How to Survive a Road Trip With a Perceiver When You're a Judger

Planning a road trip with your opposite personality type? You’re going to need some tricks up your sleeve! Here’s how to survive a road trip with a Perceiver when you’re a Judger - and how to make sure you don’t fall out along the way.

Judging vs Perceiving personality types on holiday 

Judging vs Perceiving personality types, approach planning and holidays in completely different ways. Judgers like to carefully organize their environment. They look for structure in their lives and they value preparedness as one of their top priorities. 

At the opposite end of the spectrum are Perceivers who approach life with a flexible, free-spirited approach. They’re spontaneous individuals who are big believers in simply seeing where life takes them. Perceiving personality types don’t take things too seriously, they like to stay open to new experiences and have a carefree mindset.

When it comes to road-tripping, the Perceiver and the Judger will have very different ideas about how to set their schedule. For starters, the Judger will want a schedule and the Perceiver won’t. This can lead to serious conflict over where, when and how they travel. 

For Judgers, the trick to dealing with Perceivers is compromise and compartmentalizing. Here are 4 tips to help you master the art of being on the road with a Perceiver in your passenger seat.

1. Plan for what you can

If you’re traveling with a Perceiver who insists on following the open road and seeing where life takes them, you probably won’t be able to plan as much as you’d like. Things like hotels, restaurants and activities will be figured out along the way... but there are some things you can plan for. And as a Judger you should plan for them – if only to retain your sanity. 

The trick to planning around your Perceiver is to keep it small and contained. Settle your nerves and ease your itch to organize by planning for the immediate future and focusing on things you can immediately control such as:

• The car
• The snacks
• The playlist
• Your packing list

You may not know where you’ll stop along the way but you’ll know that you have enough water, treats and tunes to keep you going! Taking care of the small details can help give you peace of mind and allow you to embrace the spontaneity of your Perceiving travel companion. If you can focus on the little things you can let the big things go.

2. Choose a region where you feel comfortable 

For Judgers, a lot of the organizing and structuring urges come from the need to feel comfortable. To be relaxed, Judgers like to know what they’re doing and feel like they’re prepared for every eventuality. If you’re on a road trip with a Perceiver, you won’t be able to plan in the way you’re used to, which might make you feel nervous or stressed.

To counteract some of those negative feelings, it could help to choose a region where you feel more comfortable. A road trip through the Sahara might trigger anxiety but one through California will feel more manageable. If you can travel in a region where you know some things are taken care of – like the language, the food and access to shops and amenities, you might find it easier to let go of the other details of your trip. This can also help you avoid conflict between your Judging vs Perceiving personalities!

3. Take it in turns

The secret to getting along well for Judging vs Perceiving individuals stuck in the same car is to compromise. If you both have very different ideas about how your road trip is going to go, why not take it in turns to be the leader?

Try this: Day 1 you get to choose the route, the destination and the stopping points along the way. Day 2 you let your Perceiving companion take the reins. You could also do this method week-by-week, depending on how long you’ll be on the road. 

While it can be hard to relinquish control, you can rest a little bit easier knowing that at least some of the trip is plannable and under your control. Any Perceiver you’re with will also have to respect the compromise, so they can’t complain when you start organizing everything to the nth degree! This one is all about give and take.

4. Set a longer-range goal

Though it can be hard for Judgers to admit, part of the fun of road tripping is being spontaneous. If you’re a hardcore Judger personality type, you might struggle with this aspect so to counteract the need to plan, why not focus on the long term rather than the short term?

Try setting a final destination as a road trip goal and a clear time frame for how long it will take you. Then let everything else in between be part of the adventure! For instance, if you’re road tripping in Europe, try planning just the end of your trip. You could start in Switzerland and set yourself the goal of reaching Milan, Italy in just 14 days. Everywhere you go in between can be flexible but you have your final longer term plan in place. 

This method can help to give you some peace of mind if you’re a Judger while letting the Perceiver have their fun too. You know where you’ll end up, now let your Perceiving take the wheel to see how you’ll get there!

Don’t let Judging vs Perceiving get in the way of your trip

Ultimately, Judging vs Perceiving personality types will have very different ideas about how to approach a road trip. But at the end of the day, what matters is the experience. If you can both learn to compromise, meet in the middle and plan only what you need to, you can have a fantastic trip with minimal stress.

Are you looking to pin-point exactly what kinds of trips you and your Perceiving buddy will find most inspiring and fulfilling? Take our What’s Your Road Trip Personality quiz and find out!