Would you include a 19-year-old in a planned family holiday?

[TeenLifeMum]

This year we’re not having a family holiday. 14yo twins have been skiing with school, dd1 is 18 and finishing alevels so going away with her friends to Tenerife then camping in Devon. We need a new bathroom so will be forgoing a summer holiday to get the bathroom we want. So we have 2 plans and wondered how others would feel as we are learning to navigate parenting this stage.

1. We would like a winter city break/long weekend away in January. My dm has offered to stay at ours while we go away.
2. we want to have a lovely family holiday in the summer 2027, potentially visiting family in USA (although slightly concerned about safety due to our jobs) or a holiday in Greece is my alternative - we love snorkelling, architecture, sunshine (welcome ideas… teens are great on holiday and up for exploring and being a family).

Now for the question
would you plan on taking dd1 on the summer vacation in 2027? She’ll be 19. A holiday for a family of 4 is significantly cheaper but would most 19yos still be going away with family?

we might need to play it by ear. If she’s still in a relationship she will likely want to be with her girlfriend, but if single that might be a different story. Budgeting wise, I think I’ll plan for 5 of us but we won’t need to book until next year. Just wondering what others do when dc become young adults. (We’ll be financing her through uni if that makes any difference).

It has changed from the look of this thread. We went away to a Spanish city last year for 4 nights at Easter. Youngest DD(21) came but she wanted to sunbathe and we wanted to explore so we met up in the evenings back at our accommodation. It worked well. We paid but she bought a nice meal and some groceries for the apartment. So I think if it can be flexible it’s ok but I don’t want to be trailing around en masse trying to please everyone. Those days are gone!! 😉

Yes my 22 year old still comes on all family holidays with us, I always check he can take time off work etc and wants to come but when I plan anything, I plan with him involved and coming

I’d take her if she wanted to go, but she may want or need to do other things - work or an internship, or doing something with friends.

I think this is a good half-way house. We've been caught out with "partners", buying a bigger place and paying for flights, but who by the time we went, were no longer partners. I would include them at 19, they are family. but the other thing to do is just talk to her "do you want to come on this holiday, in which case you have to properly commit (book hols from work etc. and understand how it is going to work) OR, you can have money towards planning something for yourself (I normally go for half)- whichever they do gives them choice that they can use based on their holiday available, their partner's wishes etc. The money is the same (or less), the certainty is better, and it is THEIR choice. HTH x

At 19, yes, I would definitely have included a 19 year old if they wanted to come, especially if they are at uni and not earning a full wage. My DS is still welcome to come on our holidays at 25, but we tend to book a villa or apartment with enough space, and he and his partner pay for their flights and other expenses. At 19 we would have funded and just asked his GF to pay her airfare.

Perhaps you could also look towards a self-catering type property, an extra bedroom or a sofa bed isn’t that much more expensive.

To add, DH and I have other holidays where it’s just the two of us, and DS also goes away separately with friends or his GF, but it’s nice to have a week away altogether.

My DS and his peer group are all 25, he and two of his friends are still with GFs they got together with at 18 or younger. Perhaps they are all going to split next year!

I’ve been thinking about this and I plan to pay. I want to still go on holiday with my young adult child. I have absolutely no desire to travel in a way that is compliant with a young adult budget.

As long as we still take any of our younger children with us on holiday, we continue to ask the older ones if they want to come. A couple of times eldest (25yo)has had other things he wanted to do. A couple of times he has joined us for part of the holiday, in which case he organises and pays for his own travel. We like to take a place slightly larger than strictly necessary when we go self-catering, so there’s always space for one or two extra people, though they’ll have to room share or sleep on a sofabed. But if we go to a hotel, then we need a commitment at the time we book.

At 19 we wouldn’t be taking a girlfriend or boyfriend along.

It’s a tricky age to navigate holidays. We have a 22 year old (with a very steady boyfriend) and a 19 year old - both now at uni. Our older DD has joined us for most summer holidays over the last few years (sometimes with and sometimes without her boyfriend), but not for smaller trips at other times of year, which haven’t generally coincided with uni holidays.

in your situation I’d definitely invite your DD, but make it clear that a) she can say no with no hard feelings, but b) if she says yes and you pay for costs in advance, she can’t change her mind later even if she gets a more exciting offer!

Not sure I understand why you’re trying to guess what she might want to do. Just ask her.

For me, it comes down to a matter of budget.

Can you comfortably afford to take her? If so, then that is your answer.

If you had to significantly downgrade your plans to accommodate her I’d say no. She’s had her turn multiple times and if it meant the other kids missed out on things I’d sit her down and explain that you want to be able to give the other kids what she herself was given, and you can’t do that if you have to pay for another adult.

I have found with mine that summer is really busy socially for them - there is always a party, an event or a festival. We have often rented a villa for 2 weeks and then they come and go and pay for and sort their own flights and transfers.

I’m part of my parents family but I didn’t go on holiday with them once I was an adult with my own partner because I wanted to holiday with him 🤷🏻‍♀️

My daughter is 24 and has never once declined an invite to come with us on holiday 😂 (we take one of her friends too 😊)

Because we’re talking about 15 months in the future, she doesn’t know. She might have an opportunity through uni to do a summer internship in her area of interest, might go away with girlfriend etc. I think there’s been a big change from 17 to 18 so she realised 18-19 will be very different and we’re all just trying to figure out what that looks like for us as a family, so I was interested what others do.

we’ll be booking in January so no immediate decision needed.

Our adult children still come on our family holidays most of the time so if she wants to come, then plan for that.

We can’t take a friend - a car that has space for 6 people and all the cases ends up being a massive van, and I can’t take a friend for each dc as we’d be taking 8 of us instead of 5. Realistically we’d need 2 cars and dh and I driving separately, which we don’t want.

we only have the one daughter so it’s doable for us and we have always done it. I still think she would come tho regardless, her and I go away a fair bit together as her dad works abroad

I like her a lot, she’s great company. But she’s a young adult and I want to also be respectful of that and wondered what the “normal” transition looks like in terms of holidays.

our older kids turned 18 justbbefore lockdown. Dd1 was 23 and dd2 21 when we next went abroad and we said they could come but pay for them selves although we did cover a lot of the food. L
is your dd still in education?

Yes she’s taking her A levels. We’re not having a family holiday this summer as dtds went skiing over Easter and dd1 went to Italy with school last term. We’re not sure how much uni will cost us (we have an idea and it’ll be expensive). Dd1 is going away for a week with her girlfriend after exams but plans to work the rest of summer to save money. She’s worked and saved for the holiday but we pay for pretty much everything - driving lessons and test, car, insurance, fuel etc

If you can afford to I’d probably pay or go halves? But bear in mind whatever you do the younger children will expect the same!

’Normal’ is what works for you. I have been astonished by the fact that our dc have always wanted to come on holiday with us. From everything I read on here over the years, I thought they would not do this.

We try to find things that all or most of us will enjoy, but we’re not glued to each other on holiday. I love having them around. I remember only one occasion when I had a sulky teen face-down in their phone, slumped against the wall in the every room of a historic place they had wanted to visit. Which was what MN lead me to believe was ‘normal’.

I would never have gone away with my parents after age 16.

Yep, we’ve always invited DS along, (now 24) and his current SO. But we’ve not done long haul as a family since 2018- it’s been European trips, mostly self- catering, so not as generous an offer as all-expenses in Japan, go example.