Vacation With Teens: Why We Keep Going Back to the Same Place

Friends, when I called my friend on Monday to tell her how our vacation with teenagers went, and to ask about her adventure trip, she told me her son had summed up the difference between a trip and a vacation. On a vacation, you keep saying, “Oh, this is so nice.” On a trip, it's more like, “Oh, wow, that's wild.” Isn't that the perfect description?

If there's one thing the five of us really have in common, it's a serious case of wanderlust. We love discovering the world. Our oldest learned to walk in Namibia, my brother got married in Mexico, and we're always completely fascinated when we get to see how other people live.

But traveling isn't necessarily restful. Travel is exciting, exhausting, and full of input. A vacation has a completely different purpose. You're away from everyday life then, too, but it's more about slowing down, pausing, airing out your brain, and drifting through the day with no plan.

Some people can do that at home, too. As a self-employed person who works out of my own living room, I find it pretty hard to switch off and do nothing within my own four walls. So it's fantastic to have a place that's away from home, but where you still know everything.

Yeeeees, I know, that sounds so boring and old-school. I never thought I'd write something like this either, but our family has a place like that. I've been going since I was a kid, I know practically every corner, I know where the silverware is and where to get the most delicious baguette in the morning, and I don't have to figure anything out.

Vacation With Teens Can Be Wonderfully Relaxing

It's exactly the same for my family. They know which hikes they like and where to find the best view and the best frozen yogurt. They know some of the waiters in the restaurants and they know their way around, and the Wi-Fi password connects automatically. That means the vacation, the rest and relaxation, can start on day one. We don't have to discover anything, we can just be. A dream for truly switching off…

I hear this from other moms, too. Shari wrote early this week that they'll probably vacation in the same place for the third time, because everything there is familiar and has already passed the family test, with four kids, one of whom needs special accommodations. Maybe you know that feeling?

These days, though, we go in different combinations every so often. One time my husband could only come for one of the two weeks because of work, one time our oldest had classes or preferred to have the house to herself, and this time only one of the twins came along, because the other went away with a friend's family.

That felt incredibly new, because the two of them had never been apart for more than a week. Each of them enjoyed those days in his own way. They texted each other now and then (“Werder sold Burke, WTF,” soccer drama, basically), but each got to be completely himself.

One told me he saw twins at our vacation spot and thought, ha, they're definitely about to look at us. Only then did he realize he was traveling without his shadow this time. No rivalry, no arguments, no eating faster so the other one doesn't finish the food, no talking faster so his brother doesn't take over the story or cut in.

There were no complaints when an outing was planned, and everything was more relaxed than we'd ever experienced. Our daughter had her boyfriend with her, our middle one totally unwound, and our youngest kept sending photos from his week. He was thrilled when he could tell us everything he'd done.

I think it was a new experience for everyone. And for everyone it was somehow wonderful. So I want to encourage you, if school breaks feel even more exhausting than regular workdays. They did for us for years. And now lying around and reading on vacation is possible again… so somehow everything does come back. Eventually.