8 Activities for Traveling Couples

Walking

It may sound obvious but I think walking with someone you love is one of life’s simplest pleasures and we see it as a great way to get to know a new place. Everywhere we’ve been we do our best to go on a walk around our new neighbourhood. Just last weekend when we arrived in our new home in Brighton, we spent an hour walking along the seafront hand-in-hand and we got excited about spending a few weeks by the ocean.

Cycling

This is our go-to favourite activity thanks to spending months in Amsterdam, the cycling capital of the world. For us, it’s not about an expensive, fancy bike. In fact, the older the better as this encourages you go to go at a slower pace and absorb what’s going on around you, it also means you can hold hands with your loved one if it’s safe to do so.

Skiing or Snowboarding

This is as extreme as it gets for us, but if it wasn’t for snowboarding we would never have met. What I like about snowboarding is how “otherworldly” it is. There are almost always beautiful views and there’s a great amount of history, culture and let’s be honest, nightlife attached to a snow sports holiday. We like indulging in this for a few weeks every year. I also believe it’s a great couple's activity to learn together from scratch.

Hiking

Now when I say hiking, I’m not talking about day-long treks up mountains, I’m referring to short walks up to a viewpoint or along a coastal path. Let’s just say we don’t like our hikes to interfere with meal times. But we do like the low-impact workout that a 10-kilometre hike up a hill gives you. Some of my favourites have included the walks to Cape Byron in Australia, hiking up Queenstown Hill in New Zealand and more recently I loved hiking up to the top of Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.

Wake Boarding

In a new-to-me activity, I was shocked to learn that my partner’s previous experience of wakeboarding “a couple of times, years ago” meant he was jumping and leaping all over while I watched on impressed. We spent many weekends wakeboarding with friends in Malaysia last year and thanks to the warm weather, the clean water and the cheap price of doing it, we added wakeboarding to our list of favourite things to do together.

Scuba Diving or Snorkelling

We learnt to scuba dive together and despite suffering a few setbacks – I get terrible seasickness – I enjoyed how we helped each other progress through our diving course and go on to do other dives in other parts of Thailand. I also have to add that one of the best days we spent together was when we went snorkelling on Koh Racha, an idyllic island off the Andaman coast of Thailand. For a fraction of the price, we saw so many fish and got to lie on a beach drying off afterwards.

Mountain-biking

While this isn’t my favourite activity, my boyfriend loves it so when, on his 30th birthday, he asked if we could spend the morning mountain biking I felt compelled to agree. It resulted in more than a few arguments and me falling off my bike no fewer than four times but I have to say there is something in the gesture of doing something for your partner and then realising you don’t completely hate it.

Crazy Golf

This activity is included in the list partly as a joke and partly seriously. Crazy golf is fun and if you find a good course, i.e. one that is impossible to do no matter how skilled you are, then it can be hours of entertainment for a couple. I have fond memories of playing crazy gold at a seaside resort along the coast of New South Wales as we went on a three-day road trip to Melbourne in Australia. It was the perfect way to take a break from driving and also embarrass my boyfriend by beating him! Yes!