Anonymous wrote:I don't know anyone with minor children who travels with other families, OP. We all travel with our nuclear families. I do know older relatives who occasionally travel with their friends, since their kids are grown and working.

+1 The only thing we've done with friends is visit one who has a beach house for a weekend. Our only travel that's not just nuclear family is an annual trip with my siblings and their families + my mom. We pick a big rental house in a place we all want to visit and meet up there for a week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we're relaxing like at the beach or camping, we go with a set of friends so close they are "family". But when we vacation at a destination spot where we're sight seeing I like it to be just the 4 of us because I'm very much a cruise director and I want to be the one in charge of where we're going when not trying to negotiate with friends on that.

m

+1 to me being the cruise director

Honestly, over 3 nights and I don’t want to hang with anyone that I don’t live with.

+1

I will say that as your kids get into their older teens, it’s more fun for them to hang out with their peers than their parents. But I agree that it really works best to do this on beach vacations and only if you know that your families all get along.

We do a ski trip with friends and their kids once a year. It’s a long weekend over President’s Day so it’s easy. I have been forced to do long trips with my in-laws which was fine when the kids were young but I don’t want to do them anymore. Trying to break the expectation is difficult. I won’t do anything longer than a weekend with another family though. Not enjoyable.

Our parents both live in resort destinations so if we are staying with them, we are obviously not alone. We have traveled a few times with my sister and family but only for shorter 3-4 day trips. It's fine, but I prefer when its just the four of us. I always end up being the planner of the group and its exhausting.

Vacationing with other families sounds awful to me. I would rather bring along a friend for each kid (and have done that) than to have to deal with the logistics of two families. I also like to just chill on vacation so the thought of having to look presentable at all times on a vacation is a no-go for me.

Anonymous wrote:I prefer traveling along. I would have to be VERY comfortable with another family to go on a vacation for more than 2-3 nights. That is a lot of togetherness.

Also depends on how you do it. Sharing a house together can be pretty different than each getting a hotel/apartment a few blocks apart.

Anonymous wrote:If we're relaxing like at the beach or camping, we go with a set of friends so close they are "family". But when we vacation at a destination spot where we're sight seeing I like it to be just the 4 of us because I'm very much a cruise director and I want to be the one in charge of where we're going when not trying to negotiate with friends on that.

m

+1 to me being the cruise director

Honestly, over 3 nights and I don’t want to hang with anyone that I don’t live with.

50/50

When we go with friends, it is usually friends who live far away and we use it as a good way to see each other (college friends, etc).

If we're relaxing like at the beach or camping, we go with a set of friends so close they are "family". But when we vacation at a destination spot where we're sight seeing I like it to be just the 4 of us because I'm very much a cruise director and I want to be the one in charge of where we're going when not trying to negotiate with friends on that.

Traveling with other families sounds exhausting! It's hard enough to manage MY family and get them to agree on stuff, much less another family! Not sure how people do it (or why they do it).

Your relative is the weird one, OP.

If we're going on an easy beach vacation, sure it's fun to hang out with other families. We've done it with friends at Rehoboth and relatives at AIs in the Caribbean.

Any other types of vacation, it's just the four of us. We do things that we want to do, see sights we want to see, and go at a pace that suits us without having to incorporate other people's preferences.

Definitely traveling alone without other friends or extended family. I think especially with kids everyone has a diff schedule, preferences, etc.

I prefer traveling along. I would have to be VERY comfortable with another family to go on a vacation for more than 2-3 nights. That is a lot of togetherness.

The answer to “what are you going to do” would be, hang with my family. We enjoy being together as a family so rarely include others. My mom used to travel with us. And I am planing a long weekend with my brother and his crew. But that’s it.

We do long weekend / driving distance trips with friends 1-2x a year but our "big" vacations - spring break, summer, etc are just us. It's just too much money, time, logistics etc to have to compromise with another family on those, no matter how much we love them.