Maaljirah (in light blue dress) with her colleagues and friends on their trip to Phuket. — MAALJIRAH A.
“Good friends follow you everywhere,” a certain honey-loving, shirt-wearing bear once said.
Winnie The Pooh may just be a fictional bear, but he would know the validity of this statement – he spends most of his time going on adventures with his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood.
Fictional characters aside, this quote is an apt one for describing friends who go on trips together, trying new experiences and creating unforgettable memories that make travelling all the more fun.
While solo travelling boosts one’s confidence and fosters independence, and family travel strengthens familial bonds, travelling with friends offers a host of other benefits (and challenges!). Key among them is understanding and learning how to navigate the dynamics of your friendship.
There will be contrasting personalities and interests no matter how close-knit you and your friends may be (opposites attract, after all), but you will learn to compromise while planning your trip as everyone comes to an agreement on where to go, what to do, where to stay and so on.
You will also learn how to handle unexpected changes and challenges as a team, because sometimes you will encounter situations that require you to deviate from the original plan. Take getting lost for example; you will need to work with each other to get back on track.
Of course, friends-only excursions are also a great way of catching up. You’ll have ample time to exchange updates on your lives when you’re all tucked away somewhere far from your “natural habitats”, with no interferences from work or family.
These trips also generally tend to revolve around a flexible itinerary, which offers more relaxation and less stress over orchestrating the perfect vacation. This in turn opens doors to more exciting possibilities, because you are more likely to attempt impromptu activities that you might not be as inclined to do when travelling alone or with family members.
Friendship is such an important aspect of social interaction that the United Nations (UN) has designated a day for celebrating it. Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2011, the International Day Of Friendship is celebrated annually on July 30.
An excerpt from the UN’s website states: “Our world faces many challenges, crises and forces of division. To confront those crises and challenges, their root causes must be addressed by promoting and defending a shared spirit of human solidarity that takes many forms – the simplest of which is friendship.”
In celebration of this special day, three individuals shared with us their friends-only travels, their experiences highlighting how these trips vary from friend group to friend group. Interests, age, commitments – let’s examine how factors like these influence a group’s decisions and shape the trips.
Men on ‘mancation’
Lest you imagine vacations in the vein of Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups or Bradley Cooper’s The Hangover when you think of men vacationing together, rest assured that Hollywood comedy films are not (always) reflective of real life.
Sure, there’s some fun to be had on a “mancation” (a portmanteau of “man” and “vacation”), but typically not to the extent of “keeping a tiger captive in a hotel suite bathroom” kind of fun.
At least Prashanth N., 41, made no mention of tigers when discussing his trips with his close friends. “We’ve been going on trips together for 10 years now,” he said. “Usually, we travel in a group of four to six.”
The Philippines’ Manila, Thailand’s Bangkok and Indonesia’s Bali and Gili islands are among the places they’ve travelled to. “We try to have a mix of both cities and beaches. We hope to do more adventurous trips in the future and include more outdoor activities,” he expressed.
How adventurous exactly? Well, think hiking up the historic Unesco-designated Machu Picchu in Peru or the majestic Mount Kilimanjaro – Africa’s highest peak at 5,895m – in Tanzania. Exploring the wilderness of Patagonia, going on safari or following the Great Migration in Africa are a few other options.
Prashanth's (left, front) latest trip with his friends was to Gili. — PRASHANTH N.
Having been on mancations together with his friends for a decade now, Prashanth noted how their motivation for travelling and their trip planning have evolved over the years. “Our travels mostly revolved around stag trips in the past. But this year has been the first year we’ve decided to do it without any case of celebration. We came to a collective decision that this will be an annual affair going forward.
“It gets tougher to plan as we get older, as most of us are married with kids. So, planning will always have to revolve around the partners’ and kids’ schedules,” he said.
Aged 40 to 45, these husbands and fathers certainly have different commitments now compared to when they were in their 20s and 30s. Their typical pre-trip process now goes something like this: Discuss an upcoming trip, reach a consensus, block a tentative period months before the actual trip.
“So that approval can be sought well before from the ‘Home Ministry’,” said Prashanth half-jokingly, referring to their wives and/or significant others.
As they go on other trips with their respective families too, the friends notice that the travelling styles definitely differ between the two groups. Prashanth personally finds that travelling with friends is a more easy-going experience.
“There’s not as much planning required with the boys. Everything is pretty much decided on the fly, except for accommodation and flights,” he said, adding that family trips, meanwhile, require a more meticulous and detailed itinerary.
He speaks from experience, as he’s the one doing the planning and budgeting for his friend trips. “These are primarily done by my friend AP and myself. It’s easier to keep the planning to a minimal headcount.”
Location and activities dictate their budget, which they generally keep to around RM3,000 if the trip is within South-East Asia. “The budget will naturally increase if we were to travel further,” he added.
Their itinerary is not a rigid one, especially since not all the activities need to have a major consensus. Prashanth elaborated, “Daytime activities can be broken up to smaller groups depending on preferences, but we definitely meet up in the evenings to spend time together as a whole group.”
Spending time together is the crux of every trip with friends, so understandably he chose their most recent trip as the most memorable one. He explained the reason: “It has been several years since we all caught up as a group in one place, as some of us are based in different locations now.
“It was interesting to see how certain dynamics have changed, but the glue that keeps us together is still strong.”
Co-workers to co-travellers
Sometimes what makes even the hardest of jobs more bearable is having good co-workers who’ll be there for you when the going gets tough. Even better when this closeness develops into a fun friendship that isn’t tethered to your career.
Maaljirah A., 27, is fortunate enough to be surrounded by friends whose company she enjoys both in the office and outside of work. In the past year alone, this large group of friends went on three vacations together.
“There were 14 of us – six men and eight women – when we went on our Phuket trip last year,” she said, referring to their vacation to the popular island in Thailand last July.
Their other 2023 trips – to Pulau Tuba (Kedah) in January and Hat Yai (Thailand) in September – did not have as many people involved. “Some of us couldn’t join because they had to make time for family trips too,” she explained.
Maaljirah (middle, front) does multiple trips with her friends in a year. — MAALJIRAH A.
Playing a vital role as the group’s manager of sorts, Maaljirah replied in the negative when asked if it was hard handling a group of such size when travelling, especially one that consists of a wide age range – with the youngest being 18 years old and the oldest at 35.
“It was very easy planning the trip,” she assured, “because everyone was ‘sporting’ and had the same idea of fun.”
Mapping out activities is definitely no hassle when everyone’s on the same page. “I planned all the activities and they just followed,” she added with a laugh.
If she had to name a challenge, it would be that they’re all airline staff, based at Penang International Airport, who fly standby (they get to board without charge if there are open seats on their flight of choice). “If the flight we wanted to take is full, we’d have to wait for a different one,” she said.
Still, not a bad trade-off for getting to travel together basically anywhere for free.
Their travel budget typically ranges from RM200 to RM500 per person, but Maaljirah sheepishly admitted that they did blow their budget when they were in Phuket.
“We spent almost RM1,000 each on accommodation, renting motorcycles and taking Grab from the airport to the hotel; things like that,” she explained.
“You have to be more disciplined when travelling with your family,” she said, sharing her thoughts on the difference when travelling with family versus with friends. “You might not get to do more adventurous things. But with friends, it’s more ‘free and easy’.”
The next trip for these free and easy travel buddies is Langkawi, which they’ll head to next month. But their ultimate dream vacation is actually another beach destination, one that’s located in our neighbouring country.
“We are planning to go to Labuan Bajo,” Maaljirah shared, but admitted that it would be hard to gather everyone for this as the scenic fishing town is located in Indonesia’s Flores Island, which is a little further away from what their group is used to.
She added candidly, “All of us taking long leaves in one shot will definitely be hard to arrange!”
Esther (right) and her best friend taking a jumping shot at Cloud Gate in Chicago. — ESTHER L.
Outdoor explorers
Entering her 30s this year, Esther L. is adamant to continue travelling the way she always does: Walking around everywhere as she explores her destination of choice.
“That will always be my travelling style,” the active explorer said. “It’s not going to change even as I get older.”
Reflecting on the trips that she had embarked on in her 20s, she felt grateful to have found like-minded companions who accompanied her on various adventures throughout the United States. “I was studying and working in the US for seven years, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel with friends there every few months,” she shared.
Now that she’s returned to Malaysia where the climate is decidedly less comfortable for long hours of explorations under the sun, she finds her trip frequency dwindling.
She lamented, “Malaysian girls are quite inactive and prefer staying in air-conditioned places when travelling, whereas my US girlfriends were all the active, outdoorsy type – way easier to travel with.”
Usually travelling in a group of three to five, aged between 28 and 32, Esther acts as the planner on her trips with friends, researching places of interests online and planning out the most convenient routes to these using Google Maps.
Their itinerary typically entails strolling around the city and doing outdoor activities like hiking or running. “We spend around RM4,000 for a trip that lasts seven to 10 days,” she said of their average budget.
Sharing about her time in the US, Esther said, “My friends and I visited different states every two to three months. We went to tourist attractions and hiking at national parks.”
From Cloud Gate in Chicago, Illinois and Denver’s Gardens Of The Gods in Colorado, to San Jose, California, their multi-state adventures took them to various parks and cities.
One of her dearest travel memories is of the time when she and her best friend embarked on a three-day road trip from Montana to Chicago. “We did our bachelor’s degree in Montana, but my friend moved to Chicago to do her master’s degree,” she said.
A calming trip in Glacier County, Montana for Esther (right) and her best friend. — ESTHER L.
“We went to Glacier County in Montana as our first stop, then drove three days to Chicago. On that drive, we passed through two to three states, and we went to check out the attractions in these states too.”
Admitting that travelling with friends does mean making compromises where necessary, as opposed to solo travelling which she occasionally does, Esther all the same looks forward to creating more exciting memories with friends.
While they do not have a specific destination in mind for their bucket list, she did express hope to “explore the great outdoors more with friends”.
That should be possible to tick off down the road, because while Malaysia may not have 50 states to drive through (or fly to in the cases of Alaska and Hawaii), it does offer a variety of natural wonders for outdoor explorers to discover.
