We do a beach vacation every year with 2 other families in Nantucket for 8 days. We love it because our kids all play together on the beach and entertain each other. Then we only need 2 nannies to watch the kids while we go out at night.
The house is large enough to comfortably accommodate everyone and we are all comfortable with each other, but this is a special situation.

I don't like traveling with other families. You have to coordinate activities and end up doing things you don't want to do, or eating long meals instead of grabbing a sandwich on the run.

I have friends who never travel as a family. I find it odd. I travel with them for 1 vacation a year. I prefer to travel with just my nuclear family. We have a routine and are content just chilling on the beach. We don't have a need to sign up for every activity and tour.

Anonymous wrote:If I had to put numbers on it, I’d guess:
- 95% just my DH and kid
- 4% with my parents or ILs
- 1% with friends (like a girls trip, never with their families)

This!

A few times I have also organized a "meet up" vacation with friends (that also have kids) to meet someplace midway between where we each live so that we could visit each other. So have meals together and do activities together. But the real objective of the trip was to see each other and hang out together as an alternative to one of the families having to host or anyone having to travel too far.

We take at least 1 trip a year with our best friends. My high school best friend met DH's lifelong best friend at our wedding. They got married. Our older kids are 2 days apart in age and our younger kids are 2 weeks apart. They also live across the street. It's great! We usually rent a big house and each couple takes a date night or two, moms get a night out, dads get a night out. The kids basically entertain themselves.

Same! We are a family of 4 and we usually do combined trips only when 1) we are invited to someone’s vacation house 2) it’s with extended family 3) we’ve co-rented a beach house/ski house or 4) another family has joined us or met up with us wherever we decided to vacation. I can tell you honestly I don’t want to join forces on any vacations anymore. As we’ve all had more children having to tolerate other’s habits and their kids usually becomes quite annoying. Managing meals and reservations for others is annoying.

Some people don’t want to vacation alone because their own kids annoy them or demand too much. They are looking for entertainment or time away from their spouse. Frankly, I love my husband and kids most of the time and want to create memories WITH them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are headed to the Caribbean for a few days for spring break ( DH and 2 teens aged 13 & 15).

An extended family member asked us who are we going with and was surprised that it’s just the 4 of us. He asked “ what are you going to do , just the 4 of you? “

We’ve sometimes traveled with other families but I was too busy to plan the logistics with others this time and I honestly didn’t feel it was odd for just the 4 of us to go.

Do you usually travel with other families ?

Never.
And to me, it’s weird that he thinks that’s weird and that you felt you had to defend why you aren’t doing it “this time.”
I would have answered, “enjoy each others company and have a relaxing and adventurous vacation!”

+1

I have had to tell this to my MIL, who thinks it is positively dreadful to be "forced" to be together for vacations and snow days. Vacations are only for show. Clearly she was doing it wrong.

We always traveled alone. The planning for just our family was always intense and the idea of coordinating with another would just add stress. And having a week or ten days of just family time was always special helped by the fact that my kids are great friends. Finally, coordinating the daily activities of two or three families would drive me nuts.

We did once go to a Club Med with two other families and that was fun because they had a kids club and we never left the property.

Mostly on our own. Maybe a third of the time we meet up with other people while we're at our location for a part of the vacation.

It’s definitely not the norm to travel with a bunch of families and feels to me like it would happen more often for 1%ers or for DINK couples.

Family only. Honestly there's no one I'd like to travel with other than family. I want to relax and be able to be myself, and not be "on" all the time. If I want to yell at my kid I don't also want to be judged.

We've done it a couple of times but I don't like it because I never see my kids because they are with their friends. Which for me is NOT the point of a family vacation. But I think for some parents that is exactly the point so...

I've gotten the same comments as OP and it's funny because we often travel with the inlaws, but they mean other families. We've occasionally met other families and will do a few days/or dinner together but that's more of a coincidence to be in the same place/same time.

We've never traveled with friends and I can't imagine ever doing it. We do occasionally travel with the grandparents - like Disney or a cruise. I like the family bonding time and I think having others around would really change that - kids are 15 and 12, FYI.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are headed to the Caribbean for a few days for spring break ( DH and 2 teens aged 13 & 15).

An extended family member asked us who are we going with and was surprised that it’s just the 4 of us. He asked “ what are you going to do , just the 4 of you? “

We’ve sometimes traveled with other families but I was too busy to plan the logistics with others this time and I honestly didn’t feel it was odd for just the 4 of us to go.

Do you usually travel with other families ?

We travel for relaxation. It stresses me out to have other people with me. I want to be fancy free and footloose during travel and turning my direction without seeking a consensus.

+1

We much prefer vacationing by ourselves. We've done a mix of both in the past couple of years and it's exhausting going with other families, especially ones with younger children. Personalities/time/traveling style/finances differ and it's always a struggle to come to an agreement. Most of the time we end up taking care of other people's children because their parents were not paying attention, and losing out time with our own kids because they're older and more self-sufficient.