mammoth.

But when the nest emptied a few years ago and our children scattered, I wanted to fly far away, too.

Family-Vacation
Family-Vacation

Certain vacations are meant to take together. Some are not. (Photo: Thinkstock)

“Let’s go to Cabo San Lucas,” I suggested to my husband. With its great surfing, cheap seafood, and pretty beaches, the small Baja resort seemed the perfect destination for us.

“It’s gotten too touristy,” he said.

Related: One of the Best Days of My Life Was at Disneyland - Alone

Eventually, the two of us arrived at a solution. Now we often take separate trips, and we are far the sunnier for it, as a couple and as individuals. I get to venture on a National Geographic expedition to the Arctic, while my husband gets to sail to Catalina Island with his college friends.

“As long as a couple agrees they have different interests, and the one at home doesn’t feel taken for granted, I think traveling separately is a great thing,” says Damian McCabe, CEO of McCabe World Travel, a luxury travel agency in McLean, Virginia.

As a travel operator, McCabe often goes places without her husband. But traveling also allows her to satisfy her own needs. “He’s much more a homebody,” she says. “He doesn’t have that sense of adventure. I’m trekking gorillas in Uganda in July.

“I think a person who doesn’t get the opportunity to do what she wants starts to feel resentful,” she adds. “I think giving a person their freedom is really important to keeping the partnership or marriage fresh.”

Related: 67 and Dumped: Photo Bombing in Florence, Italy

Tanya Ward Goodman, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children, recently went to Myanmar for 10 days with friends. “Traveling alone pushes me deeper into the world,” says the author. “I feel encouraged to make new friends and really absorb things at my own pace because I’m not part of a couple. When I return to our marriage, I feel I’ve got a clearer vision of who I am.”

But to stay close, couples also need to carve out moments of travel together. So McCabe tries to make sure that she and her husband take one big trip a year. They both love to cruise so that’s what they usually do.

Lake-Dunmore-Vermont
Lake-Dunmore-Vermont

Paddlers on Vermont’s Lake Dunmore (Photo: Adam Franco/Flickr)

My husband and I travel together, too. Last fall, he realized a lifelong dream when we went leaf-peeping in Vermont. When we arrived in Lake Dunmore, a secluded lake dotted with cabins, the autumn colors were at their peak. One day my husband took a bike ride through the rolling Champlain Valley while I kayaked on the glassy lake. We had a good time.

Three weeks later, I fulfilled a lifelong travel dream of my own when I went to the Galapagos, sans my husband. “You know how I hate tours,” he said when I asked him to come.

Galapagos
Galapagos

The writer on her solo trip to the Galapagos. Her husband stayed home but it looks like she made a new friend (Photo: Mona Gable)

Of course, he missed out. The Enchanted Islands were indeed enchanted. I snorkeled with hammerhead sharks. I watched a mother fur seal give birth on the sand, and heard the squeals of her tiny wet pup. I was so close to a giant tortoise I could see the patterns on its hard gray shell. I hiked to the top of a volcano and met a shy Saudi Arabian photographer who took the most gorgeous nature photos I’ve ever seen.

I came home happy, a new woman. And my husband didn’t mind a bit.

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