"Shell Yes or Shell No: The Friend/ Family Vacation"

Contemplating a vacation with friends and their kids? Before you pack those bags, let's talk about the delicate art of friend-family travel. In this candid conversation, we dive into what makes group vacations work - or spectacularly fail, lol!

From finding your "unicorn family" (those magical people where all husbands, wives, AND children somehow get along perfectly) to navigating the practical realities of different morning routines, budgets, and parenting styles, we break down the essential compatibility factors that many people overlook until they're sharing a beach house or a cabin.

You definitely want to check out our social media during the week of this episode's release, as Sarah will be doing live updates on how her first "Friend/Family Trip" is going!

Please be sure to checkout our website for previous episodes, our psych-approved resource page, and connect with us on social media! All this and more at www.thelylaspodcast.com

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:13

happy monday woof, I say wolf, it's like re-entry day for me, uh. So yeah, it's the monday of all mondays right now.

Speaker 2 0:22

How you feeling it's oh great, we're Mondays right now. How are you feeling? Great, we're going to use the word great.

Speaker 1 0:28

You're manifesting greatness on this Monday. Is that what I'm hearing?

Speaker 2 0:32

Yeah, yeah, totally trying to work on manifesting greatness, that's a great idea. We should be doing that on Mondays. We should probably be doing it every day, but today that's what I'm working on at the moment, so there we are.

Speaker 1 0:41

I mean, I typically say Monday sets the tone for the whole week and so I really try to like go hard on Monday. But coming off of two spring break vacations, it just an Easter and I've got my kid's birthday on the horizon that I need to plan in the next two weeks. You know it just it feels. It feels hard today, but I also thrive in routine and so I was really looking forward to like just getting back in my routine like my workout, my meditation.

Speaker 1 1:08

I do all those things on vacation. But it's not the same as, like when you have to get stuff done by a certain time, you know, so that you can get started on work and then have that to focus on. Like I just really honestly kind of missed the routine of it all, which is the point of vacation, right, honestly kind of missed the routine of it all, which is the point of vacation right, to sort of get away and let your hair down a little bit. But I also just know myself well enough to know I'm just a better human when I have like sort of like things I have to get done during the week.

Planning a Friend-Family Vacation

Speaker 2 1:37

Yeah, it feels like I'm a better human. Right, right. Right, the structure is always super beneficial. But, like what you're talking about, most of us right now are, you know, schools winding down, we're getting ready to plan those summer trips or vacations, maybe trying to throw in a few little, you know, weekender kind of things. And you know we love to travel. It's a part of our life.

Speaker 2 2:01

Two of our really good friends who we enjoy traveling with um as a couple so aaron and danielle, who are also listeners of the show huge shout out to you guys. Um, both listeners appreciate that, aaron, um, but we love hanging out with them. We go on weekend trips with them our dogs, our besties and kind of go along too. But we have never done like the friend trip, with the family trip, and you just got off with a huge one. We have this thing planned and even though we have this thing planned, I'm sitting here thinking like, should we be doing this? Like could this thing break up our friendships and our family? Like could all hell break loose? You know, could it all be great? Is it going to strengthen this kind of fun bond that we all have with each other? Like there's a lot of stuff that can happen and go on with this and I think, as our kids get a little older, and especially, you know, with Rachel. She's not an only child technically, but is because her brother's 21.

Speaker 1 3:04

You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 3:04

He's not going to be wanting to play roadblocks or whatever the hell that is, and so with her, we want her to have fun and to be around other kids, because she just likes all this social like, she thrives off of social interaction, and so our only option is to like, wrangle our friends and their kids into like are forcing almost our kids to be friends into this like thing, and so you know, here we are, here we are. So kids are going to right. They have two kids and we're bringing ours, and they have a boy and a girl, split ages.

Speaker 2 3:41

So, it's not overwhelming, but it's also like the tragic number of three, which is not great.

Managing Group Travel Dynamics

Speaker 1 3:49

Yeah, and that is hard, I will say so. Sarah's referencing we just went on a spring break vacation with um three other families and then we had um another spring break vacation with our family and extended family. So, like the cousins were together my husband and his brother and his wife, and then my mother and father-in-law. So we I like as I'm listening to you talk, I'm like I feel like most vacations we go on, we do it in tandem with someone. Whether it's like my side of the family, jeff's side of the family, when we go to Europe, we have a couple we travel with Um and then we do a lot of like mini vacays with what we call our unicorn family, which is um, uh, a term that I'm stealing, that I saw on social media, but it's basically like those families where all the husbands get along, all the wives get along and all the kids love each other and entertain each other, right, like those people that like everybody's happy because everybody's got their somebody, um, or their group of people that they can really um jive with during a vacation, um, and so I I feel like we are pretty good at this at this point because we've had so much practice. However, it it still always presents some sort of challenge. Um, because you're trying to organize large groups of people. There were 15 people on this last vacation that we went on, and so, when you think about not only driving eight hours away and trying to take everything with you you could possibly want for the week, you've also got 15 different personalities in play and the kids are getting older, which is interesting too. That's one thing that we were talking about. When they were babies and toddlers and even like up to like five, six year olds, you know, everybody played with everybody and, um, and now my son is the only boy above the age seven and and then it's all girls. There's one other boy in this group, but he is my daughter's age, he's six, and so, you know, there's that natural like well, I don't want to hang out with somebody my little sister's age, and so like that whole dynamic was new for us this year because the tweens and the teen, you know, are kind of like distancing themselves from the younger kids and the younger kids all still play together. But it is this weird dynamic. But, um, yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 6:12

It can be challenging, but I think anything can be and what I have learned and what I was kind of saying to you earlier is that you have to decide like there's going to be things that like annoy you anytime, I don't care who you're on vacation with your own family is going to annoy you at some point. Um, you're going to get annoyed by stuff and you have to decide like, is this really worth? Like making it a bigger deal, or is it really worth? Like you know, sometimes it's like maybe I just need a timeout in my room for an hour to take a nap, or maybe I need to like go shopping and do something for myself.

Speaker 1 6:48

Um, you know, maybe I don't feel like drinking today, like I can only drink so many days in a row before I literally feel like my liver is gonna jump out and punch me in the face. Um, and so, you know, one thing I always do for myself is I work out. I don't care where I'm at, I will find the gym or I will go for long walks, but like that's one thing that I do for myself every time to keep my head in the game and like not get you know, realize like, oh, that annoyed me last night, but it's also probably because I was four drinks deep at that point.

Speaker 1 7:21

Right, you know right Like you have to have some self-reflection in those moments. It's not all about you. You got 15 people sitting at the table.

Speaker 2 7:31

I could not. I know, whenever you said 15, I was nearly dying. I mean, with us it's. The total that we're going to have is six, and so that sounds really good, I think, six manageable seven, seven Sorry, and so, yeah, it is going to be manageable. Like I said, jeff and I and you brought up a good point you guys do do a whole lot of like family vacations, friend vacations, couple vacations. Jeff and I go most places, just the two of us we go on family trips with the kids like once, maybe twice a year.

Speaker 2 8:02

We'll do little things with them on weekends, but the majority of the time as one of the blessings of having a blended family and older kids we do it by ourselves, and so the couple that we actually travel the most with is the couple that's going to be coming on this trip with us, and so that makes it already easier, because we spend a lot of time with them when we go places and they're super fun. Plus, in all fairness, they've seen our crazy. You've seen Air Crazy.

Speaker 1 8:30

They know what they're getting into.

Kids and Vacation Logistics

Speaker 2 8:33

God bless them. They agreed and here we are. I think that's a big piece of it too is that whenever you're going with people, like you said, it's almost like, well we know, at some point there's probably going to be a wheel that's going to come off this wagon or there's going to be some level of a shit show. So here we go, but in doing so, I think that that just carries some level of like, I don't know, it takes a little edge off of it and some acceptance to it and then allows, you know, some breathability. Maybe within that, like you know, you just have some of these fair um points of awareness. I won, you just have some of these fair points of awareness. I won't say expectations, but there's some fair points of awareness that may make it even easier, hopefully throughout the rest of it too.

Speaker 1 9:18

So yeah, and I think it's important to think about not just people that you like and to hang out. There's plenty of people that I love hanging out with, we have dear friends, but I wouldn't travel with all those people because, like well, I guess it would depend on where we were going. But when I think about our friends that we traveled to Europe with, it works so well, not only because, you know, she and I get along so well and our husbands have been dear friends for a long time I mean, we've all known each other almost 20 years at this point but it's also like we can get ready in 10 minutes. You know, I don't necessarily want to travel with somebody that takes an hour to get ready, cause I don't like to sit around and wait on people and a lot of times we don't have plans. We are not. You know, I am not my mother-in-law. You know she books our reservations months in advance. You know she already knows, like our, she probably already knows where we're eating next time we go to the Bahamas. Like she, she's so good about doing things like months in advance. It's like, okay, we have dinner at this time and this time and this time at this place. She has it all worked out, Whereas like we just roll with it, like we never have reservations, and so that's the type of things you might not think about.

Speaker 1 10:24

But like, if you're going to do a big trip with somebody, it really needs to be somebody that you're very similar with in those types of ways, like somebody that can get ready quickly. That doesn't you know, doesn't have to say you know I I say all the time like we'd love to travel with y'all, but we can't afford the hotels you all stay in. Like I would love to go on a trip with Sarah and Jeff, but you know what they stay in at the Ritz Carlton and I'm over here at the Holiday Inn. Like it's just, you also need to kind of be with people that have similar expectations, right? Or that can maybe just afford the same things, right? If you you know not to say that we don't go out to nice dinners, but you have to be sort of mindful about those types of things too.

Speaker 1 11:13

Those are like little things that I have found that make traveling with people so much easier if you're on like a similar budget, and for me, the like getting ready is a big thing, like I also don't want to sleep in until 10 o'clock. I want to get up and get going early and, like, make the most of every minute that we have somewhere, and so that's always. You know this group that we were just with they tend to sleep in a little bit more, or you know more than we do. We are very early risers in our family and so, like I use that opportunity to hit the gym and go for a long walk and meditate extra. You know, an extra 10 minutes. Like it doesn't always line up perfectly, but you can find ways to really help it mesh if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 11:51

It does and you bring up another good point too is you and Jeff are both morning people.

Speaker 1 11:56

Me and my.

Speaker 2 11:57

Jeff are opposites I'm morning and he's night, so this couple that we're going with it's also opposites for them. So he's morning and she's night, and so Aaron and I are like always, we're always like up, ready to go, let's go have breakfast. You know kind of people and the two of them really like to like have their morning, like they're sleeping in, chilling out kind of a thing. And so even with that kind of mixed dynamic, it still works because there's two of us. That just you know, that's naturally kind of what we do, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just finding that rhythm and flow with it, for sure, and then adding the element of kids to it too.

Speaker 1 12:34

I mean, you know and we've talked about this before but like a vacation with kids is not relaxing. There's nothing. I don't, I mean maybe teenagers I don't know, I'm not there yet but like there's still a lot of like need to make sure they have sunscreen on. If you're going someplace warm and that you've got you know all of their, all the things they're going to need, you have to feed them three times a day.

Speaker 1 12:59

Like going on a vacation with my kids versus going on a vacation, my husband is so different, right, it's like how many cappuccinos can we drink? And is so different, right, it's like how many cappuccinos can we drink? And like you know, it's just such a different vibe. How many different places can we see? But with kids, like, they don't really want to necessarily like see all the sites, and at least my kids at this age, they want to spend all day at the pool, or they want to go to the beach, or they want to go play laser tag, and so I think, too, you know, like getting your mind right before you go on a vacation with your kids is important, because it really is about making memories with them and not so much about like right, what you want to do you know, that's.

Speaker 1 13:42

That's my take on that.

Speaker 2 13:44

Yeah, definitely, I know that. Um, it is, it's a, it's a reset of our own kind of again I want to use the word expectations, but I don't like that word ideas about the trip coming up Like this is not us going to be able, we're not doing what we want on this trip. Let's go ahead and establish that for the majority of the time, you know, this isn't us, you know, jumping over the pond, this is us, you know, going to a beach, whatever it happens to be, this is us doing this with them, for them, and then we'll go reset and do our own thing and that I think is helpful. And then just kind of, you know, I think it just takes rolling with the day a little bit easier, just like, yeah, I'm schedules, eating schedules, what foods, and stuff like that I mean, there's a lot of differences between families whenever it comes to that and then just kind of, maybe loosening up some of that grip during those times is probably helpful.

Planning vs. Winging It

Speaker 1 14:42

For sure. I think for us too, like we tend to cause, we, like I said, this unicorn family. We've done several different types of like weekend trips or things like that, and we tend to have like one person that or we'll kind of all just jump in and say, okay, I'm bringing this activity for the kids to do at night, or this, you know, the kids can decorate cups or they can like make bracelets, or you know, we try to have like we all try to bring something to the table. We also each did like a specialty cocktail. So we still try to make it fun for us to as adults, where each couple like came up with a specialty cocktail and each day we tried like a different specialty cocktail. Right, and like that's still a way for us to feel like it's an adult vacation on some level, yeah, but also like still kept our kids entertained. We also, you know we'll switch off and all the women will go do something and the men will stay behind and keep the kids and then we'll flip flop, um, so we just try to like try to weave in ways to still like really have fun with your adult friends and not just it be like a 100% kid vacation, but it all takes everybody like being a willing participant of that as well.

Speaker 1 15:56

And if you're a new mom with a baby, that's obviously going to be a lot harder because a lot of times babies, you know, don't really want to separate from mom or they might, you know, have to feed them every so few hours or whatever. So, you know, I think it depends on what age range your kids are in. But we're sort of in the sweet spot right now in many ways as far as, like, your kids don't really need you. You're not constantly making sure that they're not dying, but you do need to make sure they have everything like sunscreen and a hat and like toys to play with. And you know, if they're going in the ocean, somebody who's got eyes on them and we've looked at, assess like the rip current. If they're going in the ocean, somebody who's got eyes on them and we've looked at, assess like the rip current, like that kind of stuff. We were always right.

Speaker 1 16:34

You still have to parent the day and make sure they're fed and drinking some sort of water, but it is not as hard as it used to be when they were little little.

Speaker 2 16:47

Yeah, I think in some ways it probably takes some pressure off, especially if you're only parent parents or only child parents, because whenever you have one kid they are constantly love their heart like jabber, jawing you nonstop.

Speaker 2 17:05

Like it's not, you know, they don't even mean to. They're just, we're social people, we're social animals, and this is just kind of what happened to. They're just, we're social people, we're social animals, and this is just kind of what happened. So some days Rachel will just be all like the only person she sees in the world is me and she is just talking, talking, talking the entire time, and then some days it's her dad, and so to have other people that can like share that load with, I think would be you know a nice added like bonus of doing like a friend family kind of trip with it.

Speaker 1 17:36

I think, especially if you are an only child family, like what a great opportunity for them to go on a vacation and have a bunch of kids around If you don't have cousins or you know like family that you travel with. I think it just it did make me think about her and like, oh, this is great for her too. Right, I think it's always it's good for all the kids to have different interactions and and quite honestly, like I finally just looked at Jack when he was like I wish there was another boy here I'm like go make a friend. There's kids in the pool, go make friends with them. Um, you know, sometimes they don't only have to hang out with the kids that you're with. They can, you know, make friends with other people.

Speaker 1 18:11

My brother was like notorious for that. When we went on vacation he didn't want to play with his little sister. He'd immediately make a friend, where, the minute we stepped foot in Myrtle beach, he had a new friend, um, and so I think that, um, it's just, I think it's good for kids to to have those, um types of vacations there you go, there you go.

Speaker 2 18:36

So, yeah, I think, I think, now that we're approaching all of this, I think it's all going to be really fine and fun and again, we really like the couple, a whole bunch, and their kids are sweet and we think Rachel's been dying to do something like this. But it is a big leap. It is a. It is a big. It doesn't seem like it should be but it is.

Speaker 1 18:54

Well, it is, is, I think it is. I think traveling with people is like you really get to know people when you travel with them, and I've traveled with friends in the past that you know it was okay experience, but maybe not like the best experiences, um, and you learn from those of like okay, I mean in general, like there's usually one person in the group that's the organizer and is gonna like take the reins, and I feel like that's important to like if you have two organizers in a group, like designate somebody and like just step back. I'm I am not the organizer, and so I'm always more than happy to step back and be like you tell me when to show up and what to do, and maybe it's nobody you know, yeah, it could be, it could be nobody honestly.

Speaker 2 19:31

I mean, we'll have like a few things maybe kind of planned out, but most of the time, like when we go places with them, it's just so easy going that we just kind of wing all of it, and I think that might be what ends up happening with this too, is it's just going to be more of a winging kind of process.

Speaker 1 19:47

I think those are the best ways to travel. I mean, I've had the most amazing experiences that way. Now, God, I love my mother-in-law. She is, you know, like. I'll tell anybody I hit the jackpot with them just because she's. They're lovely, lovely people, but she plans everything right Like we. We have an agenda you know, and but we also have, you know, a toddler in the family and like, if you don't eat dinner by six o'clock, like it's going to turn into a disaster pretty quickly and so she has to play.

Speaker 1 20:18

As the kids get older. She may not, you know, may not always have like five, thirty, six o'clock dinner reservations, but right now, like we need that in order for us to all be able to sit down and enjoy a dinner together. And she did that when my kids were little, you know, and so I think also, too, did I always want to eat dinner at five, 30 or six? Not necessarily, I love golden hour on the beach, right. However, I can also realize that, like this is about us being together as a family, as an extended family, and so like that's a necessary thing.

Speaker 1 20:50

Like to have reservations and to make sure that, like it's within like his timeframe, because he goes to bed earlier, he's a toddler, um, whereas, like when you're out with a bunch of friends or you know, when we're in Europe or whatever, if we don't eat till nine o'clock, we don't eat till nine o'clock, we can handle that. We'll get an appetizer and roll on to the next place. And so I personally love the unplanned, but I see the need for the planned. If you have young children, like that's super important. Or somebody that is a diabetic that has to eat, you know regular meals, like I, you know, a lot of times I think she does it for my father-in-law too, because he has pretty regimented, like you know. He needs to eat by a certain time, um, and that's okay. You just have to know, sort of again, who you're traveling with, right.

Speaker 2 21:38

Right, yeah, and I think that that just comes down to being key is who you traveling with. How do you feel like this dynamic is going to go? Have you been places, even if it's just out to eat with the other couple and their kids before? And I mean you can be adult friends and don't have to be like friends, you know, with their kids or with anything else.

Speaker 2 21:57

I mean you can still have fun with people and just be like you all as adults and doing fun things so and not going on like family trips. That doesn't speak to the relationship that you have with these other people.

Airport Stress and Travel Anxiety

Speaker 1 22:09

So I will say for me, I love, I love a vacation, but to me travel is stressful. It is not to my husband like he thrives. Um, he doesn't ever worry about like missing the flight or it getting canceled, like he doesn't care, he just rolls with it, whereas for me, I'm anxious until my ass is sitting wherever we're supposed to be. Um, I'm anxious we're not going to get there or that the flight's going to get delayed, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 22:36

And when we were coming home from the Bahamas a couple of weeks ago, we were at in the Centurion club I think is what it's called my first time ever, and I was like we had no idea how big Miami airport was, and and so I mean we waited way too late to start walking to our gate. Well, I mean it was like a freaking haul and our kids were tired. We had been gone, you know, seven days. At that point and I'm talking we were the last four people on the plane. I was in a full sweat.

Speaker 1 23:10

I was so pissed at him because he's always like, why do we need to get there so early? And I had just sprinted 50, you know gates down to our gate from Miami, which is like basically a marathon with all your luggage, because we also never check luggage. We are carry on people only and yeah, I mean it's just it's stressful for me, whereas like it's not for him, and I would love to live his life at like in that headspace. But I guess it's just a mom Like I. I'm always worried about like getting everybody from point A to point B. Once I'm there, I'm cool.

Speaker 1 23:42

But like travel for me is stressful.

Speaker 2 23:46

Yeah, I like to get to. I agree with you. I like to get to the airport earlier than my husband does. With you, I like to get to the airport earlier than my husband does. Um, but I genuinely enjoy airports Like I love them. I've always liked being at them. Um, I like getting into a place and like having a few minutes to settle down in a place instead of being like rushed, Like I don't care if that's me going to yoga class, you know what I mean, or to whatever, like, like having like a few minutes just to kind of get settled.

Speaker 2 24:17

And yeah, I don't need to be at the air. I mean, even when we fly internationally, I don't need to be there two hours early, you know. I know security and stuff, but I want to get it. I want to go to the lounge, I want to get it.

Speaker 1 24:31

I want to go to the lounge, I want to get a drink, and then I want to be at the gate when they start boarding I agree I don't need to be there two hours before, but I need enough time that, like I can same thing, like go to the bathroom, do all those things, you know. He just it's almost like a game, like how late can we get there and still make it? And I just I'm like why would we unnecessarily stress ourselves out? And he's still make it. And I just I'm like why would we unnecessarily stress ourselves out? And he's like who's stressed out? And I'm like this person, me, I'm stressed out because what if we, you know, whatever, what if, what, if we get stuck on the plane and I have to pee and I didn't have time to pee before we left, you know, it's just right it, in that regard, like I'm, like I get really worked up about it, as you can tell.

Speaker 1 25:16

But, in the end. You know, it generally works out. Thankfully for him it did work out this last time, because I probably would have strangled him if we lost or if we missed that flight. But you know it, just, it's just, I guess, the difference between men and women, I don't know what it is. I I'm like maybe he's not as stressed. I've.

Speaker 1 25:38

I've also, at this point, already packed for three people. Um, mostly packed. I did forget to pack underwear for the Bahamas. I had one pair, the pair that I wore there, so I had to do laundry every single night so that I would have underwear to wear each night. Um, you know, but for the most part, like I've already packed for three people, I've taken care of the dog. I've dropped him off, had all their stuff.

Speaker 1 26:04

You know, like at this point my brain is like so tired from planning and organizing and getting it all together that that probably adds to my stress, whereas he like throw some shit in a bag and he's ready to roll out. And if he forgets underwear, he's like okay, but it is, you know, it's just, it's different, it's different for us. And he's always like why are you so stressed out? My son made that comment. He was like mom, why are you always so stressed out? And I'd like steam probably came out of my ears. Like why am I stressed out? Think about all the things I did get us here. They don't get it. They don't get it. They don't see the mental load.

Speaker 2 26:37

They're living in a different experience, as are we. We're all living in our own different little bubble of experience. But it's just a compromise. We're working on compromising with it.

Speaker 2 26:49

That's what our big goal is whenever we do this stuff, it's a compromise, we're working on compromising with it, we're working on that's. That's what our big goal is whenever we do this stuff. So, and it works out. I mean again, most of the time I don't get so worried about flights getting delayed because we can scramble or not, like that's a, that's a God thing, like this is out of my hands and control for a reason.

Speaker 1 27:07

Right.

Speaker 2 27:09

You know, but it is part of my control if we can. You know, if it takes 41 minutes for us to get to the Charleston Airport in Huntington, I don't want to leave in 41 minutes to get there. It doesn't matter if I went to the bathroom whenever we left the house.

Speaker 1 27:24

And oh yeah, 10 minutes later I have to go again.

Show Wrap-up and Gratitude

Speaker 2 27:27

It just is what it is, and so I nearly still little time to do that, and then, like I said, just get settled into the place just for 10 minutes. I could slam a Bloody Mary real quick.

Speaker 1 27:40

I mean, but like first world problems, right, travel is such a blessing and I think that I do try to remind myself like you signed up for this and you wanted to go on this vacation and like you know it is. You know, yes, it's annoying at times but like at the end of the day, like what a blessing to get to do this and to go places and see new places and experience different cultures, and so try to just remind myself in those moments.

Speaker 2 28:06

That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 28:06

That it's all worth it.

Speaker 2 28:08

That's right.

Speaker 1 28:09

It's all worth it. You, that's right, it's all worth it. You can text the show, um. Go to our website, the lilesspodcastcom. Send us a text if you have some topic suggestions. We've got a new segment coming on that we haven't titled yet, but it's something along the lines of like ask a psychologist, or like what's your take on this hot take? We're not giving professional advice, but we will give you our opinion, um, and so text the show, let us know. Um. We'd love to hear from you. Check us out on Instagram Lila's podcast or at the Lila's podcast. I always get those two confused. Um, check us out. We've got a whole new website, whole new look, whole new design, and so we are so excited to have you here for season five. Until next week. 'all liless.