Yes, my dad has paid for me to go on lots of trips with him and Mom, including five safaris in South Africa. The rest of my family got to go on at least one of the trips. I’m so thankful he could do that for us. My all-time favorite memory of my mom was seeing her crash through the bush in an open Land Rover. Her hair and makeup remained perfect. 
I got to tell her that, the last time I talked to her.
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When my brother and dad and mom traveled together, dad and brother’s client paid most of the expenses and even gave them spending money! Sometimes my single sister would get to tag along as brother’s companion and also had expenses paid by the client.
Our family “reunions” were always on Oahu because it was too hard to coordinate anything more. There are 7 of us “kids” plus spouses plus now kids ranging in age between teens and 40s, plus now some of the next generation. Even coordinating the logistics of the reunions was tiring but I did it because it meant a lot to all of us, especially the kids and my folks.
We took a small vacation every year when we were kids. By the time my brother and I were about 10 and 12, we hated traveling with our parents and begged to stay home but weren’t old enough. The vacations stopped when we were teens. My mother has always hated traveling, but my dad started traveling when he remarried in his late sixties. DH’s parents have traveled around the world several times, but going anywhere with them would not be my idea of a good time.
DH and I had travel jobs for so many of our career years that getting on a plane and staying in another hotel was the last thing we wanted to do, so we didn’t do family trips/vacations while our son was growing up. It’s never occurred to us to try to take our young adult anywhere when we don’t travel ourselves. However, we DO enjoy spending time together either at his place or when he comes home, and he and we are looking forward to enjoying some time at our new cabin in Maine this summer and going forward. I guess that’s the closest we’ll come to “vacationing” together.
Since he started working, our son hasn’t let us pay for much except a few meals when DH is faster on the draw with his credit card. DH’s travel career has left him with premium hotel and airline status that will take us years to exhaust given how little we access those perks. And eight years of traveling to/from boarding school and college have given our son status on one airline. In the future, I expect we may use some of our airline points to bring him and his GF to wherever we are if they’ll let us and have the time and inclination to visit. Traveling beyond each other’s houses just isn’t part of our family dynamic, and I expect that very soon our son will prefer to travel with just his GF—if they can ever coordinate their schedules. They’ve been together over two years now, and the farthest they’ve gone is an overnight in Atlanta. He’s hoping to bring her to AZ sometime in the spring so he can show her where he grew up. We will spoil the heck out of them if they do.
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We travelled once as adults with my mom to visit family in Europe. But we paid our way. In-laws wanted to pay for a family trip but didn’t want the grandchild to come who was still breast feeding. 9/11 happened and it got cancelled anyway but H wouldn’t have gone without us. Never reschedule.
I have a friend who goes on vacation regularly with parents and siblings. They split expenses. I believe for one of the milestone birthdays, the parents paid for everyone to go on a cruise.
(PS. We travelled extensively with our parents when we were kids. Whole family was abroad and we had free air travel because of my dad’s job).
My dad loved to travel, but we didn’t have a lot of extra money growing up. My parents would pack us every weekend to go camping. We did a cross country trip once with 4 kids in the back seat. I have never done a camp trip after 18.
I took my kids on overseas trips since they were 6 months. It was quite normal for us to do 3-4 trips a year. I took my parents with us at least once a year. I paid for all of their trips because it was expected.
My siblings and I also got together with our young kids once a year and spent Xmas week together. Our kids are all in their late 20s now and tradition still continues.
I am a single parent now, and my kids (their SOs, and now a grandchild) and I still go away together, except now it is D1 who does the planning.
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Growing up we didn’t go on vacations other than to grandma’s house. Too much $$$. So as adults, we didn’t do anything with them either. That was until ten years ago, they started traveling all the time and also took us with them a few times. They paid for everything except souvenirs.
H’s family did the summer beach trip every year (along with almost everyone in our city). SIL and family went along every year. They never went anywhere else on their own. In the beginning we did too. We had no $$ and it was about the only way we could go. We paid for 1/4 of the condo. In-laws paid for family meals and food in the condo. Anything we did on our own we paid for. But after awhile I wanted to see and do other things and didn’t have enough time off to do both. In those days I only got two weeks off a year and that also had to cover the kids’ sick days (unless I lied and said it was me)
I know as my kids get older they will want to do more on their own or with Gf’s family. We aren’t doing a summer trip partially because of that, and partially to save $$ for Europe. We will likely just rent a hotel room up by older S and also where younger S is interning this summer. H and I will do our own thing while they work and we can do stuff stuff in the evening or maybe also go out to lunch.
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H and I did not do much of vacationing with our parents after we got married except for some occasional overlap when there was a family cottage. And basically never once we started having children. (minus one big trip I took with my girls and my mom to France) But also our parents were quite older and not really traveling much by that time anyway.
But I don’t feel like I or H and I do a lot of things like our parents did.
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Was reminded of this discussion last night when I was out to dinner with my dad. He has significant memory issues. Living in a senior center with 3 meals a day included. But he likes to go out to eat on occasion. We went to one of his favorite restaurants. Waitress who knows us both well. She didn’t everything she could to give the bill to me (short of handing it to me and holding my dad’s arms down while I got out a credit card). But my dad would have none of it. With all of the memory issues, he is still quick to fight for checks. He said now that he doesn’t have much in the way of expenses (we just sold his house but he has no idea how much the senior center costs though we have discussed it multiple times). I pay all of his bills (with his money). Now I have the ability to pay what I want even if his credit card was used. He will never know.
I do the same with my kids. I am paying for meals out. And we have taken a family trip once a year which I pay for. Hope is that will continue when they get married and have kids (son as gf now who travelled with us last summer). No pressure to be there for an entire trip but hope they will join us for at least part of it. Will be in consultation with them in terms of their schedules (mine is the only one that is disregarded because my work schedule isn’t mine to set so planning doesn’t matter for me) and where we go.
One kid in grad school. Fully funding that. She “paid” for all of undergrad and a part of grad school tuition so grad school is on me. Other kid is graduated and on his own. Fully financially independent (still on cell phone plan but he could get is own if he wanted be really no need). Saving for short, intermediate and long term goals. Much more saved than when I was his age. Taking graduate level courses while working full time with an eye towards a masters. He gets reimbursed through work. I reimburse him as well. Not because he asked me to (he didn’t). Or because he needs it. But because I can and want to do that. Still has some 529 money to cover masters if he goes that route. Does any of that allow him to spend wildly or buy luxuries? No. That’s not in his dna (gets it from my wifes family). So there is no issue with him needing to learn to save, living within/below means, etc. If that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t be supplementing as I am (there would be lessons to be learned).
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When I traveled with my mom, I usually paid for her, after I was maybe 25 or so. She didn’t have much money, but she tried to help where she could. For example, my kids took tai Kwon do lessons. When I got divorced, she picked up extra shifts to help pay for them.
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Maybe this going on vacation has more to do with families not living near each other as much as they used to. I didn’t grow up around any of my family. For 1 week of my dad’s 2 weeks vacation he got a year, we went to see my mom’s parents. Luckily, they were in FL near a beach. Honestly, it was boring most of the time.
As adults, we rarely visited one set of parents more than a weekend. My parents did have a place near us, but we always went on vacation together when the kids were young. I think my dad realized how boring it is to sit at your grandparents house, so why not go somewhere. They also could afford to pay for us, so obviously, that also made it easier.
DH grew up around all his family, so going on vacation with grandparents wasn’t a thing. He saw them all the time.
Our oldest is about to graduate college. We missed out on a lot of places we wanted to go because of the pandemic. I actually feel guilt planning a big trip without her because she will have a job and can’t take off work.
I loved traveling with my family when my folks were still together. I loved traveling with my dad after they divorced. I loved traveling with my mom once I realized dad was the problem, not her. H and I loved traveling with my mom as often as we could - including some long (month long) trips with kids when they were home, with and without when they were grown (pending trip).
My kids loved traveling with us from when they were little until, well, now since H and I had two sets (S/DIL and S/GF) here with us for part of our time on St Thomas - the other just started a new job, so regretfully couldn’t come.
I hope it never changes. Travel is such a part of our lives. We all travel independently (or at least as couples) too, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love our family travels. Often we wish most travels could be family travels, but schedules don’t allow for that.
Who pays, and for what, can vary. Since we make more, we pay for more. We’ve always included wives and significant GFs. I can’t imagine doing otherwise TBH. We send them birthday cards with $$ too. They’re part of our family.
OTOH, we never traveled with H’s family. They never invited us to and they didn’t tend to like what we did when we went places. We did often go to their cottage on a river in VA - still do, but now it’s just FIL there most of the time. H has invited his dad to take a train trip out west for his birthday this year. His dad seems open to it. We’ll see. I’ll probably stay home for that one and let them have father/son time.
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Well, I’ve just made 2 sets of reservations—one for 2 rooms in hotel and the other for a 2 bedroom villa timeshare right next to hotel. This is all for a wedding we are all attending in November. The 2 hotel rooms are >$5k for 3 nights. The villa is $3k+ for same 3 nights. I’m waiting for vrbo owner to accept my reservation and leaning toward canceling the hotel if S is ok with sharing the villa with us. We are happy to pay for everything but much happier not to spend so much for just lodging.
All reservations are fully cancellable with no penalty until early November.
Happier to spend the money on food and fun and extras. It’s not that we can’t afford it, it just grated on my no end to spring so much for a hotel room, no matter how nice.
S, GF and D will be flying in and then back to their respective places after their stay on Oahu. The transportation is not my concern—they will manage it.
Wow, those prices seem so high for 2 nights! But, I am fairly frugal !
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Yes, prices are high—they’re for 3 nights but still many times what I prefer to pay. Oahu can be an expensive place to visit.
Heck, we may opt to just forgo the extravagance of hotels altogether and drive out for wedding and back the same night. It’s so-able but we thought this world be a nice excuse to splurge and have D and S’s GF get to know one another in nice setting.
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I vacationed with my folks a few times when I was in my early 20’s, but haven’t since. I do vacation with the in-laws. They live 5 hours away, so usually when we see them we pick some place in the middle to travel to and we split an airbnb.
Travel was the best part of my childhood. We lived far from extended family. We camped on multi state trips to get to American family on occasion. My dad carefully planned 2 week camping vacations in the southwest in the 1960s, and later. Then he had a job tied to the academic calendar, and went to Europe for a few weeks and to see family in the UK most years with his second wife. I went as well, age 16 which started me on a lifelong passion. The kids grew into it naturally and my best moments are trips with offspring.
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I want to have happy memories of travel with our kids and only offer to pay things we are happy to pay for. We do hope to travel with them when our MDs advise it is safe for us to resume.
What timing, I just asked my boys yesterday to each pay 1/4 of a condo rental (each bedroom has its own bathroom) on our holiday ski trip if we want to go as a family and share a facility. They also pay their own airfare, transfers, skiing, etc. Dad and I agreed to pay for family snowmobiling, sleigh ride, and groceries - both boys agreed to split paying for the grocery delivery fee. We’ll all pay for meals as it seems appropriate, they already pick up dinner tabs if they invite us to their area to eat. They know they they have more expendable income that we do being set to retire at the end of the year (yay! coming back from vacation and NOT having to go back to work the next day). We really enjoy our kids company and excited they still want to vacation with us.
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I agree about travel being the best part of my childhood. Every summer, Dad would attend an engineering educators’ conference somewhere in the US. There were always activities the family could sign up for, such as going to a local amusement park. Months ahead of time, we would map out what we would all do. The conference was always at a university and occasionally we’d stay in a dorm (ha, my sister and I loved that but Mom provably wasn’t thrilled). After the conference , we would travel around the region for another week or so. We saw a good bit of the entire country this way.
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