How To Love Your Travelling Companions – Top Tips For A Great Holiday

Sun, sea, sand and sex… 

You might think it is only when lovers go on holiday that this is an issue, but what about the holiday romance situation when you are travelling with friends?  Who brings who back to where?  Are you happy for your friend to bring someone else back to the twin bed in the room you are sharing?  This is probably a good topic to bring up before your holiday.  Do you let your drunk friend go back with some stranger to his hotel room?  I suppose for me, I’m not happy if there’s a third person in the room, but as long as they are sleeping and nothing else is going on (give them an hour or so of privacy) and I don’t have to deal with his bare bottom, I’d rather my friend stayed in my room – and thank the Lord it’s never quite come to this!

As for sex with your boyfriend, I think that so many relationships fail after a holiday because you imagine that without the strain of work and everything else sex will be sensational, orgasmic and intimate.  Sometimes it’s not.  Add jet lag, add the noisy couple next door, add tummy troubles, add money worries and arguments, add “you made me sit in the ESPN bar all night and watch the NBA play offs instead of taking me in a carriage ride round Central Park – haven’t you seen Sex And The City?” add the guy in the B&B saying “don’t worry I’ve installed lots of surveillance cameras”, add a ten hour journey, add having your wallet stolen, add too many cocktails and you may just find that the sexy lingerie you packed looks like just another thing to do, when you’d really rather put your feet up and have a cup of tea.

It can also be fantastic – even when things have been off to a rocky start.  Take the surveillance cameras – yes, one off-the-cuff remark by the owner of a B&B in York and I did refuse to take my clothes off on what was supposed to be a romantic weekend.  I actually borrowed my boyfriend’s boxers and T-shirt to sleep in.  There was a bit of under the covers action, but it was, let’s just say, under par.  As we were driving, after two nights of this, to our next destination, one night in a remote Ramada Inn I started giggling because tonight we were going to have “above the covers” sex – it made me laugh because some guys only get that on their birthday!  And yes it made up for the dodgy nights before.  When we finally got home the next night exhausted from the weekend, I was more in love with him than ever, as I said to him as he got up at 5am to go home and get ready for work – “I just wish we had the time and energy to have sex.” 

The truth is that while holidays can allow you the time and energy to have sex, and even help you work out your frustrations, whatever is going on in your relationship is baggage that generally comes with you.  You can use your trip to distract you from them, or to take time to deal with them.

On my last trip with my boyfriend we were the manic tourists that we always were, and grumbled at each other over our usual niggles, playing the game of the old married couple who know each other so well that they can order for each other, and acting as if we had all the time in the world, as if the only clock ticking was to that flight home.  It was only when I was looking at a big red balloon heart that I wobbled and I saw through the illusion, to the fact that he was leaving and how much I was going to miss him, and I understood why we were playing the game, because it was just too painful to look directly at.  So we kept playing.  Our sex life was equally confused, were we an old married couple or lovers saying goodbye?  I’ll always remember the sunset at the airport, as we waited to board our plane, saying goodbye to the holiday, and at last we couldn’t deny that we would soon be saying goodbye for good.  Looking back I can see that the holiday was also trying to take a holiday from our situation, that by arguing about the silly little things you argue about on holiday we were avoiding talking about the really big issues, issues that we had discussed, agreed, but that neither of us were happy about.

So the answer?  If you want great sex on holiday?  Try to do it above the covers, try to give yourselves a bit of time to indulge instead of rushing around, buy some ear plugs, (a good night’s sleep is for me one of the best aphrodisiacs!) and sometimes the answer is just to put on the sexy negligee you brought even if you are not in the mood, even if you have been getting at each other, because sometimes it can be so worth it. 

Best of all try to work out your problems and issues before you go away, rather than carrying them with you.

You may not work out your issues with your lover, friend, mother or even yourself, before you go on holiday.  It may all happen magically as you stand before one of the world’s great natural feats, or architectural icons, or get rubbed down in a Moroccan spa, that you realise those issues are so insignificant compared to your deep love for that person, even if that person is yourself.  Or you may just get tired, stressed or angry enough to blow up and open up about something that’s bothering you, and you may finally clear the car.  Or you may keep a lid on it, knowing that you are really incompatible and you can’t wait to go home, or that next time you’ll do things differently.  Or you may get on that plane knowing that no matter how much you care about each other that the holiday is over and there is a real world where you can’t be together.  And if that should happen, remember, when the holiday is over… you’ll always have Paris.