mood: “When you’re peepin’ what he’s bringin’ to the table”  lol

But seriously, here’s the scoop on dating while traveling: It’s not easy. Sorry guys.

When most people think of dating while traveling they think of meeting the love of their life on a tropical island or bumping into someone at a coffee shop…things you see in movies. But in the real world, it’s not quite like that.

Don’t get me wrong, I meet a lot of great people when I travel internationally and domestically. And being a part of travel communities connects you with people all over the world. I’m a part of several and I’m still friends with a lot of people I’ve connected with over the years. But as you can imagine, constantly being on the go can make for a challenging dating life.

I once met someone while I was in Colombia, which is one of my favorite countries. Guys, I thought I was going to leave my entire life behind and move there. (jk, but the thought did cross my mind.) But the reality of permanently moving to Colombia was just not in the cards for me. And not to mention it was difficult to communicate because neither one of us could speak the other’s language fluently.

However, there are people that have met their significant other while traveling. Jaz, who I met when I was in Thailand, met her boyfriend while she was visiting Bali. Their love story is so cute. They recently did an interview about how they spent their first year of dating traveling around the world. And they’ve created a website where they share their travel experiences.

This is from their site: “Coming from opposite sides of the world ( Marc from Germany and Mauritius & Jazz from America and Jamaica ) we met 2 years ago at a jiggy beachfront bar in Bali.10 days after our initial encounter, we decided we wanted nothing more than to keep traveling the world together. Before our collective quest, we had separately spent 8+ years as expats and traveling the world on our own.” So, ladies, it’s possible!

But as with anything else in life you have to be intentional. In my last blog post, I wrote about setting intentions. While I was referring to setting intentions for your professional life and your career, it’s also important to do the same in your dating life whether you’re traveling or not (if you want to be in a relationship).

A good friend and mentor gave me, what I believe was, the best relationship/dating advice a few years ago. She said, “you should treat dating like you treat going after your goals in your professional life.” She also mentioned “there will be times in your life when you’ll be more focused on your career goals, but there may also be times in life when you’ll want a family. And if that’s something you want you have to go after it.” What she said rang true and she is a living proof that it works.

I would love to meet someone who enjoys traveling as much as I do. I firmly believe what’s meant to be will be! So don’t write people off because you never know what that relationship could turn into in the future. In the meantime, I’ll be continuing to live my best life traveling and working on being the best version of myself.

Have you guys ever dated while you were traveling? If so, how did it turn out?