Would you rather travel with immediate family or with friends?

[Anonymous]

I feel like we are always compromising when traveling with friends. We cater to their dates, their budgets, their schedules, their food preferences. We then spend very little or no quality family time together. The kids hang out. The moms hang out. The dads hang out. Of course we also hang out altogether.

Just curious if you prefer to travel alone or with others.

[Anonymous]

Immediate family. But I'm an introvert and uncomfortable with ambiguity and group decision-making so it's just mentally easier for me to go with my family where we know what we like to do and each other's vacation style vs. playing the "what do you want to do today?" "where should we go for dinner?" game for days at time.

Group trips sound fun in theory, but just really press some buttons for me.

[Anonymous]

I despise traveling with other people.

[Anonymous]

I only ever travel with my immediate family. I would enjoy a friend trip. Just a couple adventurous girlfriends though… not a “crew” that sits at a resort.

[Anonymous]

Family only. Combining families is too complicated - people are rarely on the same page with the level of activity, food, money, space...

[Anonymous]

I would never willingly travel with friends. We're very good friends, but we don't necessarily like the same things all the time.

It's just my nuclear family for travel.

[Anonymous]

I will travel with my best friend. Beyond that, I travel solo.

[Anonymous]

Totally depends on the type of trip. We did a beach trip with two other families and it was way more fun than when it was just our family. All the kids played together on the beach and at the house vs my kids just constantly fighting with each other. The parents took turns making meals and snacks and sending one person out to the store to grab things while there were still lots of adults at home. There was lots of relaxing and hanging out together and helping with bedtime.

Our trip to a city with another family was not as successful. It required a lot more planning which was difficult emailing back and forth vs just DH and I having one conversation and nailing it all down- we needed to make some restaurant reservations because we were a bigger group, we had to buy tickets to things we wanted to do - a show, museums needed set times etc. It was just tricky trying to find a balance of each family doing things they wanted and then doing some things together. It was still fun - the kids liked hanging out and the mom’s/dad’s each had a night out, but it would have been a lot logistically easier just with our family.

[Anonymous]

Before kids, it was really fun to travel with friends. We did with a group of 8 and then again a group of 6, internationally. We were together 80% of the time, and branched out and did our own thing too. It was honestly a blast.

After kids, the logistics just got exponentially harder. We still do beach trips with friends, but only for a few days because then it gets tedious.

[Anonymous]

We vacation with friends all of the time and it’s great. We have an extroverted only child and are easy going people in general, and are lucky to have multiple families we are close friends with. The only trips I prefer to do with just our family is international travel. Sleep and food challenges are hard to coordinate with more people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would never willingly travel with friends. We're very good friends, but we don't necessarily like the same things all the time.

It's just my nuclear family for travel.

+1

[Anonymous]

My nuclear family only, and occasionally friend trips with friends I know well. Negotiating food, budget, restaurants, etc with another family is stressful for me.

[Anonymous]

My immediate family only.

[Anonymous]

I only vacation with friends that are easygoing. It doesn't work if you with people that are super inflexible and need to do things their way; it's good to meet up for some things and have down time too. I have vacationed a few times with family and find myself getting annoyed at being on their schedule as they have a set agenda with what they do and aren't into taking suggestions.

[Anonymous]

I’ve never travelled with either. I have no siblings and my spouse has a younger sibling he doesn’t speak to simply as their ages, personalities, and interests do not align. I’d love to be a part of one of those large family groups that vacation together and cook together.