Before departing your home sweet home to the shores of the great unknown, where you’ll experience endless forms of culture, meet a variety of people, taste new and exotic foods and create some meaningful memories, you’ll probably go through a check list. Choosing the right destination, confirming safe flights, booking clean accommodation and very importantly, choosing the right travel partner.

Choosing your travel buddy may seem the simplest of decisions, but having the right partner may make your trip a wonderful experience or, as I discovered on my last endeavour, not. Be forewarned, because the trip you may have spent months organising, researching and planning could be ruined in a matter of moments when you naively choose to go with the travel buddy from hell. However never fear, as I’ve discovered five warning signs that indicated if your bestie and you are going to be compatible for your next adventure.

#1 You’re Not Even Interested In The Same Stuff

The two of you love hanging out at home, having a few cocktails and watching chick flicks on a Saturday night. But when it comes to traveling, do you both want to get the same thing out of the experience? It’s probably a good idea to ask a few low-key questions about hypothetical travel situations to suss out exactly what your potential compadre would want.

There is no point going with someone if all you want to do is get up early, soak up the sights and fit in as much as possible into your day when your travel buddy just wants to sleep all day and party all night. You both want to be on the same page when it comes to getting the most of your travelling adventure.

#2 You Have A Wildly Different Budget

Budgets can be tricky, especially when it comes to what people want to spend it on. When travelling, it’s hard to find the balance between when to splurge and when to be a stinge. You need to make sure your travel buddy and you see eye to eye on this one. You don’t want your travel partner to be splurging for the first few weeks before stupidly discovering their money has run dry half way through the trip. It’s important to discuss where you want to splurge and where to be tightening the purse strings. Having a rough idea about how much money your budget will take you is just common sense.

#3 You Have Different Ideas Of Good Food

Food can be a deal breaker. Traveling with a meat lover when you are strictly vegan could get you into a bit of trouble when you are faced between the german sausage markets or the vegan restaurant around the corner. Having similar eating habits does make travelling easier and less time consuming when looking for two different cuisines to satisfy both tummies. And we all know that bad things can happen on empty stomachs!

#4 You Don’t Work As A Team

You both have to be able to share the workload when it comes to choosing and booking accommodation, organising the tours etc. It can be time consuming, and we all have other things to do, but if only one person is doing the lion’s share, things can fall apart very quickly.

#5 One Of You Is Clingy

You’ll want to make sure your travel buddy isn’t a clinger who is terrified to leave your side. If you’re worried they might want you to make all the decisions, be cautious. It can be very frustrating having a constant, clingy shadow of a travel companion who doesn’t have any sense of independence or desire to make new friends.

Monique is studying a Bachelor of Media with PR & Advertising at UNSW. She is a lover of animals, chocolate and is a travel enthusiast.