How to choose the right vacation destination and keep friends?

Organizing vacations with friends can be a wonderful human adventure ... but also a taste of hell Stingy or spendthrift buddies, blunderers, lazy… “Dirty friends” exist, and each year manage to find people to go on vacation. Every year, and this year maybe even more, after three anti-Covid lockdowns, do you go on leave with friends? "20 Minutes" has decided to help you. Quite simply because the editorial staff thinks that you have taken a lot of money this year. It is high time to take advanta

Stingy or spendthrift buddies, blunderers, lazy… “Dirty friends” exist, and each year manage to find people to go on vacation.
Every year, and this year maybe even more, after three anti-Covid lockdowns, do you go on leave with friends?
"20 Minutes" has decided to help you.
Quite simply because the editorial staff thinks that you have taken a lot of money this year.
It is high time to take advantage of this summer vacation!
Here is the user manual to go on vacation with friends without committing suicide or committing suicide to your loved ones (because an accident can happen quickly).

Dreaming about Buenos Aires… and finally spending a week in a campsite in Biscarrosse.

Choosing your destination when going on vacation with friends can be a matter of non-choice, open warfare, or quite simply luck (or bad luck, of course).

Because it is not always easy to tune your violins with all the members of the group.

The holidays start well in advance of the day of departure, with the preparations.

So many moments before D-Day that can cause friction, disillusionment or even discomfort, even before having seen his best friend's guy in swimming trunks on the beach at Berck.

A vacation that will make a milestone

As with everything, the best thing is to develop a battle plan. The first thing on which it is necessary to agree, is obviously the date of the holidays concerned, because it could influence the destination. If we dream of a week at the beach and in the sun but that we are only available from mid-October, we can consider that France, like the rest of Europe will then be proscribe (unless bathing in cold water, potentially with seals, does not pose a problem). "The dates of the holidays can necessarily affect the choice of destination," recognizes Philippe Gloaguen, co-founder of the

Guide du Routard

. If we have children, for example, we are stuck by the school holidays. "

Likewise, if some members of the group want to leave for a fortnight when others only consider a week or less, it is preferable to know this in advance in order to organize the potential turnover at the vacation spot. depending on the choice of destination (and therefore on-site accommodation)… and to share the costs linked to said accommodation as best as possible.

The best way to do this is probably to create a Doodle with the friends you are supposed to join.

The dates available (or not) will jump out in the eyes of the group quite quickly.

When you have this element, if you do not have a specific idea of a destination, sites like Routard or Where and When helps you, depending on your dates.

No limit versus all inclusive

Now it's time for the second very important step of this magnificent community project. If one is well available during the summer months for example, but the budget is lacking to go to the sun in high season, this is also a significant element to take into account. And that will perhaps be the biggest point of disagreement in the group of friends. If the financial disparities turn out to be too great… the project could well come to an end before departure.

It is absolutely essential to address the question BEFORE leaving and establish the maximum budget that everyone intends to put on the table for the duration of the stay, as Angela Sutan, professor at the Burgundy School of Business advised us in the first episode. from our series: “Define before departure the number of restaurants, activities and evenings to be consumed outside, so that everyone can find their way there and that there is no debate once there.

Tell me who you are, I'll tell you where to go

“Holidays with friends first of all require financial consistency so as not to create tensions,” confirms Philippe Gloaguen. We can imagine that by leaving with friends teachers (therefore necessarily in high season), we should not hope to rent a villa for eight with swimming pool if we absolutely want to go to the Côte d'Azur, otherwise explode your vacation budget in a single week and end banking banned at the start of the school year. To reduce a little expenses which would not be constrained by precise dates, Philippe Gloaguen advises besides to “avoid leaving the beginnings and ends of the month, in order to benefit from more affordable prices. "

The last essential element inseparable from the first two factors that must absolutely be taken into consideration is of course the style of vacation that everyone wishes to spend.

It is difficult to reconcile a tour of Berlin or Ibiza nightclubs with a nature week in Périgord or the desire for mountain hikes with a week of lazing around by the sea. Nadèje * still remembers her holidays in Corsica. at fifteen.

Without really understanding the difficulty of the route (probably because no one had warned her), she had accepted with enthusiasm to hike on the famous GR20 that her friends had so much praised to her: “You'll see, it's accessible to everyone. the world… ”Apparently not.

To leave is to choose

A (very) big tiredness and several friends less later, she said to herself that she would never have accepted if she had known. “I could see that I was annoying them because they had to wait for me all the time. In the end, we all ended up angry: me because I thought they weren't really nice, and them because they considered me a burden that ruined their holidays. "

“The choice of destination is obviously linked to the personality of the members of the group,” observes Philippe Gloaguen, who recalls that his principle of homogeneity also applies on this point.

We can adore certain friends knowing full well that we will never go on vacation with them because we do not have the same interests, at least on vacation.

Better to be realistic on this point before leaving.

They love camping when you hate it?

Do you swear by the beaches of the Atlantic when they dream of cycling in Lozère?

Your skin (or you) can only stand cool climates while your friends spend their day sunbathing in the sun?

No need to force yourself and have a bad vacation, it will be better for everyone.

Final destination ?

Especially since on site, once we have (well) chosen our destination, other angry questions await us: "You have to know if you are going to the hotel or if you are going to lodgings. If you choose the gîte, who will cook? Who will do the shopping? These two points must be settled before going on vacation, ”advises Philippe Gloaguen. “If I had known that my friends would let me do everything, I would have clearly chosen a hotel stay rather than a rental, even if it was more expensive. I would have cut back on another item of expense, ”says Anne *.

Enough to spoil a vacation even in a heavenly place… between people of good company.

This is when we feel other questions emerging: how to choose the friends with whom we go on vacation?

And how not to endure the holidays once there?

You'll find out in our next episode.

Stay tuned

...

* Names have been changed, in the hope of keeping some friends

Trip

Holidays with friends: How not to get confused about budget issues?