What do you do about holidays with very reluctant teens?

[greyllama]

Autistic teen (13) dislike people, noise, unfamiliarity. Wants to go on holiday but generally wants to spend the entire time in his room as he's 'tired' (code for many things), hates the beach, hates food not being normal, body conscious, avoids the pool, hates crowds, heat, people, walking, looking at sights - spends the whole time asking when he can go back to his room. Can't share a hotel room as can't sleep.

Keeps saying he wants to go on holiday but can't say what kind of holiday. I'm fed up of self catering holidays where we're planning meals, food shopping, trying to find activities everyone hates. I want a bit of luxury and being taken care of on holiday.

Do we just accept holidays are off the menu until he leaves home? What do you all do with reluctant teens? I can't leave him at home, he's too young obviously and no family to stay with. Leaving him in his own hotel room all the time is really expensive and he'll still hate the food.

Urgh. Hideous. Send help

Kinda similar here.

Suite/adjoining rooms that includes a kitchenette in an AI. Also some resorts have residences/cottages. Acceptable food for teen can be prepared in kitchenette. Rest of family enjoys activities and food on the resort, teen is left to enjoy their downtime in the room.

Can he explain what he wants from a holiday?

Stay in the uk and do city breaks? Keep them short, eat out at familiar places, plenty of choice of activities that don't involve being on a beach. Find things that interest him (even if they seem a bit weird to you!).

What about an apartment within a hotel complex, so he can have his own room, but there's catering available? Or do self catering but go out for dinners?

I'd base myself at home and put the budget towards making that as restful and enjoyable as possible.

Hotels sound unsuitable for your teen. If you don't want self-catering, I'd knock it on the head.

For me and autistic ds (14) for UK we do a couple of nights in a hotel to visit places on his wish list. All kept very low key with plenty of time in the hotel room for him - where possible we pay for a better room.

for abroad we stick with cruises. Plenty of his own space. We can explore the ship but lots of quiet places and drinks etc can be taken to the room easily if needed. On port days we may spend a couple of hours looking around then back to enjoy the quiet ship.

This isn't at all a dig but a genuine question - when he's just "in his room" is he gaming/chatting online/ watching stuff or reading, etc? Or literally just lying in bed?

My asd one loved wildlife so we did holidays around that in places like Costa Rica for rainforest / wildlife / ziplines and was very active. Also brown bears in Finland at Arola Bears (only start of our summer holidays) combined with white water rafting, summer toboggan, reindeer etc. Within UK Isles of Scilly was very keen on helicopter over / small plane back and really obsessed with red squirrels on Tresco going round photographing them all the time and boat trips. Basically if they have an obsession you can theme on that can work well. He loves AI and dislikes self catering but will do just breakfast. He loved holidays and used to tell me to get 67% of his time outdoors. AI worked with food as its the same every time and can eat same meal in same place and same time and unlimited ice cream. In Australia AI was crazily pricey so there we had to do quite a few McDonalds and he insisted I booked places which had hash browns for breakfast - I just told him I thought they all did and once there was fine. I do go through things with him before and ask for preferences.

I did tell him about cruises and he said he thought he would like those as long as they had wifi (apparently no wifi is a near death experience) though said he may not leave the boat. Then said his perfect holiday would be 2 weeks on a non-stop plane and was that possible. 🤔

We are at this with DD, 17. We found that so many things don't work with her and I was actually in tears yesterday about it trying to come up with a last memorable one after A-level and 18th birthday.

So far we established that while she wants a hotel, it can't be a resort one. She (and we now) are fed up with s/c as well.

We chatted about what she likes on holidays and found that a city break works if she has a day for herself inbetween to re-charge.
Followed by a week somewhere quite but still with things to do. All pre-planned so she knows what is going on.

And we do leave her on her own in her room as well if necessary. She has her own room since she is 15 and does need a significant amount of time alone.

It can't be too unknown, safari is out, SE Asia is out. Costa Rica doesn't work for me and anything higher than high twenties is also out.
Oh, cruises don't work, too many people for her and DH gets seasick on any kind of vessel.

I think we may do Scandinavia next year.

Our 17 year old rebel came on a villa holiday with us and some other family-13 people in total. We made sure she had her own room which she spent a fair bit of time in as she struggles with big groups, but that she knew what we were going and when so she could opt in or out. Ate out and in on alternate nights and she did come out for all the dinners.
Got a bit of judgement from the other family about her being in her room a lot. Explained it once to them, and after that Ignored it. We all managed to have a good time anyway-even dd.

17 year old dd not rebel. Though she has done a bit of that in the past as well :)

Find something related to their special interest?

Short city breaks, own room in hotel (we did the pod style hotels which were cheaper) and took a jar of peanut butter so he could eat his “safe” sandwich if strange foods got a bit much.

We alternated half day doing something, half day in his room watching a movie (or asleep), out in the evening. That seemed to be enough down time balanced with interesting things.

We have at home time and out and about time when we are away. They don't get the choice of spending holiday time all the time on their phone.

My youngest DD struggles with holidays although is not autistic, she just hates change. She does well with AI because she can reliably get 'safe' food, and we tend to get family villas in resorts so plenty of space and quiet.
we're planning a holiday we've always wanted to do next year and she's said flatly she doesn't want to come with us. Torn between going because other DC are so excited about it or rearranging to something 'safe'.
@Penguinsa im really interested in your Finland trip, can I message you about it?

Mostly gaming, watching YouTube, texting. Usually in a dark room 🤣

Yes, wider family villa holidays have been a hit in the past but everyone has other plans for the next few years sadly.

I'm in the same boat.

AuDHD DD 17 doesnt really like being away at all, but would hate to miss out. So far she has loved Florence (has a special interest in renaissance history) and bizarrely Singapore as she enjoyed watching the buzz.

For the last family holiday before University we're going to go to Japan. She wanted to go there and has worked up an itinerary which sets out what she wants to do and gives her some days off.