# Vacation with family or friends?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 23, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090 "2012-06-23T18:03:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/1 "2012-06-23T18:03:16Z")
Do you typically go on vacation with your family or with friends? Or both? Has this changed over the years? Who would you rather go with?
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/2 "2012-06-23T19:18:37Z")
Family but only certain ones of those. I will travel with my kids and about 3 other family members but I won’t go if certain others are going just because I know it is for the best. I am really picky who I travel with. I would much rather travel alone than with than with person or group who who won’t respect the fact that I am going to do whatever it is I want on vacation and they can join in or not but I am not up for any democracy on vacation. I have gone on vacations with friends in the past but they tend to lose title mid-trip so I usually. There is only one friend that I will travel with now and I won’t go if he brings any of his other friends because I don’t like them very much.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/3 "2012-06-23T20:03:54Z")
I don’t have any friends.
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### Author:  [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/4 "2012-06-23T21:10:47Z")
I live to travel and that’s where I spend as much of my discretionary income as I can. We’ve been focusing on getting out of debt so up til now it’s been all North American but that’s all about to change 😃
I travel once a year with 2 close friends and depending on where and when we’re going we occasionally have other women along as well. We’ve been traveling together for 15 years now and even if it’s only a weekend some years we make a point to always do something.
Every few years my husbands family gets on a togetherness kick and we spend a week somewhere together. This year it’s Christmas at a cottage but we’re down two people already and it’s only June.
Other than that it’s trips with my husband and sometimes kids.
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### Author:  [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/5 "2012-06-23T21:58:57Z")
My vacations consist solely of going with my family to see other family.
I would like to go on a vacation with my friends, though. Would also like to go on a vacation with my family to do something other than see other family.
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### Author:  [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/6 "2012-06-23T21:59:07Z")
I only go on vacations with family (either immediate or extended).
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### Author:  [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/7 "2012-06-23T23:16:21Z")
Friends. Ski trips, scuba diving trips, friend’s weddings…all tons of fun.
I’ve gone on a few trips with the family recently. I love them dearly, but their idea of fun doesn’t match my idea of fun. And their idea of relaxing doesn’t match mine either.
-D/a
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### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/8 "2012-06-23T23:22:27Z")
My husband and I vacationed once with another couple. That was a good time. :rolleyes: She could go from human to mega-bitch in the blink of an eye and he wanted to schedule every. single. second. of. the. trip. The absolute best night of the trip (we were aboard our boat for a week) was the last night when we stayed in separate hotels.
Our most recent vacations have pretty much been family, but a couple of other friends have said that when we decide to take an Alaska cruise, we need to call them. Since they’re not a psycho couple, we will call them.
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### Author:  [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/9 "2012-06-23T23:28:47Z")
Never considered going with friends, I guess I don’t have any that close.
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/10 "2012-06-24T00:29:56Z")
I like to go on long, multi-week road trips; my friends and family don’t have the time off, money, or interest to go with me. My best friend is a wonderful traveling companion, but she’s ready to go home after about a week. I get together a couple of times a year with my brother and his wife, but it’s more of a “visit” than a vacation. I can’t see going on a trip with a married couple, anyway.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/11 "2012-06-24T00:42:04Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#):
>
> My husband and I vacationed once with another couple. That was a good time. :rolleyes: She could go from human to mega-bitch in the blink of an eye and he wanted to schedule every. single. second. of. the. trip. The absolute best night of the trip (we were aboard our boat for a week) was the last night when we stayed in separate hotels..
I have seen it many times. Controlling mega-bitch females can ruin a trip for an indefinite number of people. My family is still in a semi-feud over a trip we took to Florida once with my mother’s best friend and her family. We rented a house together and she wanted to control everything that everyone did down to the serving sizes of orange juice for breakfast and she was willing to fight for it. I was 7 at the time and remember it vividly.
The woman in question later became my aunt through marriage and it is still is a point of contention in the family although everyone knows now never to travel with her. Did I mention that happened in 1982? You should have seen the look on my mother’s face when my now aunt broke the news last year that they bought a time-share next to my parent’s property in Los Cabos Baja Califorinia, Mexico. I cracked up because they do like each other but just not for vacations.
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### Author:  [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/12 "2012-06-24T00:52:46Z")
I love to vacation with my husband, kids and sister and brother-in-law. I try _never_ to vacation with my mom. When we go on a vacation, her M.O. is to bring her sewing and park her ass in front of a television in a hotel room the entire time except during dinner, which she insists must be a huge affair. So, basically, she does the exact same thing on vacation as she does at home, only it’s in a hotel room.
I’d like to try vacationing with some friends, too - haven’t done that since college.
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### Author:  [@orderfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orderfire)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/13 "2012-06-24T02:47:01Z")
If it’s with family, well, then, it ain’t no vacation, son. Just another go-round of chores and orchestrating other people’s rides or social schedule or meal or whatever.
Vacation with friends, on the other hand, is a magical place where everyone can walk or drive themselves, wake up and retire when they need to, cook a good - no, _great_ - meal for everyone, and hold their own conversationally. Oh, and pay their own way. Friends \< family for me.
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### Author:  [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/14 "2012-06-24T03:14:18Z")
Family, but that means my wife and three kids (and sometimes the maid and her kid), but no one else.
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/15 "2012-06-24T03:46:07Z")
I’ll go with whoever invites me.
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### Author:  [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/16 "2012-06-24T03:59:34Z")
Friends, hands down.
My family is skee-bonkers, and they do not travel well. One day when I was about twelve, I decided I’d had enough. They said ‘today we’re going 4-wheeling in the desert to see old ghost towns’ and I said ‘you guys have fun, I’ll be in the living room watching movies’. I caught some flak the first couple of times, but I kept putting my foot down and eventually they stopped arguing.
On the other hand, one of the most awesome trips I’ve ever taken was the weekend I spent in Disneyland with friends. Drove out with one and met up with a couple other people we knew while there. We ran around like kids and ate junk food and took pictures with pirates, and at no point did I have to quash the urge to murder someone in the middle of the Happiest Place on Earth.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/17 "2012-06-24T11:32:35Z")
I usually travel alone, and love it. My partner travels so much for work, that it’s hard for him to appreciate traveling simply for pleasure; he’d rather stay home. But we’ve occasionally traveled together, and it’s fine. I don’t think I’d enjoy it with additional people though, be they family or friends.
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### Author:  [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/18 "2012-06-24T13:13:45Z")
My vacations are always solitary staycations. I enjoy them. Going on a trip with my family is more stressful than my actual job, so I avoid it.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/19 "2012-06-24T13:17:15Z")
Friends.
I find my family tedious and my SO’s family even worse.
I like being on vacation with my SO but she can be a pain in the ass when it comes to traveling or doing anything adventurous.
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### Author:  [@Ann\_Onimous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Onimous)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vacation-with-family-or-friends/626090/20 "2012-06-24T14:39:58Z")
Family. I couldn’t imagine going on vacation without my husband and children. To me, being with them is what makes it fun.
Even if I had friends.
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