AIBU visitors from abroad

[onlydigestivesinthetin]

We have relatives in Australia and New Zealand. In 2017 we visited them for the first time and stayed no longer than three nights with any of them. We host quite a lot in the UK and we know that after three nights the pleasure of visitors wears off and they can begin to become hard work. We always turned up with wine or flowers or food and bought a meal out or a takeaway one evening. While we were made welcome, we had no sense of the boat being pushed out for us on our travels – which is fine by us. Our aim is to be fondly remembered.

The following summer one of my cousin's daughters, 21, asked to come and stay while she was in Europe on a four-month visit. We live in a rather dull area so when she arrived (we thought she was coming for week) we put some effort into taking her around. She asked to stay a second week (gulp) and eventually left after nearly three weeks, by which time we were pretty desperate. She had complex dietary needs and not much get-up-and-go, so unless we initiated things she wold have sat playing with her phone all day, every day.

By the end of it we calculated it had cost us over a grand in petrol, 'experiences', entrance fees to National Trust places and other days out, tickets to a weekend arts festival, the theatre etc and special gluten free and dairy free foods. She paid for a couple of coffees over the entire period. We were later slightly gutted to see hundreds of photos of her on a two-month coach tour of Europe drinking cocktails and eating out night after night, but she's young and I would probably have done the same at her age.

It would all have been forgotten except for the fact that now her sister has emailed us to say she and her boyfriend are arriving in the UK in May and they'd like to come and stay, seeing how we showed the first one such a good time...

How do others handle this situation? We want to be generous, we remember being young and skint and how fabulous it was when adults enabled us to do things we couldn't have done independently – but at the same time it seems a bit unbalanced. And there are another seven 20-somethings in Oz and New Zealand who are probably eyeing those pix and and adding us to their itinerary.

Just say "that's great, let them know they'll need to budget £50 a day each for eating out and excursions. Are they bringing some of those delicious [antipodean junk food] we can't get here? I haven't had any in ages. Let me know which 5 nights they want to stay and I'll see what's on locally"

I think people in Aus and NZ are more geared up for visitors than we are over here. In New Zealand most had sleep-outs, which made staying easier as it gave us all a bit of space. In Australia one set of rellies had a basement room with with bathroom and we came and went. We just have a bog-standard three-bedroom house and we don't even have an en-suite, so we're all more on top of each other. Plus the weather's no so good here, and rainy days tend to require more expenditure.

You're not wrong, it's a lot easier to comfortably accommodate people in the average kiwi house. My last one over there had two large living areas, two bathrooms, and a good sized double bedroom - the one before that had a sleepout with an ensuite.

It can be a bit of a problem that young ones coming over here think they're coming over to a surrogate Mummy and Daddy, who will joyfully pay their way and entertain them - and sometimes their parents think the same way too. Sometimes you have to be a bit brutal to make it clear that this is not the case.

I think the first one took alot of advantage of you guys. She must have known days out cost money. The least she could have done is offered to pay her share. And with her dietary issues, she could have offered something!.
The fact that she then went on afterwards on a spending spree, saving her money at your expense. I would be pissed off actually.

it's more likely the word spread how great you and your dh are at picking up the bill. I would say that yourll are happy to meet up at some events, and send them links to the tickets as well as air bnb near yourll.

The first one sounds like a CF. If shes old enough to travel abroad, shes old enough to know about common courtesy when staying with others

Can't you arrange that you are actually going on holiday yourselves in May so you can turn them down without telling any lies? (Even if you just go away somewhere fairly local for a few days).

I wouldn’t do this, they might suggest they stay in your house while you are away anyway!

OneDay10, I think she had arrived with us expecting to spend a week here before going on to stay with some other relatives and was then hoping to have a week in London with people who had stayed with her family previously. She didn't say much but we suspect these arrangements broke down and so she just stayed on with us.