We’ve taken our au pairs on some vacations and not on others. We have hosted for 7 years and probably taken them on more trips than not. Usually we have asked them if they want to come, a few times we have told them we need them to come. We are taking our current ap with us to Hawaii next week. She can’t wait.

I think it depends. When I was 20, I would have much preferred house to myself and paid time off. But my au pair is super close to her family and so I think really was looking for that type of bond. Her friends were the same. They actually genuinely would have loved to go to Disneyland or wherever with us to hang out. I’ve heard her talk about her friends being pretty disappointed and lonely when left behind for 1-2 weeks. It was pretty surprising to me!

Long time HM here and our answer is it depends. We have taken AP when we rent a beach house somewhere, when it’s great to have extra help so the kids could do different activities, and we could go out or have time to ourselves. We also try to give the AP time to herself to enjoy the area we are visiting. We generally don’t take AP to resorts or trips with with lots of excursions. APs have never seemed to mind not being included on these family trips as it’s more time off for them.

We always give our AP’s the option of joining us on our family vacation. We’ve had 3 Au pairs (who all extended with us, one for 2.5 years during COVID), and none of them have turned down our offer to join us on vacation (I’d actually prefer if they turned down the offer every now and again because adding a 2nd room gets to be very expensive , we stay in hotels). This does not include semi-local overnight trips to visit family.

Our family is known for pretty great vacations though. We are an ‘excursion’ heavy family, so most of our vacations are fun places with great excursions rather than staying at an air bnb for a beach week (just our preference).

I know that it’s not a requirement to take them with you, but we truly look at our Au pairs as members of our family, and it seems extremely rude to not give them the option to join us. If my 20 something niece or cousin lived with us, I would always offer her the option to join us on vacation, so it seems odd / rude that I would not extend that same opportunity for our Au pairs.

The Au pairs have always been helpful during the vacation (helping on flights, covering a date night, getting up with the kids one morning during the vacation so that we can sleep in), but the family vacations are also never counted as part of their vacation weeks.

US gov't regulations say that the au pair must be paid for every week she's here. Whether you take her with you or not she must be paid her stipend. They can technically leave the country if they are still within their first year as an au pair but with COVID restrictions and the bans on some entering the country over the last two years I think most agencies recommended not taking her in case rules changed while she was out of the country. Hopefully that's settling down now.

This is wild to me. We always take ours, and we say “we’d like you to work n hours during the trip.” Usually that is 10-20 hours, and includes time in airports and helping with travel (alongside us), and some date nights for us after the kids go to bed. They can join some day trips or meals, or do their own thing. We went to Disneyland with our AP in October and she spent one day with us in the park, one day by herself in the park (she paid for the ticket that day as we were not going), and then babysat one night so we could go out to the park alone. It was a great trip for everyone.

Anonymous wrote:Au Pairs hate traveling with families. We love paid time off and you out of the house.

I tried hard to get my Au pair to stay home - and she insisted on coming w us for Xmas - she’s been moderately helpful - but sleeps until 10 everyday haha

Anonymous wrote:We took one au pair to Costa Rica with us and another to Mexico and another au pair went to Mexico on vacation with friends. Who said they couldn’t leave the country? Is that new?

We ask the au pairs if they want to go on the big family vacation but not to babysit and they’ve all said yes. We don’t take them to visit our family and they usually don’t want to go on random weekend trips.

Second year as pairs can’t travel outside the US because they technically have an expired visa. We haven’t been able to take some first year at pairs to. Canada with us because they need a visa. It depends on their home country.

We took one au pair to Costa Rica with us and another to Mexico and another au pair went to Mexico on vacation with friends. Who said they couldn’t leave the country? Is that new?

We ask the au pairs if they want to go on the big family vacation but not to babysit and they’ve all said yes. We don’t take them to visit our family and they usually don’t want to go on random weekend trips.