Into the world of the ‘perfect vacation couple’—and what makes it a myth

Don’t be that couple on vacation.

Luxury travel has a way of making love look effortless, which is perhaps the cruellest trick of all. A corner room with ocean views, a dress that dances with the sea breeze, the golden-hour photo in which both members of a supposedly besotted couple appear loose, bronzed, unbothered, and mutually adored: it’s a trifecta that creates the impression of a relationship that has transcended human behaviour and all the idiosyncrasies that come with it.

No one in this tableau is complaining about how the other changed seven times before leaving the room, strewing their clothes all over the suite, or who misread the ferry schedule, drank too much at lunch, or kept checking their phone at dinner. The perfect couple on vacation is always smiling and laughing, in love and in the best light. Always somewhere better than you are. 

It’s a performance that’s as exhausting to execute as it is to take in. In our age of Instagram, a couple’s trip is no longer an intimate escape; it’s a stage to show just how well you unwind together. How many hat-tricks can you pull? Matching robes, mirror selfies in which not one but both parties appear to be willing participants?

Then there's the matter of the caption. How to suggest both sangfroid spontaneity—a typo here, an emoji there—as well as rock solid stability? Beyond the pressure to merely have a good time—not nothing, given the time and expense of a holiday—there’s the compulsion to provide evidence of having had one. To look as if the rose petals on the bedspread and the Champagne in the ice bucket have confirmed something essential about your relationship.

The problem, of course, is that real intimacy rarely photographs so well. As an author and journalist who has been professionally circumnavigating the globe for the better part of two decades, I can confidently say that the best part of a trip is not the moment that looks good on the grid but the strange, small, unmarketable one: pasta pomodoro in bed after a midnight check in, blistered pizza in an alleyway so narrow, you have to keep your elbows at your sides lest they graze the motorcycle cruising by.

Ceviche on a boat booked with strangers on a whim. Glancing up at the stars … and retreating inside to watch The Sopranos. Sometimes love looks less like holding hands at sunset and more like one person saying, “Let’s turn around and pretend we did the whole hike,” and the other person saying, “Thank God.”

You could say that I wrote Incidentals, my third novel, as a corrective. Its cast of characters, marooned at a seven-star resort in the Maldives, is trying to arrange their lives into something enviable only to find that the unscripted parts keep breaking through. The title alludes to those unaccounted-for expenses that accrue on a trip—room service, massages, matcha at the on-site coffee bar—but also the overlooked heft of a partnership. The side glances, the detours, the emotional weather, the things that happen while you’re careening towards what you think is the main event. Incidentals is a reminder that the incidental is often where the truth lives.

So perhaps the better vacation aspiration is not to become the perfect couple, but to become a more honest one. Let the trip be a place where the performance drops. Wear the outfit because you feel like it, not because it proves that the vacation is working. Take the picture—take lots of pictures!—but know that no image can serve as a report card for your relationship.

Accept that there will be stupid fights, quiet stretches, and mismatched appetites. Maybe you won’t want to go to the museum. Maybe you’ll sleep in instead of going on that whale watching cruise. Maybe it’s for the best. Let the trip play out and reveal something rather than confirm an image, check a box.

The perfect vacation couple is a mirage: beautiful, boring, and largely beside the point. The more interesting couple is present in the moment, even when the moment is awkward, embarrassing, imperfect, or impossible to caption. If you take one page away from Incidentals, I hope it’s that: stop auditioning for the life you think you should be having, and pay attention to the one unfolding in front of you.

Lead image: Sheila Yasmin Marikar 

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