We don't travel with other families. We both have stressful jobs, and we need our vacations to be as relaxing and enjoyable as our problems. A typical vacation is an all-inclusive river rafting trip in Idaho, a Caribbean resort, sometimes all-inclusive just so I don't have to think about reservations or a chartered boat, or a ski trip (often can coordinate to meet up with friends at the same place on ski week). I'm not renting a home with other people and their kids when the point is to relax and enjoy my family.
Our kids would enjoy vacationing with friends, but now they do summer camps with friends, so that is enough.

Anonymous wrote:We vacation every year with friends: 4-5 other families who we like* and our 10-12 kids (despite an 8 year spread) get along really well. We started doing it when the kids were young—everyone pitches in and there are no raging drunks among us. The wives are close friends. The husbands are friends because of us, but are friendly enough to do guys’ nights without us at other times during the year.

It helps that we are all fun and have similar parenting styles. We co-parent all the kids that week: If someone is being a little a$$hole we just correct them and move along. (No divorce for us…we’re just extroverts.)

*One couple got divorced and we couldn’t be more thrilled about not seeing him this summer.

We have friends who seem to have similar parenting styles but when you are in close quarters, you can see how different parenting styles are. There are some parents who seem fine with kids on screens all day so parents can just hang out. Others are very anti screen. Some people lax with sugar and junk food. Others very healthy eaters. I have never found a family whose sleep schedules all line up. We are early risers and active. There are others who sleep in until noon and want to drink all night.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would never travel and stay in the same house with a gluten free by choice family. Way too high maintenance.

This lady is so annoying. If she just ate gluten free and quiet about it, it would be fine but she has this preachy tone and also delayed every meal.

I have another friend who also makes every meal about her gluten free diet. Also quite annoying. It will be someone else’s birthday and she will be the one dominating and picking restaurants with gluten free menu.

Does she poop out gluten free 💩

I have learned to not vacation with others unless they are easygoing, flexible, pitch in with helping, are not cheap, enjoy same activities, don't drink too much, and don't have to do everything together 24/7.

This leaves a small number of people but when it works, it is awesome.

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:We do this once a year. The other 3 families are families where we spend a lot of time around each other. We know what to expect with everyone involved. I would never do it with people I didn't know well or that already annoyed me.

I’m actually annoyed that the friend invited the two extra families. DH thinks I’m not flexible. He thinks it was a grand old time. He had a great time with the guys drinking all night.

well next time let him go alone with the kids and you stay at home. let him see how fun it was without you to do all the work.

We vacation every year with friends: 4-5 other families who we like* and our 10-12 kids (despite an 8 year spread) get along really well. We started doing it when the kids were young—everyone pitches in and there are no raging drunks among us. The wives are close friends. The husbands are friends because of us, but are friendly enough to do guys’ nights without us at other times during the year.

It helps that we are all fun and have similar parenting styles. We co-parent all the kids that week: If someone is being a little a$$hole we just correct them and move along. (No divorce for us…we’re just extroverts.)

*One couple got divorced and we couldn’t be more thrilled about not seeing him this summer.

We did a beach house w my parents, siblings and their spouses and kids one year. I’ll never do it again. And that was w family. I’d never attempt it w friends, especially ones you don’t know well! Our trip was annoying and not relaxing. Different parenting styles, different wake/sleep schedules, different ideas of how meals should be done, different expectations for the activities for the week (my spouse and kids and I just wanted to go to the beach and pool every day while others preferred different activities. Fine, right? But no because they expected us to go play mini golf or whatever w them and got annoyed w us that all we wanted to do was go to the pool or beach), etc.

Even with separate accommodations, it can still be a disaster. Many years ago, we would vacation with other families because we had an only child and it was more fun for them to have friends to play with.

When DC was 6, we vacationed with a family with twins the same age. We arranged to stay at the same resort, with separate accommodations. I spoke to the other family at length about how we liked to vacation: because we were both working full time, we really liked to decompress/do nothing on vacation except hang by the pool, go to the beach, and recharge (thus the resort). They said, "We're the same!" 👍

Except they weren't. As soon as we arrived, they booked excursions - sailing, snorkeling, parasailing (yes, with six-year-olds). They signed up for at least 2 excursions per day. So DC couldn't hang with his friends unless we committed to an expensive (and sometimes dangerous) excursion. And they invited us every time. I kept saying "no thanks" but DH was getting caught up in the "keeping up with the Joneses" mode and we fought the whole vacation.

Net, we don't travel with other families anymore. But thankfully we're still married.

Anonymous wrote:I don't do beach vacations with others. Not my jam

+1

Enjoy meeting up with others if we're the same beach area for time on the beach, getting crabs, grilling, drinks, etc. but the managing of early and late risers, others' kids, families who bring/buy things vs. the "users and takers" is just not my idea of a vacation.

Anonymous wrote:Wasn’t there a post on here several years ago about one sign a couple will divorce is always needing to vacation with another family?

This has been true IME.

I would never even consider vacationing with another family unless they had a separate vacation house. It's a recipe for disaster.

We do a beach vacation every year with my parents, siblings and their spouses, and then all the kids (each couple has 2 kids). It works out really well for the kids and each couple can take date nights. It’s not a luxury vacation and we do a 2-3 big group dinners per week but we don’t otherwise force too much full-group activity.

I’d love to vacation with our closest couple friends and their kids also but my husband can only handle one vacation of that sort per year and I get it.

So everyone ELSE was annoying OP? Hmmm

Anonymous wrote:I don't do beach vacations with others. Not my jam

This. We rent a house for our family. We have a family house in the mountains with a guest house. We’ve had friends up and had those friends stay at the guest house. We normally hike together and have dinner together but everything else is pretty separate.

I think the other issue is just traveling with people. You don't know that well, I think inevitably you're going to learn a lot of new things about your friends when you're with them for 24 hours a day. I would only want to do that with people I really know and trust.