Are you expected to provide housing during your au pair's travel month?

[Anonymous]

Our au pair's last day of work is in early August and she has her travel month during the month of August. Our new au pair is arriving the week after her last work day. It just ocurred to me that our au pair hasn't mentioned anything about actually traveling in August and in fact may be thinking she is going to stay with us during her travel month. She's been a good au pair and I certainly don't want to kick her out, but we'll need the room for our next au pair and would prefer to have a clean break from our current to our second so that we can focus on developing our relationship with our new au pair. Any experienced host families that can tell me what generally happens during the travel month? Do au pairs assume they can stay with you that month?

[Anonymous]

I would position it as "So, are you planning to to home in the beginning of August or are you going to travel for the month?"

I am all about opening my home to my au pair for extra time but if you have somone else coming in I totally get the need to get a clean break between au pairs. I think it's best, personally.

[Anonymous]

I'll add that I had one au pair decide not to travel for her travel month but stay with us. I delayed the arrival of the next au pair and she "volunteered to help out" and I "gave her a nice tip."

[Anonymous]

We had this issue and I talked to our LCC. She gently suggested to our AP we may be wanting to develop a relationship with our new AP and that we may not have space. AP chose to stay with a friend for the couple of days between traveling and going home.

[Anonymous]

We took the opposite approach when our new AP arrived but we had the room.....old AP did not travel, but moved into the guest room for the month. New AP got the AP room (which has its own bath) so she could get settled, but old AP did a lot of work to get new AP setttled in. It worked well for us, but I understand that if you don't have the room it could be a challenge. I would do as the pp said and get the LCC involved. Maybe you could offer that she could stay on the couch for a week or so?