In 2023 and 2024, I went on two international trips with my whole family – my parents, my sister, my niece and nephew, and my wife. Having just finished that second trip, I wanted to share some thoughts on what works and what doesn’t. Obviously every family different, and my family is mercifully low-drama. Hopefully some of these approaches work well no matter where your family falls on the chaos meter.
Consensus, but Not Too Much
As you gear up for a trip, you need to established how engaged each member of the group wants to be in travel planning. Are there some people who just want to show up at the airport and be told where to go? Are there other folks who want to get a vote on each decision?
I think an ideal balance is to seek consensus on major decisions like, where to stay or major pre-scheduled activities. At the same time, there’s very little value in trying to get everyone to read reviews of different van drivers for the trip from the airport to the hotel. I (ahem, obviously) like thinking about and planning travel, so for our trips I’ve generally taken care of the bulk of the planning for the nuts and bolts logistics.
Along these lines, you might be tempted to use one of the many apps that aim to help with group travel planning. I’m sure there are some situations in which those are actually useful (like if all your friends are rich 20-somethings at tech startups), but unless you want to be doing tech support and running training sessions, I’d recommend sticking with lightweight options. Text message threads, emails, and maybe a shared Google Doc.
Finally, before you get too deep into planning, make sure everyone is on the same page about how costs are being shared (or not). Figure out how you’re going to track that (if needed), how you’ll manage moving money around, and when you expect that to happen. Keep costs as transparent as possible – a shared Google Sheet works great.
Overplan, Underdisclose
For our recent trip to Mexico City, there was more-or-less one scheduled activity each day… officially.
Unofficially, I had a pretty good sense of how other activities might slot into our schedule. These were less formal and not time sensitive – heading to the city center for a rooftop dinner, or visiting the churro place. My goal on a trip is to never spend a bunch of time wondering “what should we do now?” so I like to have options available, without making the trip feel so tightly scripted that there’s not space for spontaneity.
Making Space
Finally, it’s important to remember that even on a family trip, you don’t need to be together 24/7. Sometimes, the teenagers are going to want to flop around on their iPads, and then adults might want to do their own exploring. Have the conversation in advance to make sure everyone understands and accepts that. Maybe even agree on some language for how to claim “alone time”. If there are certain activities that are really important to be done as a family, make that clear in advance.
Along those lines, we’ve really benefited from having Airbnbs with space to spread out – the younger folks can watch Netflix films without bothering the adults, and everyone can go to sleep and wake up at the right times for them.
When trips involve long travel days or big timezone shifts, make sure you build in plenty of recovery time and minimize any decision making requirements in the first day or two. We all get cranky when we’re jet-lagged and our bodies are confused, so try to preemptively diffuse any of that tension.
There’s definitely some luck involved with a smooth trip – a flight cancelation or a natural disaster is out of your control. But a bit of deliberate attention can go a long ways towards making a trip more fun for everyone. So those are a few of my tips – what works for your family? What doesn’t? I’d love to hear!