When you take a long motorcycle trip with your love, there will be times when you want to do one thing and your partner another. And count on moments when you will think it was a bad idea to live such an intense experience with anyone else. But the truth is there will be many good reasons why a long motorcycle trip can be the best thing ever for an adventurous couple to experience.

Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn in Namibia.

It’s a subject we’re well acquainted with because, for the last five years, we’ve traveled the world as a couple on two wheels, mostly two-up. It’s been an odyssey that’s given us somewhat of a “doctorate” on the topic, and we’d like to share some of our conclusions with you.

The first thing to keep in mind, especially if you plan to travel on a single motorcycle, is that you’ll be sharing a lot of seat time together. This scenario can end in one of two ways: divorce or the realization that you want to spend the rest of your life with this person.

As a couple, we’ve passed that test, although there were many occasions when we came close to calling it quits. With that in mind, let’s go over a few relevant but seldom discussed subjects that are likely to come up.

The First Beautiful Weeks

During the first weeks everything is often perfect. This period could be compared to how it felt during the first weeks of sharing a home as a couple, or the start of a relationship. The beginning of a long motorcycle trip is similar, all seems “perfect” as this aspect of your relationship remains untested.

In the early days, the excitement of starting on such an adventurous challenge makes you physically and mentally more resistant to the inconveniences encountered. However, during the planning stages, you may not have considered such things as what it will be like when it rains for days on end, or you’re stuck miles from anywhere in the freezing cold, or you don’t have a comfortable mattress to sleep on, or your diet is reduced to whatever can be found or foraged in some Third World country.

Travel life is always a mixture of the good and the bad. But we tend to gauge its success or failure based on how we fare in dire situations. It’s wise to be as realistic as possible under these types of situations. The right attitude and behavior during such times will have a positive impact on your relationship. Plan for these challenges and consider doing “rehearsal” runs in stressful environments prior to the long trip to help ensure you are compatible when things are far from ideal.

Hiking in the Pyrenees, along the border between Spain and France.

Dealing with Upsets and Arguments

As time passes, the feeling of well-being fades and anxieties can arise. Being uncomfortable, longing for family or friends, and a host of other reasons can knock either of you off your game. What usually happens is one of you begins releasing their accumulated stress on the only person around—their partner and travel companion. And chances are these circumstances will lead to arguments or upsets unlike any prior to the trip.

During those times, you cannot slam a door, wander off to the bar, or spend a weekend with friends to disconnect as you might have in the past. No matter what, the journey continues. Therefore, one of the keys to dealing with these emotionally charged communications is to figure out how to diffuse them, and quickly. Take our word for it, it’s a learned and necessary “road skill” and both of you can master it.

You’ll be constantly dealing with new and shifting situations, at the very least finding safe places to sleep and secure your motorcycle(s) and gear, the ever-changing weather and climatic conditions, the next border crossing, visas, banking, injuries, etc. Above all, you must remain focused to avoid any type of accident. Otherwise, unresolved upsets are going to leave you on a constant emotional roller coaster, if not in physical danger, due to their distracting nature. As a couple, you’ll need to be prepared to deal effectively with these inevitabilities. At first it will seem difficult if not impossible, but over time you’ll adapt, become better oriented to the ways of the road, and figure it out.

The good news is that by learning how to quickly and effectively defuse upsets as a couple, results in the opposite of what you’d expect. Instead of forcing you apart, the bonds will strengthen, drawing you closer.

Crossing the African savanna during Zambia's dry season.

Improving Communications and Teamwork as the Couple

Traveling by motorcycle means you’ll spend many hours riding, often ending the days in new places, meeting new people, and generally being confronted by new situations that require immediate problem-solving skills. The only stability, or constant to all this, is your partner.

As your partner is the only person you can really trust, you’ll come to realize that the conversations you have as the result of these circumstances will run much deeper than before, strengthening communication and trust between you. And few things truly unite a couple more than a passion for travel and the intensity with which it is shared along the way.

Keep in mind that as the days, weeks and months go by, you’ll increasingly come to know both yourself and each other on deeper levels. There’s a lot to discover and many skills to acquire, so learning to work as a team is the best possible way to face the extraordinary situations that usually occur during such a trip. If you stick with it, you’ll eventually become efficient, fluid in your team efforts. It can be extraordinarily fun, too.

Somewhere along the legendary Route 66 in California.

Sex and Money

Two of the most fundamental aspects of life are sex and money, which while on the road take on some unavoidably new and different characteristics.

Economically it only makes sense that when expenses are shared they’ll be less than when traveling solo, especially in reducing the costs of accommodations, food, fuel and vehicle maintenance.

But when it comes to intimacy, any extended trip will be a game changer. Exactly how will vary from couple to couple, but in general we reached a simple conclusion: There’s less sex but of better quality. Less quantity because adventure motorcycle trips are hard on you, as fatigue is accumulated day after day, and good places to sleep won’t always be found. So being exhausted is the No. 1 culprit.

On the flip side, there’ll often be camping spots so magical, so full of romantic energy, that they inspire sex, often in degrees you’ve never experienced, especially in couples who have been together for many years. Spending nights in deserts, mountains or forests is not only a great way to connect with the universe but also with the one you love.

Less sex, but better—or more, but shorter arguments, are just a couple of the most common things to experience when couples go for a long motorcycle trip. Are you ready for it?

Lunch time in our free campsite, somewhere in Spain.

Manu Torres (Spain) and Ivana Colakovska (Macedonia) have been traveling the world since 2007. Meeting the diversity of humankind is one of their main motivations for being constantly on the road. After an experience with a Royal Enfield in India back in 2011, they decided it was time to dream big and in 2013 they acquired a Yamaha Ténéré XT660Z to hit the world’s roads another way. It was a journey that so far has taken them to 69 countries and over 170,000 km. AroundGaia.com | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube