Friend group trips can be absolutely magical- all the kids are playing together, and we get to hang out with our friends too! But if you don’t have the right combination of people and type of trip, it can be really hard, and nobody wants that on a vacation. We have traveled in the US and internationally with different friends and have loved it so much. Here’s the things that have worked for us to create those incredible memories and trips with friends:
THE TYPE OF TRIP MATTERS: What is each family’s normal travel style? Does a family want to “go go go” or do they want to sit and relax? I’ve found with friend trips it’s easier to have a more relaxing, chill trip, especially to start out with. This is helpful if kids have a hard day and just need a break.
SCHEDULE STYLE: I suggest only traveling with friends who you match up with as far as planning goes. For example, we like to be very go with the flow on trips with kids, so traveling with someone who is very uptight about schedules just won’t work for us. The trips that have worked best for our friends and us are ones where we loosely plan out each day’s activities before the trip, and as we go, we adjust it and change things as needed.
PERSONALITIES MATTER: Make sure personalities mesh! Sometimes you can have great friends but if everyone doesn’t have the same travel style a trip can become really stressful really fast. We like to travel with friends who we know our kids get along with for long periods of time.
SCHEDULE DOWN TIME: This is so important on friend trips. Especially for kids to unwind and just have some quiet time by themselves. Sometimes we do this where each family does their own thing for one of the days just as a “family day” on the trip. And other times its as simple as on the way to an activity, each family drives together in their own car (kids don’t swap cars with their friends) so that each family just has a little drive to relax and reset. The most important part of this is that every family is ok with this and has this same mentality of “reset time” going into a trip and respects that if one family needs that for the day.
DON’T FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING TOGETHER: There’s been times where some of the kids wanted to stay at the resort water park for the day, and some wanted to go to an animal encounter. No big deal, we like to leave the day flexible, so whoever wanted to go see the animals did, and some of us stayed back at the resort. My baby got to nap longer that day, and the kids played at the water park. Being flexible and splitting up for some of the day as needed is the best way to go.
EVERY FAMILY PITCHES IN: Friend trips only work if you have these expectations set before you go. We usually plan how we will do food for the trip- each family takes one day of meals to plan and you’re in charge of that day’s food and cleaning up. We’ve also done it where one family takes different meals each day. And then we have a few days going out to eat. We all bring snacks to share, or someone goes and does all the shopping and everyone chips in. Do it however works best for your families, but make sure it’s decided before. As far as pitching in around the house, we usually have either the moms do bedtime for their families while the dads do the cleaning up, or vice versa. It’s much more fun to do it with your friends. The biggest thing here is if you’re worried about this part of a friend trip, send the friends a text and just have the expectations planned out before you go.
BRING ACTIVITIES: Plan this out before, but I think it’s great when each family brings one or two activities or games for all the kids to do together. Then, during your down time each day, any kids that want to do that craft or game for the day can participate. Each family contributes.
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN PICKING FRIENDS FOR A TRIP: These are all things that I think are really helpful to consider when you’re trying to decide if friends match up with your family for a trip together:
- Do they have kids similar ages that your kids like playing with?
- Spending habits- is everyone on the same page as far as type of place you’re staying, excursions you want to do, budget, etc.? Be willing to adjust to whoever has the lowest spending habits. If that won’t work for you, that might not be the best match of friends to travel with
- Does one family like to spend a lot at each place you stop and you don’t? Will buying souvenirs or having to say no to your kids when another family buys things be hard? This might not be a big deal for some families, but if you know it will be hard for your kids, maybe think ahead for how to handle that
- Sleeping habits- if some kids stay up super late and some need to go to bed early, it can be hard to get everyone to sleep at the time they need
- Waking up- is everyone a “get up and go” type of person or does one family like to not get started until the afternoon?
Friend trips can be so fun! The best thing to do is to plan before, and go into the trip with an easygoing mindset and be ok when things change. And even If there are times when things feel more stressful, I’ve always found that just taking a minute to yourself to reset majorly helps. We’ve made some incredible memories traveling with friends on trips and love our friend trips!