Whether you’re sharing with a friend or a stranger, these suggestions can help to make your room share experience a positive, memorable and enjoyable one.
BEFORE YOU TRAVEL OR WHEN YOU FIRST MEET
- Have a conversation with your roommate regarding your individual needs for space, quiet, light/dark.
- Work out a plan for how you will work together to make the room-share work for both of you
- Agree to revisit the plan as you travel and to adjust the plan and/or remind each other of your original plan if necessary
- Agree that room-share success is a team effort and that you will both potentially need to make small concessions to make it work for both of you.
DO
- Be observant and self-aware
- Be thoughtful and considerate
- Be kind and courteous
- Listen to your room mate and be friendly and approachable
- Give each other space
- Make an effort to build rapport with your roommate
- Be prepared to adjust your standard routines and practices to avoid disturbing your room mate. When you share a room, it’s not all about you!
- Keep your phone on silent and/or switch off ALL audio notifications to avoid unnecessary noise which may disturb your room mate
- Before using the bathroom, and as a courtesy, first ask your roommate if they need anything.
- Be conscious of bathroom time and keep your showering time to a reasonable limit. When both roommates are getting ready at the same time, applying makeup and/or drying hair, please use the bedroom not the bathroom
- Alternate who gets the ‘best’ or biggest bed each time we move hotels – in some hotels, twin share rooms may have a single bed and a double/queen bed rather than two beds of the same size.
- Avoid allowing your luggage to ‘explode’, leaving clothes/dirty laundry lying around and taking over room space, wardrobe space, bathroom bench space (which should be shared between you). Whether you’re messy or neat, be considerate.
- Avoid turning on lights and flushing the toilet during the night. If you need light to safely see your way to the bathroom, use a small torch or the light on your phone. Move quietly and close doors quietly.
- Avoid opening curtains or turning on the light when your roommate is asleep or resting.
- Pack ear plugs (in case of snoring) and an eye mask – these items can make all the difference.
- If you have been known to occasionally snore (eg. when you have a cold or are congested due to air-con or long-haul flights) bring nasal strips or similar to alleviate this. If you snore regularly, please book a single room.
- Work out an arrangement with regard to air-conditioning/heating/open windows that works for both of you. Or bring and be prepared to wear layers in case your need for air-con is different to your roommate’s.
- Each decide what’s the most important thing for you eg. having the bed by the window, having the bed beside the bathroom, being the first in the bathroom in the morning, or the one who gets the luggage rack etc. Be sure that you both agree to each allow each other an equal number of ‘important things’. If you both want the same things, you should arrange to take it in turns/alternate.
DON’T
- Don’t take phone calls, play music, use the dictaphone function on your phone or start a conversation in your room when your roommate is resting/sleeping/having quiet time
- Don’t invite visitors or other members of the group into your room
- Don’t smoke in the room. We always book non-smoking rooms for all of our tours. If you are a smoker, you agree not to smoke in the room or on the patio or balcony of any room or accommodation
- Don’t touch or ‘borrow’ your roommate’s belongings
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