How To Stay Sane When You're Sharing Accommodation With Friends

Taking a few weeks off work to travel overseas with your besties? Here are some things to consider before you pack your suitcase. Who knows, it might even save your friendship. We can almost guarantee that you’re going to get fired up over the smallest things – from your best friend snoring loudly, to no hot water left in the shower or the TV being left on till’ early hours of the morning.

• Number one rule when travelling overseas with your mates is to be considerate. If you’ve just got out of the shower and there’s water everywhere, please clean up after yourself. And lads, if you’re sharing with gals, please put the toilet seat down.
• Set your expectations early and decide what accommodation options are best for you. Work out a suitable budget and how much you’re prepared to spend. Accommodation options to consider include a hostel, boutique hotel or five-star resort. Most places will require some form of ID and a security deposit (in case you trash the place they’re likely to charge your credit card) – so work out who’s going to be responsible for this. 

• Upon check-in, you’ll receive an access card or key to the room. Please keep it in a safe place. There have been cases where the person in charge of the access card/key has misplaced it, resulting in unnecessary stress. Ensure you have at least two access cards/keys divided up between you. Hot tip: avoid placing your access card near other cards in your wallet like debit cards or credit cards. It tends to cause issues when swiping the card through the scanner upon entering the room.
• There’ll be a safe in the room so be sure to make use of this and store items like your passport, phone and money in the locker. Make sure to use a pin that everyone can remember, otherwise you might need to make a late-night phone call to reception.
• You’re planning a bender, and one friend decides to come home early while you’re dancing the night away. Please enter the room with caution when you come stumbling through the doors just before daylight. And if you do end up in the bathroom all night, clean up the mess so your roomie wakes up with no surprises.
• Decide to get room service, use the mini-bar or make personal phone calls? Work out what you’re spending, so there are no surprises when you check-out. If you’ve made a phone call to your mum back home, make sure you write it down so you can fix it up later.

• One person likes to sleep with freezing air-con, but another likes the windows open with a pleasant breeze. Perhaps, you can mix it up each night so each person gets a fair go. Think of the environment too, is it really necessary to have the air-con on zero degrees? Air-con in hotels can often leave you feeling a little sniffly the next day, so it might be best to switch it off after a few hours.
• You’ve got a friend who keeps snoring each night and you don’t know what to do? Be sure to pack some good quality ear plugs so you get a good night’s sleep. You don’t want to be holidaying on less than five hours sleep. Trust me, you really don’t.
• Open communication! If there’s something that bothers you, don’t let it brew. Address it then and there so the other person is aware. Who knows, they might not even know they’re chewing with their mouth open until you bring it to their attention.

Even though we love our friends to bits, there are going to be things that get on your nerves, especially when you spend so long in each other’s company. We guarantee when you get back, you won’t even remember what the kerfuffle was about, and you’ll cherish the wonderful memories for a lifetime.