When I lived in the same house as my parents and siblings, I wasn’t all that excited about family vacations. After all, I lived with these people. I saw them 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Why would I want to go on vacation with them too? What was so special about that? I’d rather go with my friends, I thought.
“Hate” may be too strong of a word to describe how I felt about those family vacations. Perhaps I should have named the article “My Love-Apathy Relationship with Family Vacations.” But “love-hate” rolls off the tongue so much easier. Plus it sounds more dramatic.
Anyway, for many years as a child and teenager I went on those mandatory annual family vacations, feeling quite apathetic towards them.
But something changed in my 20s.
The longer I lived away from my parents and siblings, the more I found myself wanting to go on vacation with them. Somehow being away from my family coincided with my valuing them more.
Now, I feel like I want to tell the people who live with their families to treasure that time, because it does not last. But then I imagine trying to convince my past self to treasure my family and I know my past self would not have understood. So I won’t even bother.
Rather, I’ll focus on helping those who are looking forward to family vacations to make the most out of the time together.
Two summers ago, my family went on a vacation to Europe together. There were eight of us: My parents, my newly married sister and her husband, my brother and his long-time girlfriend, and my wife and myself. Combined, we were travelling from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vancouver to meet up for this trip. This was the first time all of us had gone on a trip together.
What made the trip more significant was that we knew it might be the last time in a long time that we could vacation together like this: all adults without any children. We wanted to take advantage of this vacation to create great memories and build community within our family.
This is what we did that helped to make the family vacation the best one we’ve ever had:
- Everyone took ownership of the Vacation.
We divided up the vacation, and each couple took responsibility for planning a part of the trip. One couple planned the Paris portion of the trip: where to stay, eat, sightsee, etc. One couple planned the Barcelona portion. One couple arranged all the transportation. It was a fun project to work on together, and built a sense of team within the family.
- We initiated meaningful conversations during the Vacation.
During each meal we shared together, we played a game we made up called “Ask a Question, Answer a Question” to generate meaningful conversations. This is how the game was played:
- We wrote down all eight of our names on separate pieces of paper
- Every person drew a name out of the hat (re-draw if you chose your own name)
- Each person had a chance to ask ANY one question of the person who’s name they drew (i.e. if I drew my mom’s name, then I could ask her any question I wanted to)
What this game did was create interesting conversations, and also allowed everyone to learn new things about others (especially with new family members). It prompted a curiosity to find out intriguing things about other family members. Some of the greatest laughs we had during the vacation came from my brother asking my father, “What was your embarrassing moment?”
- We stayed together on the Vacation.
Rather than stay at a hotel with separate rooms, we rented a large condo in each city we went to and stayed together. This allowed us to spend more time together as a family in the mornings and after the day was finished. Some of our best times together were late in the evening playing board games.
- We anticipated the Vacation.
Months before the vacation, we started having weekly family conference calls. We would update each other on the plans for the vacation, but also our lives. The vacation gave the family a reason to talk regularly.
- We remembered the Vacation.
We created great memories during the vacation, which we shared with our friends and family. The Christmas after trip, my wife and I made a photo book with photos from the vacation and gave it as a gift to each couple. Even now, two years later, we look back at that trip with great fondness.
How have you made your family vacations fun and memorable?
