Getaway...from me

We did well. I only wanted to strangle him once or twice. And he kept his passive aggressive comments to a minimum,  ("Oh, that's interesting, I've never seen anyone paddle like that before." Read: "Are you a complete idiot?") No really, it wasn't so bad. We only ended up in a bog once, after all. And as for those couple of times we found ourselves careening towards the rocky shore, hey, who's counting?

Yes, traveling with a significant other can be very revealing. 

Taking a relationship on the road not only lets you know who's controlling the canoe, spending day and night together challenges your ability to put up with each other's moods, and reveals just how long you can circle an area late at night looking for a hotel room before one of you snaps. You discover each other's ability to make the best of the worst when you finally end up at a place called the Prague Inn where the paintings are screwed to the fake paneling and the dour little women who owns the place looks like she might sneak in and axe murder you in the night.  ("Vut's wrong? You take za room, NOW! I have others vaiting.")

It's amazing how travelling together miraculously turns you both into experts on everything. Better the car blow up in your face than admit you actually know nothing about small engine repair. 

And you get to play the Map Control game.

"Lemme look..."  "Hang on a sec..." "Just let me look at it for a minute..."  "I'm the navigator...whoa, watch the road!" "Yeah, but just....here let me pull over..." 

Or the famous 'Which Way Do I Turn?' game. Always good for a fight. You know, you're inches away from the intersection, there's an 18-wheeler on your butt and he's screaming, "Which way do I turn?! Which way do I turn?!" and you're frantically searching for Too Small To Be On The Map Corners on your 1954 map for a road that doesn't exist anymore. Then you discover just how long you can go without speaking to each other once you finally haul your butts out of the ditch.

It's easy to understand why people enjoy traveling alone. When you're traveling alone and you get lost you can simply admit it and you don't have to keep driving with the other person saying every 10 minutes: "I'm sure it's just around the next corner, I remember from when my family came here when I was six weeks old."

Of course, alone, you don't get the benefits of having someone to cozy up with in rainy 36-degree Fahrenheit weather in a tent on an island out in the middle of a lake. And he has no one to protect him from the killer chipmunks. 

Have any great couple trip stories? Tips for making it work? Things to avoid?