Does Travel Romance ever work out? Why holiday love doesn't last

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,” – Rick Blaine. Having strutted into many dive bars in destinations worldwide, I’ve yet to have my steamy Casablanca moment, but I’ve had many a poor imitation.

Intense travel romances have always been the aspect of travelling that has surprised and derailed me the most.

Honestly, is it even a holiday if you haven’t had a fling with a barman promising the world while eyeing up the girl in a tiny bandage dress behind you?

Does Travel Romance ever work out?

Most prolific travellers I know have a good travel romance story or three, but why haven’t these sun-drenched love stories gone any further? Why does love on the road often not work out?

I’ve been pondering this question for many years and have developed my own theories, which I would love to share if you’ll indulge me. Buckle up.

I’ve come to realise that when we’re in a new and exciting destination, it’s easy to get suckered into believing a fleeting romance is more special and meaningful than it actually is.

Limited in time and space, holiday romances can take on almost frenzied quality as you convince yourself that this bongo-playing bro in the moth-eaten elephant pants is absolutely your soul mate.

Honestly, would you look twice at this unwashed dude if you bumped into him in your local Aldi? Have a word with yourself.

Travel Romance: Can love on the road last?

I still remember several cute guys I met on my travels and fleeting romances forged in destinations worldwide. Most are fond memories, others I block out with Bacardi.

Brief flings, intense relationships and heartbreaking goodbyes all have a way of impacting our adventures and even our lives.

A little romance can be one of the best outcomes of travel, and it can also be the f***ing worst. I’m frankly relieved that this particular heady phase of my life is over.

Ironically, I met my now-husband whilst I was home between travels, and he became the one I stuck around for, not just because he understands the washing machine settings!

Why are holiday romances so intense?

When we’re in the zen of travel, our emotions can be extremely heightened. Sunsets seem dreamier, cities are more dynamic, and our desires are bottomless.

With feelings dialled way up, it can become way too easy to convince ourselves that a bearded bo called Roscoe – with a handpainted ukulele and a mere $12 to his name, is somehow “the one”.

High on $1 cocktails and moonlit walks on the beach, it’s a surefire way to get swept up and make starry-eyed plans to meet your scruffy bae in Paris.

love on vacation

I believe the true problem with holiday romances is when you meet up away from the thrill of travel; there’s a danger it can all seem a bit beige.

When we’re short on vacation days, the most mundane things have a new and profound meaning.

Everything is more intense when we’re away from everyday responsibilities; connections become deeper, and all sense of reason disappears in a haze of cheap vodka.

Do holiday romances work out?

Every booze-fuelled snog is magical; every snatched moment in a grubby $4-a-night hostel is drenched in romance, longing, and just a tiny bit of urine. Each tearful goodbye is also more soul-destroying than the last.

Never underestimate the intensity of a full-blown travel romance; it’s one of the most intoxicating experiences you can have on the road.

What would have typically been a two-date-then-ghost scenario back home suddenly takes on an absurd level of profoundness.

Why holiday romances don’t work

This is mostly because travel offers us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves. Back home, there are bills to pay, errands to run, and people to please.

On the road, we can construct any self-identity we want, our slate wiped, and have a chance to start afresh.

Want to go vegan, get dreads, and learn the ukulele? No Problem. Put on those elephant pants and start practising Jack Johnson chords.

You can frankly be whoever you want to be in Ko Pha Ngan. Dial that travel bro level up to 11 and call yourself a ‘reiki healer’ baby.

Why do couples break up after holidays?

Perhaps this is why when we meet travel flings back home, they can seem so different from what we remember.

In Goa, Milo is a super chill surfer dude who will recite Robert Frost poems to you at 3 a.m. Back home in Huddersfield, he’s a grumpy, struggling barista three months behind on rent.

Holiday Milo and home Milo are not the same people. We can forget that when we dreamily plan our future with “the one.”

How do you deal with holiday romance?

Many of us, myself included, have mistakenly tried to keep a travel fling going once we have returned home or moved on to a new destination, only to find it doesn’t work out.

Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of travel romances with varying degrees of intensity and insanity and length.

Some more memorable ones include a boozy date at a Korean BBQ in Melbourne, a 48-hour fling in Boston, a drunken snog in a Thai jungle rave, and a long-distance relationship with a sullen Dutch guy who claimed to be in Mensa. (He wasn’t).

For many reasons (including my multiple personality flaws), none of these travel flings ever lasted.

Especially if we tried to sustain the relationship beyond the sun-drenched beaches and Bangkok dive bars.

And then came Aleksi

For me, the travel romance that most encapsulates the theory that ‘holiday flings are never the same when you get home’ was Aleksi*.

And then came Aleksi

I met Aleksi while backpacking around America towards the end of a nine-month ‘finding myself’ trip around the world. Yes, I am that self-indulgent. Stay with me.

I clocked him on a sweltering evening in May while on a budget ghost tour of New Orleans, where the guide confidently claimed you could see a ghost in a pub fire.

He was a funny, self-deprecating, 6’5 Finnish guy who clearly had no idea how delicious he was. Enter Pip.

We got roaring drunk during the tour and burst into wildly inappropriate laughter when our poor guide attempted to tell rather horrifying stories about the haunted LaLaurie Mansion.

Time seemed to slow down (that old cliche), and we ended up in an overgrown beer garden listening to a jazz band until the sun started to rise.

It was one of those blissful, halcyon days of travel that made you realise why you rejected convention and that boring admin job in Swindon.

It also quickly became apparent we had the same dark humour and penchant for boozy, brandy cocktails.

My tipsy mind started constructing all kinds of happily ever afters during that drawn-out, humid night. He had to be the one, oh dear Thor, let him be the one.

Can a travel romance last?

We hung out for our remaining few days in New Orleans, eating Po’Boys, going to Jazz shows and discussing obscure sci-fi movies as the sexual tension simmered away.

But bizarrely, Aleksi did not make any moves despite our sizzling chemistry. There was no hand-holding, drunken make-out sessions, or any other action, for that matter.

Obviously, this only intensified my fixation, which was already in danger of tipping over into full-blown oneitis, [our Lake Garda wedding would be described as ‘breathtaking’].

Of course, I made internal excuses, ‘he’s shy’, ‘he isn’t like the other guys’, and ‘what we have is deeper than just banging in a hostel dorm’. We ladies never learn, especially when there’s a hunky European involved.

Travel dating

Slow burn chemistry

I didn’t get it. Was I misreading our slow-burn chemistry? We had so many obscure things in common and loved all the same stupid hipster music.

We both agreed that Paul’s Boutique was one of the most seminal albums of our generation. What in the name of flipping hip-hop was going on?

With the benefit of hindsight, I should have remembered one of the most insightful lines in 500 Days of Summer, “just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do, doesn’t mean she’s your soulmate.”

However, back in New Orleans, it was soon time to move on to new destinations, and despite the slightly weird sexual dynamic, we swapped numbers. Thus began the rampant texting phase of our peculiar relationship.

Should I text my holiday romance?

After New Orleans, I visited Chicago to catch up with my travel buddy, Christine. On the days she was working, I would aimlessly wander the streets of Chicago, completely lovesick.

Instead of looking up at the incredible architecture, I was glued to my phone in a texting intensity.

Now we were apart; things had weirdly kicked up a notch, and Aleksi messaged me continuously. Flirty banter, quotes from songs, funny selfies. In not so many words, he made it very clear that he was very interested in me.

I was in one of those distressed wood, identikit hipster coffee shops in Chicago when the message came, “I’m coming to visit you in Wales when you get back; i’ve already booked flights.”

Holy shitballs Batman, my fairytale was about to begin. I knew one day, my Finnish prince would come.

Vacation romance

After weeks of flirty messaging, my anticipation of his arrival was at total fever-pitch levels. I hardly ate a thing while smugly announcing to friends that a beautiful Finnish man was crossing an OCEAN to come and see me. My life was a literal rom-com, and I was the star.

I had been home for just 48 hours when Aleksi descended on my life. I barely had enough time to unpack and sort my life out before a man the size of an oak tree arrived.

Because I had been away for so long, my social calendar was also packed with pub nights, dinner dates, house parties and my friend Smiling Mike’s wedding.

Finding love when travelling

I proudly brought Aleksi to all of these events, including the wedding, and he utterly charmed all my friends. The trays of vodka he kept purchasing for us all probably helped, too.

My friend James was so taken with him that he gave him his Welsh dragon pendant. This might sound odd to more normal people, but we Welsh are a wildly overfamiliar bunch. It’s part of what makes us so special/weird.

He was even there when my best friend Charlotte got engaged at my ‘welcome home’ party that week. He hugged and danced with everyone and got the rounds in like he was one of ‘the gang’.

I had an oven-ready boyfriend who integrated seamlessly with my friends and life. It was all too good to be true, which, of course, it was.

can a holiday romance last

I should probably mention at this point that our relationship was still as unphysical as it was back in New Orleans.

Each day, he seemed less and less interested in me; instead, he acted like we were the best of buddies. What. The. Fudge.

It was so far removed from all the coy, teasing messages he had sent while we were apart that I thought maybe I had imagined it all.

Despite spending every day together, meeting all my friends, and going on a dreamy, two-day surf break to Carmarthenshire, there was zero funny business during his visit, not even a snog. It had gone from exciting to utterly confusing.

road trip romance

I know that women can also make a move, but that’s just not my jam. I’m not a first-move kind of girl; I’m a ‘get on your knees and worship me like a Khaleesi’ sort. Well, when I wasn’t in the grip of insanity regarding an uninterested Finn, that is.

It all came to a head when, during a night out, he decided to go cruising for girls at a grotty bar with my ex-boyfriend.

I then heard all about what a great “wingman” he was from my ex the next day over coffee. Yes, my ex-boyfriend is one of my best friends, and yes, my life is this ridiculous.

When holiday romances don’t work out

At this point, enough was enough; I have some dignity, you know. Hurt and confused, I coldly informed Aleksi that it was “probably best he went home”.

With an enraging high five and a chirpy, “Thank you for showing me around; your friends are so cool,” he was off without a backward glance.

‘Probably to confuse and frustrate the next girl he met on his travels’, I thought bitterly as I sulked and finished off the merlot.

Vacation flings

I was staying with my awesome pal Rachel at the time, and we drank copious amounts of wine and poured over every detail of his perplexing visit during our evenings together.

I really need to thank her again for her wise, chardonnay-fuelled counsel and for not getting cross when I drunkenly fell asleep in the laundry basket.

As the days rolled on without contact, I wondered if I had misinterpreted our deep connection.

Maybe I had taken our playful communications, shared interests, and prolonged eye contact and blown them up into massive cosmic signs in my head. Had I accidentally gaslit myself?

I bent my own dating rules at this point, which is never to be the first to break the silence. In this particular case, I just had to have some closure for my sanity.

Also, all my friends were now deeply invested in my latest dating saga. We all needed a dramatic season finale.

how to get over a holiday romance

It was probably after my 7th Vodka and diet coke that I drunk-messaged him, “Have you got a secret wife?” Proving yet again that Smirnoff is no friend of mine.

What came back was a long and predictable series of vague “it’s not you, it’s me” type messages. Ouch.

The usual dating tropes were deployed: complicated feelings for an ex-girlfriend, unhappy with work, unsure about the future, what life really means, etc.

travel romance meaning

I was still frustrated at what I perceived as lame excuses for casually toying with my feelings. Who travels hundreds of miles to see a girl they aren’t really interested in? This was some next-level bro bullshit.

My closure finally came with one of his last and quite telling messages. “I always feel like there’s more than one side to me and unlike you, I sort of show different sides of myself to different people.

“So you seeing me in Wales, might be a different Aleksi than the one you’ve seen before.”

And there it was, ‘holiday Aleksi’ was not the same as ‘home Aleksi’. It really was as simple as that. Indulging my romantic fantasies was simply a part of his overall travel experience; now, it was part of mine.

Finally, I could close the door and chalk it up to the fact that love on the road should stay on the road and that I cannot be trusted around very tall Scandinavians.

vacation romance

It’s been well over ten years since I’ve heard from Aleksi. He’s long been consigned to the ‘somebody that I used to know’ pile.

Thankfully, his friends didn’t collect his records, and he didn’t change his number (as far as I know).

Despite coming intensely into my world for a short while, there is little evidence of it, and that’s probably a good thing on reflection.

We clearly weren’t really good for each other, so let’s not play the ‘let’s be friends’ game. I was relieved to rip off that particular band-aid.

holiday romance gone wrong

However, with time comes forgiveness and, hopefully, increased self-awareness.

I now realise that I had probably projected my own romantic vision and ideologies onto him, and for reasons known only to him, he decided to humour me for a short while.

I actually hope he’s happy now and that he’s found what he’s looking for. When I met him, he had the air of a lost soul, and I clearly was not the girl to rescue him. I think he needed to do that for himself.

why are holiday romances so intense?

So, can travel romances ever work out? In my long and varied experience, probably not. It’s a common topic among travellers, and many are happy to regale me with heartbreak and unrequited love on the road.

However, sometimes love finds a way. I gathered a big collection of travel love stories from several travel writer friends that should restore your faith in travel romance and going the distance.

do holiday romances last

I’m actually glad that I managed to find my soul mate, [beloved weirdo], back at home and not in a $5 Bangkok hostel.

What we have isn’t solely reliant on just sunsets and good times. Yes, we travel together but we also experience real life together. If you can survive a trip to Ikea, you can survive anything.

I think the key to travel romance is managing your expectations. If you meet a ripped Australian on Bondi Beach who seems keen, enjoy the fun times whilst they last instead of planning the dream wedding.

Don’t put undue pressure on your travel relationships; they will run the exact course they are meant to. Remember, darlings, we’ll always have Phuket.

*Name was changed to protect ~~that douchebag~~ his privacy.

What do you think of my article on travel romance? Have you ever had a holiday fling? Let me know in the comments below; I would love to hear about your vacation romance stories.