I Went On A Trip With My Platonic Guy BFF & Now Our Friendship Is Stronger Than Ever

When you think of the best travel buddies, your family, significant other, or BFF likely immediately come to mind. I've traveled with every single one of those people in my life, but on my most recent trip, I decided to bring along someone else who's really special to me. Ryan is my guy best friend of over 10 years, and even though we've been friends for so long, until this past week, we never traveled together. So when I decided to go to Puerto Rico, Ryan was the first person I thought of. After this trip, I firmly believe that going on a trip with your guy best friend will make you closer than ever.

Our friendship is purely platonic (I'm in a very loving long-term relationship), but he's one of the closest people in my life. My parents consider Ryan to be part of our family, and the feeling is mutual on his end. We've done so much together. From performing on the same stage in high school, to taking on New York City, to coaching each other through relationships, there are few things we haven't crossed off of our friendship bucket list.

But now, we can finally say that we've gone somewhere special together. Our friendship is officially global, and so much better because of it.

We discovered that we're really good at traveling together.

You know how people sometimes say that they're good friends but not good roommates, or that they can hang out with someone but not spend too much time together? Ryan and I haven't spent an extended amount of time together since high school, but this trip proved that our friendship isn't negatively affected by being in close proximity to each other for a long time.

We never ran out of things to talk about, and better yet, didn't get on each other's nerves at all. My tendency to over-plan and stress out about details when I'm traveling was balanced out by his more easygoing, relaxed nature. It was great that we were able to keep each other in check.

Puerto Rico was the ultimate destination for us to have our first trip together.

Both Ryan and I are pretty adventurous people, and I think that Puerto Rico was the perfect setting for us to chase those thrills together. We tackled the "biggest [zip line] of the Americas," swam in a bioluminescent bay with glowing dinoflagellates, took a boat to Caja de Muertos (a beautiful, remote island), and experienced Carnaval de Ponce.

Being in Puerto Rico allowed us to embrace our adventurous spirits in a downright beautiful environment. We tried new foods and drinks, and even (kind of) learned how to salsa dance. One of the highlights of the trip was salsa dancing in the streets of La Parguera while a live band played in the center of town. We didn't even take any pictures, because we were having too much fun to stop and document the moment.

I am so glad that we got to travel together, and I can't wait until we have the chance to do it again.

My friendship with Ryan is so much stronger because of this trip. We learned more about each other, told each other things we hadn't been able to catch up on before, and spent some real quality time together, which hasn't happened in quite some time. Now I can add him to my list of people who I love to travel with, and I can't wait to see where our next adventure takes us.