Sick of Vacation Let Down?

Are you sick of spending months before your vacation counting down the days, only to come home disappointed? Here’s just one experience that lead me to write my quick travel questionnaire that helps every vacation be its best.  (Link to quick travel questionnaire below)

I was out for drinks with a girlfriend of mine and she asked, “what are you doing for New Years”? Well, that started the ball rolling and after that the “planning” began. She rented a house for us in the mountains and that was that. A date was put in the books and we would be sure to have a perfect time and why wouldn’t we? She and I had traveled together before and always had a blast.

We arrived at the “chalet” that was in let’s say, party condition. Meaning, if you had a keg party with 50 of your closest friends you wouldn’t have to feel bad about spilling, well anywhere. We went to our rooms and started to unpack. My husband, our two kids and myself into our two, tiny, musky rooms and our almost ten years younger, newlywed friends in theirs. Now, we had been out together as couples a lot and always had a great time, but as soon as night fell on our first night we realized, we had never really been out together, the six of us…

Our friend’s first priority was to go to the liquor store and stock up on drinks, beer, wine, tequila, Jack, you name it, we had it. The next stop was to the grocery store to buy food to make our meals at home. My girlfriend even made a list and hung it up so we would know who was in charge of what meal. Well, that would be great if either my husband or I wanted to cook and clean on our vacation. Although I love to cook for my family at home, I was looking forward to relaxing in our mountain chalet. I was a tired Momma with a three year old and a baby and the thought of cooking and cleaning for two more while on vacation was enough to make me want to burst into tears at the first sight of the meal calendar hanging from the kitchen wall.

While our friends wanted to fall asleep when they literally fell into their beds at dawn with music still blaring, we had to have our little ones quietly tucked in by eight. They wanted to start their day with a marlbro light and a beer at noon, while we were trying to explain to our three year old that a meal without at least one fruit or vegetable just isn’t a meal.
Needless to say, we didn’t have the same ideas in mind when we booked the trip and it almost ruined not only our trip, but our friendship. We both got the short end of the stick. We failed to realize that we were in different phases of our lives both financially and socially.

If we had only taken a few moments to figure out what we both wanted from our trips we would have realized, a trip for four where we each had our own accommodations would have been the right fit for all of us.

I came up with a quick questionnaire that I hope will help you make each trip its best for you! Take it and have whomever you are traveling with take it too and compare notes. Even if your travel partner is your spouse you may be surprised by their answers. Get the dialog going and plan a trip that works well for everyone. It doesn’t mean that you need to travel with someone that mirrors you in every way, but at least you can get your expectations in line stateside, before you ruin your trip arguing about it or worse yet, keeping your desires a secret and then coming home to tell everyone what a nightmare trip you had and hating your x-best friend.

A little time on the front end will help you to have your best trip, whatever that may be!

Vacation Questionnaire