As Hubby and I prepare for our first international trip together, I’ve been contemplating the desirable qualities of a travel buddy. How important is travel companion compatibility? Do you need one to be the leader and the other the follower? One a planner and the other spontaneous? Or do both need to take the same approach for a successful trip?
According to the Myers-Briggs there are 16 personality types that are determined by the following four different preferences.
Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I).
Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).
Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).
Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options? This is called Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).
Your Personality Type: When you decide on your preference in each category, you have your own personality type, which can be expressed as a code with four letters.
I am an ENFJ – extraversion, intuition, feeling, judging. While Hubby has never taken the MBTI, I’m pretty sure he is an ESTP…almost my exact opposite. You know the saying! In general, I would say this adds spice and depth to our marriage. We each see things from different angles and help each other make the best decision. But other than our honeymoon to Puerto Rico and weekend trips here in the States, we just don’t have much travel experience together.
In all my previous international adventures, I’ve noticed that I tend to pick travel buddies who are like me: organized, planned, and decisive. My friend who I visited in Argentina is a super planner. When I went to Paris with a sorority sister, we had the entire trip mapped out and saw every hot spot in the city in 4 short days. When I traveled with study abroad programs in Japan and Peru, we were extremely planned out. This will be my first time traveling abroad with someone who is not a decisive planner like me.
Global From Home 
Hi there,
I cannot say that I have traveled abroad with another person but I have done extensive research about personality types and how they interact. With your husband being an ESTP, he will most likely be very good at improvising and becoming familiar with the environment that you two will be in. He probably has an acute sense of his surroundings and is probably excellent at negotiating as well as being spontaneous. This is all due to extraverted sensing being his dominant function and introverted thinking being his secondary function. It probably is not a need of his to have harmony between people but that is where you come in and balance the marriage that you two have.
While sometimes he may seem course and abrasive to others, you as an ENFJ have a deep understanding of others’ motivations and intentions. You probably pick up on very subtle cues of others and you prefer to maintain harmony versus engaging in conflict. You most likely have an ability to connect the dots of seemingly unrelated subjects to help yourself predict future trends as well. Being an ENFJ means that you have extraverted feeling as a dominant function and introverted intuition as a secondary function. You look out for everybody involved with a situation and try to make everybody else happy, even if that is sometimes at the expense of your own needs. This makes ENFJ’s excellent leaders and teachers.
It is my personal opinion that you will be better at planning out the trip and getting the big picture idea of everything that you want to do but it will be your husband who has the abilities to execute it well. You are more future-oriented whereas he is more present-oriented. It makes sense for you to plan for the future and then he can execute it during the present while you two are actually there.
This information is of course assuming that you two are truly the types that you mentioned in your post. What I listed for you are generalizations about each type and why they work well together. That however does not guarantee that all of these generalizations will apply to you because everybody is unique in one way or another. I hope that this information helps and I wish you the best of luck on your vacation!
Wow! You have us pegged perfectly. Thanks so much for the reassurance and all the info. You know your MBTI! I am amazed.