Relationship tips for nomadic couples – What we learned in 3 years

This past summer we reached the 3 years anniversary of our slow travel journey! We had the chance to visit more than 35 different locations, in 10 countries across 3 continents.

Looking back at 2018 (when we made the decision to quit our job for good and leave everything behind us), we weren’t sure how everything was going to work out and where the cracks of our plan would appear.

The pandemic was the first solid stress test for us from a financial (check), safety (check), gratefulness (check), and overall fulfillment standpoint (check). If anything, the pandemic has confirmed that by being financially free and nomadic, we had the option to live where we want and allowed us to pick Taiwan to weather the pandemic. We could not have chosen a better place than Taiwan as it has been free of local COVID19 cases for all of 2020 and for the most part of 2021. Taiwan granted us the freedom to safely explore this beautiful country without worrying about safety. We loved Taiwan so much that we decided to become Taiwanese residents for 3 years.

One aspect that we had to adjust last year has been our relationship. And since more and more people are able to work remotely, spend more time together, and travel for long periods of time together, we felt that this topic might become a useful resource. So let’s discuss nomadic relationships.

From a static 9-5 to nomad

Before starting our slow travel journey, we both had a traditional life where roughly half of our time was spent away from each other due to work-related duties. 

A regular week was like waking up → getting ready for work → commuting to work → spending 8-10 hours at work → commuting back home → having dinner together → catching up on our respective days → spending some more time together → and then going to bed. The weekend was where we used to take a break from work to usually get out of the city to be in nature or spend time catching up with friends.

Once we became slow travelers, travel became our new default. This meant we were far from home, family, and friends and stayed about 4 weeks at a time in a new location. A regular week became waking up (without an alarm – usually around 8-9 am) → journaling → either taking the day to explore or running errands → having lunch together → continuing our activities → having dinner together → watching something together or working on our project → going to bed.

Over time, this started to create new challenges to our relationship such as:

• How can we recreate our own space when we are always in close proximity to each other?
• How can we develop our own hobbies when we are in foreign environments for a limited period of time (usually 4-6 weeks per location we visit)?
• How do we address relationship issues while being together nearly 24/7?
• …

If you’ve been staying home more than usual due to the pandemic, did you experience some of the same challenges in your relationship?

Tips for successful relationships as nomadic couples

Here are some tips we developed over the years to help our relationship that you might want to consider for your relationship as well.

1 – Check-in on our relationship

Since we are always in close proximity to each other, you might think it should be easier to talk about our relationship on the spot. It actually turns out that it is quite the opposite, as both of us might not be in the right state of mind for such conversation. To make sure we can have constructive conversations, we prefer to schedule time on our calendar to check in on our relationship. We have meetings for all sorts of things, so why not for something as important as our relationship?

How? The idea is to block a couple of hours during the day away from our regular environment (ideally without access to a phone or a laptop), in a relaxing place to discuss our relationship. It is a rather short agenda where we take turn to answer the following simple questions:

1. What have you appreciated coming from me since the last time?
2. What have I done since the last time that you want me to do more of?
3. What would you appreciate me to start doing for you before we meet again?

2 – Focus on quality over quantity

Since we spend much more time with each other, it is much easier to do things together. The additional quantity of moments spent together doesn’t always come with the same level of quality since there are a lot more. We acknowledged this while remembering that we should still keep high-quality moments together. 

How? One idea we came up with was to take turns planning monthly dates. While dates were expected and exciting when we started dating, they did not feel as natural when always together. They could become a great avenue to build on quality time as they usually bring surprises, new experiences, and even romanticism to our relationship! 

Examples? Curating a meal home and bringing it to the beach along with some nice touches (this was our date night for August), booking a nice restaurant (like a nice Japanese restaurant in Taiwan), or even having a half-day Airbnb experience (as we did by cooking Malaysian food during a perfectly crafted class with Chef Samuel in Penang). 

3 – Find your own projects/activities to be working on

While about half of our time is spent exploring the world together, we like to spend the other half working on our own projects/activities. This helps us to keep our sanity while focusing on whatever interests we feel like developing.

How? Thinking about a new skill you want to acquire, a new language you want to master, a new hobby you want to start practicing. The options are endless when you don’t have to spend your week working. It can however be hard at first to figure out what you want to do with your life when you end up with so much free time.

Examples? For me, my current projects are this blog and the development of our budget tool with the recent Android mobile version that we started to release in closed Beta this summer. I also try to spend more time reading and keeping in touch with the latest technologies. For Mrs. NN, her current projects revolve around art, reading, and non-profit organization engagements. 

4 – Have dedicated physical space for ourselves

As we tried dozens of Airbnb, we noticed that spending a significant period of time in the same space to work on our own projects was not productive.

How? Booking an apartment with at least two working spaces. We like to either have 2BR places (where the second BR can be used as an office) or a very large 1BR with a kitchen and living room separate from each other that we can use independently as our own “office” spaces. Ideally, we have a way to separate the space with a door so we can reduce distraction but this isn’t always the case.

5 – Act as one team

We sometimes get upset at each other for small things that can quickly escalate and within 5 minutes, we can become very mad at each other. Sound familiar? 🙂 

How to avoid this? Because once a bomb has exploded, it is hard to try to defuse it. We found it hard to address an argument once it has escalated for a while. Instead, we try to remind ourselves that we love our partner and don’t have a hidden agenda to harm him/her. It’s more likely a misunderstanding or different perspective that causes huge arguments and one person needs to recognize it quickly, calm things down and talk it through. We try not to go to bed angry and resolve issues quickly. This is something we are still not very good at and are trying to improve. This definitely requires practice to master and the ability to dissociate our emotions from the message we want to carry.

6 – Be grateful

At the end of the day, we like to remind ourselves how lucky we are to have found each other and build the life we have today with so much abundance and freedom. We easily take for granted not having to set up an alarm to wake up. Being grateful reminds us about all we have!

How? I like to practice gratitude every morning as part of my journaling routine. Another way is to spend a moment to think about our partner and say/write to him/her something they bring to our lives and we feel grateful for. 

Our bottom line

These are just a few tips that we developed over time. We don’t pretend to be relationship experts (far from it) and we expect to keep learning more from each other over the years to come.

Two people in a relationship are two evolving creatures and it is important to always check on each other to make sure your relationship is still heading in the right direction. Relationships are never a given and the more we work on them, the more likely they will strengthen, and last in the long run.

Here are some resources that have been helping us navigate our relationship;

• Books
  • Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex (by John Gray)
• Podcast
  • Relationship Theory (with Tom and Lisa Bilyeu)
  • The Melissa Ambrosini Show

What about you? Do you have tips on how to strengthen your relationship while spending most of your time with your partner? Please let us know by leaving a comment in the comments section below as we are always eager to earn new ideas on this top!