10 Types of Trips Every Couple Should Take Once

There are couples who travel exactly the same way every year. Same country. Same season. Same rhythm. And it works for them.

I've never been that couple.

Ten years into travelling with Nim, I've learned that a great long-term travel life isn't one type of trip repeated over and over. It's a rotation. A rhythm of different rhythms. A collection of different kinds of "away."

Some trips are for the rush. Some for the silence. Some are for the food. Some for the road. Some are for the family, some are for just the two of us. Each one asks something different of you as a couple, and each one teaches you something you couldn't have learned otherwise.

Here are the ten types Nim and I believe every couple should take at least once.

1. The Anniversary Trip

The ritual that says "we still choose each other."

Around our anniversary, or close enough to it, we make a point of planning something. Doesn't have to be big. A weekend in Rodrigues. A long dinner in a town two hours away. One year, just a nice hotel room in Le Morne for two nights of not being at home.

The point isn't the destination. The point is the ritual. It's the tiny yearly reminder that you are still building something worth marking on the calendar. And the anticipation, the "we are going somewhere just for us" feeling, is often as good as the trip itself.

The verdict: every couple needs one trip a year that exists only because of the two of you.

2. The Adventure Trip

The one that pushes you a little.

Something outside the usual comfort zone. A safari. A multi-day hike. A ski week. Snorkelling with sharks. A first proper long-haul to somewhere very different.

You will not be the couple you were before this trip.

You'll find out how each of you handles being cold, being tired, being scared, being pushed. You'll be reminded, sometimes surprised, sometimes exasperated. But you'll come home closer, and with a story you'll retell for years.

Ours is coming. First time on safari for both of us. First time hearing a lion at night. First time waking up at 5am for the bush. We are already talking about it more than any trip we've planned before.

The verdict: a couple that stretches together, softens together.

3. The Food Trip

A whole trip built around what you'll eat.

Pick a city famous for its table. Naples for pizza. Lyon for bistros. Cape Town for wine and grilled meats. Lisbon for seafood. Book the flight. Then plan the entire itinerary around meals.

Breakfast at that bakery. Lunch at that tiny place with three tables. That coffee. That patisserie. That restaurant where you booked two months ahead. That last dinner. Then the flight home.

Food-focused trips are secretly relationship trips. Sharing plates. Trying new things together. Debating what to order. Rolling out of a long lunch with wine in your veins and no plans for the afternoon. This is what long-term happiness looks like.

The verdict: the couple that eats well together, remembers well together.

4. The Wine Trip

A slower, richer cousin of the food trip.

Not for everyone. For us, a game-changer.

Stellenbosch. Franschhoek. The Douro Valley in Portugal. Piedmont. Spend a day, or a week, driving between estates. Tastings that go slower than expected. Long lunches under vines. Buying two or three bottles you'll open at home to bring the trip back.

It's romantic without trying. It's slow by design. And you learn things about your partner watching them react to a glass they didn't expect to love.

Nim and I have started collecting these trips. They may be my favourite category.

The verdict: find a wine region together. Go. You'll understand.

5. The Silence Trip

Doing nothing, together, on purpose.

An island. A retreat. A cabin. A quiet hotel with a view. Somewhere where the entire plan for the day is nothing.

No packed itinerary. No monuments to tick off. No 8am tour bus. Just two people, one place, and time.

We tried this for the first time a few years ago and I was suspicious. I'm a work addict. I don't do idle well. Then I discovered that couple silence, the kind where you're both reading, both looking at the same horizon, both saying nothing for an hour, is one of the deepest things a relationship can offer.

The verdict: you need to know how you two behave when there's absolutely nothing to distract you.

6. The Road Trip

Long distances. One car. Music. Snacks. Conversations that go somewhere new.

Something happens on road trips that doesn't happen anywhere else. Hours of driving side by side does things a two-hour dinner cannot. You end up in territory neither of you knew was there. Sometimes fun. Sometimes deep. Sometimes silly. Always something.

Pick a route. Cape Town to the Garden Route. The Amalfi Coast. A Nordic loop from Norway into Sweden into Finland. A French countryside tour. Rent a car. Book the hotels one day at a time. Let the road decide the mood.

The verdict: every couple should know what they sound like together after six hours in a car.

7. The Photography Trip

A trip where one of you leads and the other follows.

For us, this is Nim's category. He's a photographer, and every so often we take a trip specifically for his eye. A place chosen for light. A departure time chosen for sunrise. A pace chosen for shooting.

I've learned to travel differently on these trips. Slower. More patient. Waiting at a corner while he sets up. Standing quiet while a photo happens. There is something beautiful about giving your partner a full trip to fall into what they love. And something beautiful about being the one they take with them.

Every couple, whatever the passion, should take at least one trip designed entirely around one person's art.

The verdict: watching your partner be entirely themselves is one of the best views on any trip.

8. The Bucket List Trip

The one you've been talking about since you met.

Every couple has one. That place you've both said, sometimes for years, "one day, we'll go."

For Nim, it's Japan. Tokyo, Kyoto, everything. He talks about it more than any trip he hasn't taken. For me, it's Scotland. Not just Scotland, but the whole Harry Potter belt. Edinburgh. The Highlands. The train that inspired the Hogwarts Express. My inner ten-year-old wants that trip more than she wants almost anything.

Neither is booked. Both are somewhere on the horizon. But the point of the bucket list trip is exactly that. You have to eventually go. Otherwise it stays a place that exists only in a conversation, not in a memory.

I had my first bucket list moment years ago at Disneyland Paris. I still remember exactly where I was standing when the castle appeared. That's the thing about these trips. Once you finally take them, the moment sticks.

The verdict: if you've been saying "one day" for more than three years, book it this year.

9. The Last-Minute Trip

A weekend decided on a Wednesday, taken on a Friday.

Every couple needs to know how to say yes on 48 hours' notice. It's a muscle.

We do this for short trips. Réunion, mostly. A cheap flight opens up. We check the weather. We check work. We book by evening. Bag by Thursday. Gone by Friday morning.

There's a particular energy to a trip you didn't overthink. You don't have time to imagine what it will be like. You just go and find out.

The verdict: the trips you didn't plan for six months often become the ones you remember longest.

10. The Family Trip

The one where you travel as a couple, but not just as a couple.

At some point, every couple should take a trip that involves one of the two families. Not the two of you alone. A bigger group. Parents, siblings, cousins, grand-parents, nieces and nephews, everyone.

We've done this twice with my side.

The first was the smaller version. Us, my parents, my sister and her husband, my nephew. Six of us. Manageable. Warm. Big enough to feel like a family trip, small enough to make decisions in five minutes.

The second was the big one. Eighteen of us. Uncles, aunts, cousins, my grand-mother. Different generations. Different ages. Different opinions on when to have dinner. And through all of it, Nim right in the middle of my family, comfortable, welcomed, part of it.

That's the thing about the family trip. It shows you who your partner is inside a group that isn't theirs by blood. Nim is very close to my family in a way I don't take for granted. Watching him at breakfast with my grand-mother. Watching him play with my nephew. Watching him slip into the rhythm of my parents' mornings. It's one of the things I love most about him.

You also learn how you two operate as a couple within a group. Which of you is patient with the aunt who takes an hour to get ready. Who handles the group WhatsApp. Who quietly steps out to breathe when the noise gets much. It's a completely different test of your relationship than a trip for two.

The verdict: travelling with family is one of the truest tests of who you two are together, and one of the best proofs of how a partner belongs.

The Real Answer

Not every couple will do all ten. Not every couple should. Some of these will call to you louder than others. That's normal.

But the invitation is real. Rotate. Vary. Take on different types of "away" instead of repeating the same trip in different countries. Your relationship changes shape depending on the trip you're on, and each new shape is a version of you two you wouldn't have discovered otherwise.