As of now I am playing ignorant - business as usual with a college kid. The challenge is to find the time when everyone is free.
I just booked a winter mini vacation for when D19 is back for winter break. We will go to Gore mountain to ski for 4 days with the 4 of us.
Also booking for summer vacation in Santorini and Athens in Greece for end of June to early July, booked hotel in Santorini but not for Athens yet. Didn’t book the flight yet either. To bad there is no cyber Monday for airline tickets! D19 is part of the planning, she picked Santorini. So I guess business as usual for us.
After that D19 will have a month in Italy/Europe with her friends. She goes to Italy to see her best friend every summer. When she comes back from Italy I hope to have a few days at Jersey shore with her before she goes back to college.
We feel this is our time to reconnect as a couple so it doesn’t feel weird to take vacations without our college kids. Anyway, our 23yo is so busy with her life and friends. Plus, she prefers to travel with friends who are happy to indulge her need for social media worthy adventures and photo ops. For now, we’ll still include our 18yo in our travel plans if it coincides with school breaks that she plans to spend at home.
This thread got me thinking about what I did in college. I did go to Italy with my mom my sophomore year between the end of finals and the start of my internship but that was it for trips during college. Two years after we were married, my H and I met up with my mom, again in Italy, to introduce H to the family. That was the last of the vacations together.
That kind of makes me sad to think that we could be coming to this place with our D. At the same time, I remember being that age, having very limited vacation time, and wanting the alone time with my spouse.
I don’t see my kids declining a family vacation any time soon! We love our family trips. I have an 18 year old college freshman and a 21 year old out of college but her job hasn’t turned full time yet so I plan on covering her costs next June. When she gets more settled I can see her paying for part. Once they are both out of college things will probably change. And of course when they get married.
Feels weird…or it will. Our family has always vacationed together - we were Disneyworld fans, we camped a lot, and the past few years we tried to broaden their horizons beyond our small town - NYC, DC, London. And we love doing it together - I got them hooked on museums, history, and musicals early.
With that in mind, we are being very deliberate the next 4 years with our trips. This year and next, while S21 is still in high school, it will be the 10 days after Christmas and whenever S19 finishes work in summer before school for both starts. Once S21 is in college, I figure we have 2 weeks after Christmas plus maybe (?) they will have overlapping spring breaks.
Someday the trips will end, but it will feel…wrong. My husband retired 4 years ago, so we already get much time together.
We haven’t travelled that much as a family, just 6 trips, and not until the kids were a bit older. With DS19 just having started university this year we knew it could be a long time before we might travel together again (if ever) so we did a big family trip this past March break. Travelling with DS19 is easy because he enjoys much the same things that dh and I do but DS21 is not a keen traveller which puts a bit of dampner on things. I’d still like to do more family trips but with DS19 currently in university and with DS21 starting in 2 years I doubt it’s going to be in our budget for some time to come.
Road trips, traveling, and doing new things with the kids is my #1 favorite thing to do. I miss even the little trips like to the zoo, science centers, museums, etc. I’m considering becoming a Big Sister so I can watch kids experience such things again.
That being said, it is a lot harder to plan big trips when you don’t know about kids’ summer work plans. Several ago, we started taking a short cheap trip to the beach around New Year’s. Lately, we’ve been making that a bigger trip somewhere “just in case” summer doesn’t work out. This past year, we shifted the trip (Niagara Falls/Canada) to Thanksgiving. If it was up to me, I’d skip Thanksgiving all together and just do a family vacation then. I’d much rather eat a pizza or Chinese food vs Thanksgiving dinner, but I digress.
Fortunately, thus far we’ve still been able to do a good vacation each summer. But, my parents took us and my sister’s family to Europe for 2 weeks. Older S could only join us for 1, and he also missed when we had an overnight stay this spring in Iceland and a trip a couple of years ago to Seattle/Canada. It felt weird without him. When we sightsee, the kids tend to wander around together and H and I stay together. But, older S had spent the semester in Europe and traveled a lot, so I wasn’t too upset that he missed out.
H and I have done a few short weekend trips together in the past year. And it does feel wrong. I keep thinking “older/younger S would have loved that!” But the last one, we did activities that H was into, but the kids would have hated, so that was good. Taking trips and doings things that we want to see & do, but not necessarily the kids will probably need to be our focus. Problem is, my favorite thing is watching the kids experience new things… so I’m back to square one… sigh. I do like hiking. H will humor me for ~2 hours, but my kids are good hiking buddies. And I love amusement parks, but H can’t do those anymore.
I didn’t really take any vacations with my parents in college or after. I do remember going with them to visit my grandparents during college and I did go camping with my father in college, but other then that I either vacationed with friends. Same with my D who is out of college and probably will be the same with S. We love our kids and we love spending time with them, but we also enjoy doing things as a couple as well. Both D and S are great pet/house sitters and I think they enjoy that alone time!
My sister really started taking vacations with her family once her kids were in college. Before they went here or there, but not really week long trips. A lot of their travel was for sports tournaments.
The year her daughter did junior year abroad, sis, BIL and nephew flew to France for Thanksgiving and to visit the daughter. They all loved it so much they continued to do it. My sister is a school teacher and happens to get thanksgiving week off, and so did her kids from their colleges. They’ve been to Rome, London, France again, and the last two years to San Diego (where daughter went to school but has graduated) and this year to Santa Fe for a long weekend because son had to move to DC for his new job that started this week.
She travels at other times of the year (last year she and daughter went to Scotland for spring break), usually to visit her daughter and they go on trips along the east coast. She and husband don’t really travel together, but they do have a mountain house for weekend getaways. He likes to stay home.
Different slant on the thread…D20 is starting to take vacations without us. Spring break, summer cruise with buddies, etc. We will still do family trips (and hope that continues with significant others) but I think it’s great he wants to set his own path.
Growing up, my family never really took vacations. My wife was the opposite. As we’ve raised our family we’ve always done family trips. My oldest D turns 21 in Jan. and our youngest D is 17 and will go away in the fall.
Older D is going to be a teacher and my wife works for the school system so any vacations we’ve taken have always been based on the school system schedule. I would love to do trips with just my wife and I mainly because of the cost. I imagine as long as my older D wants to go we will still plan family vacations up until the younger D graduates. I would imagine at that time her schedule will be different and make family vacations a bit harder to do.
We’ve always done most things as a family so come this August, it will be the first time that both Girls will be away at school and just my wife and I for an extended amount of time.
I’d like to take some weekend getaway’s and if I only have to pay for two plane tickets then it opens up the options of what we could do with a long weekend.
Our oldest is only 21, so nothing is awkward yet. We offer and they sometimes accept, but as they get jobs and partner up and whatever I imagine that will change. Summers are pretty much impossible with jobs, internships, camps, sports, etc, but we cram something into the Christmas gap some years. D16 said no for a trip this Christmas but S18 is completely on board. The younger kids will go anywhere, any time, except for summer, and during their season, and why didn’t we do this last month? What was the question again?
We’ve been on many family vacations, and we’ve always loved them, but we are looking at holiday family trips for the future, now that both kids will be in college next year. Everyone seems to be excited about that - Thanksgiving at a destination, for example. Short and fun, during a time we’d be together anyway.
My kids are 26 and 30 now. We used to go away 2-3 times a year until they graduated from college. D1 is married now, we now do at least one family vacation a year, sometimes one with my extended family (grandparent, uncles, aunt, cousins) and then we all spend 3-5 days together with my extended family over Christmas. D1 & her husband also see his side of family(extended family) once a year by a lake. When they used to have more time (with summers off), we used to spend 2 weeks in Europe and a week at a beach some where in the winter.
I used to plan all of our vacations, now it is D1 who plans our vacations. I used to pay for everything, and now D1 and her H are paying for their shares, while I still pay for D2 (will stop once she is our of law school). I am looking forward to the day when they will be taking me on vacations.
I very much enjoy my time with my kids. Going on vacation is a good way for us to connect and create some memories. It is going to be especially the case if/when the grandbabies come along.
Our family (me and hub, plus two) have been doing “exotic” vacations since the youngest was 5. Those days are numbered though, with the oldest one graduating college soon. I think this coming December might be the last hurrah.
We are going to England to see hubby’s family. This trip includes soccer matches, stately homes, castles, a family Xmas pantomime, cold country walks and pub crawls WITH the kids, who are old enough to drink there. The kids will also go on nights out with cousins and our friends’ teenagers. I’m looking forward to it.
I think it’s going to be super weird for just hubby and I to have a holiday without kids. That said, I guess it’s time we get back to remembering what hubby and I are about.
@Nhatrang - not sure where you are, but there have been great deals from time to time to ATH from PHL. Could be worth the drive. Friends who live 15 minutes from EWR regularly drive to PHL for international airfares. If you are traveling with a family, savings quickly can go into the thousands. Just a thought!
I think this another one of those “do what you want and do works for you, your family and your finances.” H and I took our kids on lots of fun vacations when our kids were growing up. But, with S in college and having paid for D’s college and her study abroad and helping a her a bit after college, we don’t really have the money to keep paying for them to come on vacations with us. That said, last year we did pay for D to fly out for a family member’s funeral and we’ll be paying for both kids to come to my father’s 90th birthday. But, if my kids want to come to Hawaii with H and I, theyd have to pay their own way. Honestly, D prefers to travel with friends or by herself. And S, will probably do the same. S house sat for us for a while this summer and he really enjoyed it! And D always enjoyed house sitting for us too…
My sister in law and her husband always travel with her Daughter and her husband and their kids. But, this family does everything together and they live 2 mins away from their Daughter. Our family doesn’t do this, but to each their own.
@mountainsoul Same with us. Also, when D lived with us for a while after college…we all spent a lot of time together and as an adult living at home, it was nice for her to get some space when H and I were away on vacation.
I think there is nothing wrong with vacationing with your adult children, but I do think parents are well within their rights to plan their own trips without their kids…
