Have Small Children? Go On a Group Family Vacation

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

We just got home from a family reunion where nearly 40 of my husband’s relatives gathered in a small oceanside village on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada, to spend a week beaching, drinking, and eating together. Many of us had young kids around the same age, the older of which occupied themselves running around our rental houses, while the toddlers wove their way between the adults’ legs searching for and then running away from their parents.

It was as close to a true holiday as you can get with kids that age, because between the big kids and the grown-ups, there was always someone around to spell a tired parent and plenty of people to take care of the cooking and cleaning that otherwise can feel relentless on vacation. The kids had their fill, and then some, of cousin hangs, and at the end of a long day, we retreated to our own house where we could negotiate our own naps, bedtimes, and morning routines without having to take anyone else’s parenting style into consideration.

It was my first real toe-dip into the world of group family vacations. I’m still very much a novice in the field, although it’s not for lack of trying, I have a few very close friends whose respective kids are the same ages as my older two, and I would travel with them in a heartbeat. It’s only because of our consistently diverging schedules that we’ve yet to make it happen, despite my frequent texts that start, “French villa next summer?”

If many hands do truly make light work, then the best-case scenario of vacationing with other parents is a chance to share the domestic load, bonding with other adults while the kids run off and play. But I’ve yet to even consider the prospect beyond my closest circle, because traveling with kids is nerve-racking enough without adding the possibility of a clash of parenting styles that could make for an awkward if not outright horrible trip. After all, you’re not only committing to sharing a house and the tedium of daily life, but you risk ending friendships altogether by exposing underlying resentments and percolating parental judgment. I’ve been to birthday parties that lasted only a few hours, where glaringly different approaches to how we raise our kids made me want to permanently avoid people I’ve known for longer than their kids have been alive. Imagine what could happen if we spent a week in the woods together?

I asked more experienced group travelers on Instagram to share what has worked and what hasn’t for them. One mom I spoke with, Elizabeth, has had group holidays “work beautifully,” and others that have nearly cost friendships. The difference, she says, is whether another couple has firm boundaries with their kids. “If you have rules for your kids, and the other parents have never said ‘no’ to theirs before, it’s not going to go well,” she told me over DM. “Travel can be stressful, so I want to know that the other parents can cover for me and vice versa.”

This is especially true when you’re traveling with babies, where naps can become a major source of tension. On this holiday we were just on, my husband and I were fine with our 17-month-old sleeping in the car or on the go, whereas most of the other couples with toddlers retreated to their cabins in the middle of the afternoon. If we’d done the same, we would have missed most of the good beach days. Corinna, a mom of two, agreed, telling me that she and her partner are a “figure it out on the go” kind of family when it comes to baby travel naps, “but we give our friends who sleep-train anxiety.”

Some parents, like our own Emily Gould, have found unicorn arrangements, where both sets of parents are not only friendly but all actual friends with each other. The kids are friends, too — or “at least two of the four are very close friends, and the other two actively don’t mind each other’s company.” The other couple is “truly chill,” Emily says, not just claiming to be easygoing and then turning around with “1,000 calcified and unshakable schedule/food/discipline requirements.” Their approaches to parenting are similar, and the domestic labor was divided evenly, where “the man half of the couples delight in spending time in the kitchen,” an aspect of vacation that otherwise bums her out. They all co-existed so well on holiday that they’re re-creating the trip (“same crew, same beach rental”) this August.

Of course, there are times when things don’t go well. One anonymous parent told me about a nightmare trip where she invited her husband’s two best friends and their wives and kids to her family’s holiday home. She said the other wives spent the whole weekend in their respective rooms, leaving her to “cook, clean, and feed their children.” She felt like a B&B host and, on top of that, it rained the whole time. She ended up banning the couples from future beach-house visits.

That scenario is exactly what I’m afraid of and one aspect of why I haven’t fully taken the leap yet. I often return from a trip with my kids more tired than when I left. If I had to manage other adults’ bad moods and unruly kids on top of my own, I’d probably be put off traveling altogether. Having had a little taste of a group trip these past couple of weeks, though, especially seeing how much fun the kids had making new friends, has me wanting more. I loved how much independence and freedom the kids felt when they were left to their own devices on vacation and not so reliant on Mom and Dad for entertainment — which meant we were free to have uninterrupted conversations with each other for a change.

The thought of finally taking a holiday with our young kids where both my husband and I actually get to relax — something I’ve long believed impossible — is enough to convince me to go for it again. It can’t be any more stressful than what we do now on our own, spending our vacations parenting with a view.