Ultimate Guide for Planning a Successful Trip to Meet Your Overseas Online Partner
Dear reader who is in the unfortunate but miraculous circumstance of having met your one true love online:
You are about to embark on a journey across the world for love. A challenging, yet admirable feat.
As if you are in a movie, you want to have a perfect meet cute with your online partner.
And no matter where you meet, the meaning of such a reunion is what will make it special. You have overcome the distance and cultural barriers with the strongest love possible. And having found your person who lives in a completely different world, you could never be more sure of your relationship.
You have committed yourself to this person completely.
Or at least I hope you have committed that much if you’re planning on meeting them. After all, you can’t just meet your online partner in a country that you’ve never traveled to before if you weren’t 1000% sure of them.
Before you begin planning your meeting, be sure that your relationship with your online partner is a great big green flag. Read my post on safe online long distance relationships here. Do not take any of my advice without doing your own research. Please stay safe out there, and know what’s best for you.
This guide is to help you plan a flawless and safe trip when traveling to meet your online partner. Before you pack up and go, here are some tips and advice from a couple who has done it before.
So let’s start planning your adventure!
How we planned our own trip
After a year of long distance without ever meeting, and having had long term goals for some time, we started to prioritize our first meeting.
We come from America and India, which was quite a distance both geographically and culturally. But after a few months of planning, we decided to meet in Bali, as it worked best with visas and our budget.
Not many were happy with our plans, as expected with online long distance relationships. But we made it work. We planned thoroughly, purchased the plane tickets and accommodation together, and discussed our trip with excitement every day to the day of departure.
With all the planning and communication between our families, it became the most magical meeting we could possibly imagine. Bali was a paradise. We learned to be a real couple in such a beautiful place by taking long walks every day, teaching Kart how to swim, and exploring a completely new place together for the first time.
In summary, we had the most successful international meetup after surviving long distance, and we believe you can too if you do careful planning and practice flawless communication with your online partner.
Be ready to meet your online partner
Are you ready to meet your online partner?
For anyone even considering traveling to meet your online partner, you will need to have a well grounded online relationship first. Do you trust this person with your life? Do you know with certainty that you will feel safe with this person? These are some questions you need to ask yourself before you go any further. If you are unsure in any aspect of your relationship, you need to discuss it with your partner before making any travel plans.
Key components for a well grounded online relationship:
Trust
This component takes time, it does not happen immediately. But in time, you should be able to have a firm trust and faith in one another. This is earned by communication and respecting boundaries. If there’s any wavering in your faith, you will need to work on this first.
Patience
As I will frequently mention, time is a big factor for a successful long distance relationship. It is not easy by any means. Only those with enough patience can survive long distance partnerships, because they have the most faith in their partner. A relationship with true love is earned. Both of you need the patience to earn it.
Dedication
In order to find the patience for your long distance relationship, you need dedication. Just like your faith, this dedication cannot waver. If you’re planning to meet your online partner, there should be some sense of long term commitment, which is built on your dedication for each other.
Questions to ask yourself before making travel plans with your online partner:
Is your partner pressuring you to make travel plans sooner than you feel comfortable?
If they’re pushing you too much with this, they might not have the right intentions and they may not be as committed, and they’re showing their lack of commitment to a hard-earned relationship by doing this.
Have you given your relationship time to blossom online long enough to feel confident about this person?
If you can have a steady relationship online, then you should feel confident that nothing will change when you meet in person. You also need to give it time. I would recommend waiting at least a year before making big travel plans and just focus on building your relationship with this person. I promise you, it won’t hurt to be a little patient when it comes to meeting your online partner.
Have you discussed traveling to each other’s countries before?
Even if you’re not making serious travel plans, it’s always good to play around with the idea of meeting in person as your relationship develops online. If you don’t then where can the relationship possibly go? It will only ever remain online. When Kart and I were starting our online relationship, we would always lightly joke about “oh when you’ll be in India…” or “oh when you’ll be in America…” to help progress our actual relationship.
Are both partners ready to make concrete plans for planning a trip together?
Make sure both of you are confident enough to plan this trip together, and not wait for one or the other to take that first step. What tends to happen with online couples is that the lack of commitment shows its ugly head when it comes to discussing real meetings and never acting on them. Why stay in a relationship if no one’s brave enough to take the first step? Two years have passed, three years have passed, and still no real planning? Either you or your partner needs to take that first step. If neither does, then you’ll be stuck in an online relationship for an indefinite amount of time.
How to handle travel anxiety
Planning to travel for the first time on your own is no easy feat. But the easiest part is actually traveling. When you plan your first solo travel trip to meet your online partner, of course it’s nerve wracking. No matter how sure you are of your online partner, you’ll still feel uncertain with yourself sometimes when traveling alone.
I never in my life thought that I would ever travel to a foreign country on my own. And definitely not to meet someone I’ve never been with before. But I met my person online and everything was made easy through an honest longing to be with him.
All you need to do is feel confident in your own plans and research. Know what you are getting yourself into, and stay strong in your desire to finally meet the person you have been waiting so long to meet.
How to deal with worries over personal space when you meet your online partner
Many worries originate from not wanting to share everything with your online partner when you first meet in person, such as sharing accommodation. This is a completely valid concern. Maybe you trust your partner completely, but you still want to maintain your privacy and comfort while being with them for the first time.
One solution to this is discussing these concerns with your partner in advance. Tell them how you feel about the living situation. If they don’t understand your concerns and want you to stay with them anyway, you need to set your boundaries. If your partner does not understand your worries, it might be a good idea to hold this trip for a later time.
Another solution is to just plan the meeting with separate accommodation. You can plan your trips during the day together, but keep separate hotel bookings. This isn’t a bad idea if you are also looking for a backup plan in case things don’t go as expected.
Always touch base with your partner about what you want, and your expectations for this trip. You have to address any worries that you have, especially before meeting for the first time. Don’t leave any room for disappointment, and just be forward with what you hope for and need for this trip.
Planning your trip to meet your online partner
Decide on the location
This obviously depends on where you live and where your partner lives. You may want to visit their country or they might want to visit yours. While it’s safer to be near family and friends for such a trip, I recommend meeting in a country neither of you have visited before.
Meet your online partner somewhere in between
I think this is in most cases, the best option for when you meet your online partner because you would both be on equal footing. This way, you are experiencing something new together. And if you’re going to deal with culture shock, at least you’re not in it alone.
In our own circumstances, and with Kart being Indian, the idea of him coming to America was not at all an option. Indian passports are one of the weakest on the scale, and he probably wouldn’t stand a chance getting a visa, and it would just be a waste of time and money.
However, I wasn’t sure about traveling to his country first either, as I knew it would be overwhelming for me to go directly to India and try to merge in with his everyday life. So we planned our trip to Bali, knowing that both of us will be on equal footing.
Obviously this depends on your own circumstances, but I believe this is a great option for when you meet your online partner for the first time.
Finding the perfect location
This of course all depends on your budget, proximity, interests in traveling, and visa eligibility. Do your research for what works best for you. Make a list of safe countries where you can meet halfway. Look at flight prices and visa requirements for the countries you’re interested in and get a rough idea of trip costs.
I believe it’s important you both pick a place both of you are actually interested in traveling. You should be able to come up with an itinerary for the location you choose so that you can truly enjoy your time traveling with your partner.
Travel to your partner’s home country
You can also decide not to meet halfway, and instead just go directly to visit their home country. This is a more cost effective option, but only do this if you feel comfortable with the idea.
From my own experience, I recommend meeting in a new country for both partners, and then visiting one’s home country to meet family. That way you can learn to be a couple on your own for some time before you meet the family, which is very important for any relationship.
Living with them in their home with their family will reveal new sides to them and your relationship. This is very beneficial to the progress of your relationship.
For Kart and I, we met in Bali, but we both took flights back to India together so that I could meet and be with his family, which was a crucial part of building our in person relationship. To really know your partner, you need to adventure and experience new opportunities together, but you also need to share each other’s lives and cultures, by visiting their home country. Only do this if either of you feels comfortable enough to take this step.
Safety tips for when you meet your online partner:
- Get the family involved: Make sure you have interacted with your partner’s family beforehand, and they have interacted with your family as well. Combine both families in one group chat so that everyone feels reassured during your travels and stay updated.
- Tell your family and friends the details: Keep your network of people in the know about your trip, where you will be and when. Give them addresses to hotels, and flight information as well. Share your itineraries and stay in communication with them the entire trip.
- Have a backup plan: Despite how well you know this person, always prepare for the worst case scenario and have a backup plan for yourself.
- Really know your partner: Do you have video calls regularly? Do you call them every day and do you know what they do throughout the day? Have you spoken to their family? Do you have multiple modes of communication with them (social media, addresses, emails etc.)? If you lack answers to some of these questions, do not plan on meeting them anywhere until you do.
- Purchase your flights together: Do your research and know which flights you want to buy in consideration to arrival times and other factors. Then buy the tickets together so you don’t make any mistakes.
- Consider the time of arrival: Decide for one person to arrive at the destination earlier than the other. For Kart and I, we purposefully booked our tickets in a way that he will arrive a day earlier so that he would be there when I arrive. Instead of both of us being sleep deprived, exhausted and cranky, it was just one of us at a time dealing with flights.
- Meet in public: I think most would meet in an airport anyway, but it should be mentioned that you should plan your meeting to be in a public place. That way you can make your own rational decisions to move forward or not.
- Be rational: Don’t be blind to all the red flags that are potentially right in front of you. You need to feel absolutely certain about the person you are going to meet.
Additional tips for planning your first meeting:
- Discuss Boundaries: Don’t just discuss with your partner on where to meet and when. Discuss each other’s boundaries and expectations. Your partner needs to know what you are comfortable with and what you are not comfortable with.
- Difficulties of traveling: Know that if you plan to meet outside of your home country and outside of their home country, traveling with your partner may be more challenging. Even taking a trip abroad with a partner that you know in real life can be a challenge, so imagine how much more patience and flexibility you’ll need to have a successful trip with your online partner.
- Bring a travel journal: Write down all your experiences so you’ll never forget. And be consistent with it. You won’t want to forget anything from your trip, so make it special long term by writing down all the sights and experiences.
Prepare for separation
This is a guide to how to meet your online partner for the first time, but what generally happens is that either you or your partner will have to eventually go home to their job or to their family commitments. Or simply they can no longer stay on the visa in that country.
Now you have to revert back to long distance again. This is by far the true test for online long distance couples.
When you first met online, the distance was difficult. But it was relatively easy as you’ve learned from habit the practice of keeping a healthy long distance relationship.
The moment you get thrown back into that rhythm after having been together physically for some time, there’s much more frustration and the relationship is overall lacking.
However, to cope with the current situation, it’s good to keep planning your futures together. Planning this trip is an excellent first step, but you will also need to plan the long term aspect of your relationship as well. Who will live where? How will you make a living?
These are very difficult questions when it comes to international long distance relationships, but if you don’t start discussing now, you will run into issues later on. You don’t need to have everything figured out, but you should be open minded enough to talk about potential goals for your lives together.
Make sure you take plenty of pictures and videos while you’re together. Write down all your adventures in a journal. And take advantage of every moment you’re with one another.
Final thoughts
I hope you now have some idea in mind of how you want to meet your online partner. If you’re unsure about where to meet and other factors, frequent discussion with your online partner will get you on the right path.
You should feel confident in your decision to meet your online partner. This is an amazing experience! As if you are in a movie, you will find your love who you’ve been waiting to meet for some time now. I believe it’s important that you meet before years and years pass and become wasted.
Follow your heart, rationally, and go find them. The world isn’t going to give you signs or give you more opportunities. If you love this person and you trust them with your life, that’s the best sign you have to go find them.
Always be careful and keep an open mind and an open heart.
Wishing all the best,
Maeve & Kart
Ram ram!
We’re Maeve & Kart – an introverted American girl with a love for letters, flowers, and chai on one side, and an introverted extrovert nature enthusiast Indian boy with a sweet tooth on the other.
Get yourself a cup of tea and a spoonful of chini and settle in.
We write for all aspiring travelers, folks in long distance and multicultural relationships, and those kindred spirits out there looking for advice on life in India as a foreigner.
As an American/Indian couple, we are currently living together in India in a cross cultural relationship as a result of one of few successful long distance love stories.
Come along with us as we share stories and advice on multicultural discussions, long distance relationships, and the beauty of travel.
Maeve & Kart
Our Long Distance Story
We are Maeve and Kart – a long distance married couple from America and India.
To all kindred spirits out there trying to navigate a multicultural or a long distance relationship, you’re not alone. Learn from our own experiences of how we finally found each other from across the world and remain together living with a blend of both cultures and languages.
Get a cup of tea and a spoonful of chini and take in the advice from those who have successfully created a strong cross-cultural relationship from a distance.
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