Back in October I stumbled across a super deal for airfare: $200 roundtrip from Minneapolis, MN to San Juan, PR in February. (If you’re in Minnesota in February, this is a SUPER deal to get out of the snow). I told some friends and we all booked our flights and found a 4 bedroom condo we could all share.
Fast forward to January, my SO gets a job offer at a new company. He and I both agree that it would be a bit unseemly to take off on vacation a couple weeks after starting a new job. He’s left it up to me whether I want to go or not.
Since I have some friends going, it won’t be too bad (although I’ll be a 5th wheel to two of the couples). But it made me wonder if I would still go if it was just me.
Personally, I’d still go, but it depends so much on the relationship and circumstances. My husband hates to travel; it makes him nervous and very irritable. He’s spoken multiple times about how vacation stresses him to the point where he can’t enjoy it, and it doesn’t seem to matter how or where we go or where we stay. Given the option, he would choose a ‘staycation’ every time.
I, on the other hand, am the exact opposite. Staycations stress me a lot, but I love to go almost anywhere and try almost anything new. Given our opposite reactions, I don’t see any problem with traveling apart from my spouse, whether I’m going with friends or alone. I’ve got no interest in misbehavior of any kind, for the record, just a burning curiosity to see more of the world.
I said yes/maybe, if friends are going. I’ve started a vacation without another adult but that was a road trip from MN --> Denver to spend time with my brother. For your particular example, minus the friends, I absolutely wouldn’t go by myself. But I’m a woman with a lot of fear about being alone, especially in unfamiliar places. Even just that road trip was a Big Deal and I felt a ridiculous sense of accomplishment at being able to pull it off*. So, for me, the lack of an SO has nothing to do with it. If I were normal, I’d have no problem taking off for a week without him.
I wasn’t really alone anyway, I had my oldest son (6-ish at the time) with me. I don’t know if I could have done it truly alone. Not that a six year old offers any protection at all but my fear isn’t really of anything in particular. It’s not rational.
We have so little time together as it is between work & the kids, I don’t think either of us would consider it. We still act like newlyweds after 5 years.
Circumstances have led to me vacationing solo for a work-related (written off) vacation. Similarly, my gf has visited London without me (I wasn’t interested) and will be doing Ireland in a few months (she and a female friend are taking their mothers).
Sure, we both do plenty of stuff without each other. A vacation (at least a relatively short one) would be OK. We enjoy planning our vacations together too much for it to happen most likely but with her school vacation schedule I could see it happening.
Sure, I’ve gone, say, with my mom before. And my mom and her friends want to take me to a beach house belonging to one of the friends when I hit the second trimester and quit wanting to puke all the time - I assume it will just be us girls. Although I’d be happy to have my husband too. I mean, whatever. We like doing things together, he’s my best friend, but sometimes we do things with other people.
Rarely, but sometimes. I’ll be taking a wine trip with my sister and a couple of our female friends this May while my husband stays home, and later in the year he’ll be gone for a week at a hobby seminar. A few times over the years we’ve taken long weekends with friends when that’s how it worked out, but usually we prefer to take real vacations together.
For me, it all depends on what we’d be doing. If I could go on a camping trip without my wife, that would be perfect. I love taking lots of little short hikes when I’m camping and she’s more of a drive around and see the sights from the car kind of person. So even when we go together, we spend a lot of the time doing our own things. There are other destinations that just wouldn’t be worth going to if we weren’t sharing it together, though.
In the OP’s case, I’d say go if you think you can enjoy it, pass if you think you’ll spend the time wishing your other half was there.
I’ve never gone on vacation without my wife, but she’s gone on vacation without me. She and our daughter take “mother-daughter” trips to various locations: London, DC, Los Angeles, Williamsburg VA, NYC. They both love them and are going on another one in two weeks - LA for Gallifrey One, a Doctor Who convention.
We both do - I go with my friends, he goes with his friends. I took the kids last year and left him home, and my daughter and I have TWO vacations this summer that the boys don’t go along on.
My husband and I often vacation separately. We share many interests, but not all. I had zero interest in climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or visiting Mexico. I’m going to do volunteer work at the Iditarod in about a month. He’s not interested. Sometimes I like to spend a week or so on a beach, doing nothing. He wants to have things to do, even if it’s just driving around. OTOH, we hope to both enjoy visiting Scotland for our 50th anniversary this summer.
It can be really great to have some time not having to worry about another person’s schedule. But it’s also great to have someone to share experiences with and to watch your luggage when you visit the restroom.
Sure. He’s done trips for christmas when I couldn’t get off work, I’ve done them without him. Went on a cruise with my family and he couldn’t make it. It’s not all the time, but we’ve done it several times over the last 13 years.
I don’t know if they count as “vacations,” but I help my group with a lot of Scottish events that involve some travel and occasional overnights, and my husband is most definitely not interested, so I just go with my fellow Scots.
He has ageing parents, and makes occasional trips back to their state when he and his brothers can coordinate to get big chores done (painting the house, stuff like that). I generally don’t go with him for that; the brothers are kind of scattered and don’t get to see each other often, so they enjoy their “guy” time.
I guess I can’t get upset at the idea of him doing something more major without me, since my dad and I spent a week in London without him or my mom a while back!
Yes, I have, and so has my wife. I go to a conference every year that she has no interest in. She went with me once and wasn’t that interested, so now I go alone.
She has also gone on a vacation with one of our friends when I wasn’t feeling up to it.