The European family vacation survival guide
serves up a cold one.
This summer I traveled to Denmark, England and Ireland with my sister, mother and grandmother to visit various relatives on both sides of the family. I envisioned it as a way of reconnecting with our European side of the family, a way of introducing our Danish roots — three and a half weeks of hanging out, catching up and lots of fun. So why did I end up wondering what went wrong?
What I hadn’t realized is, that now that I am an adult, this no longer really qualifies as a family vacation, because a family vacation is not really a vacation unless you are under the age of 18. Hasn’t someone written a survival guide just for such a situation? Well, there is no substitute for experience, so I took it upon myself to do so. Consider utilizing the following tips and reminders for your next family vacation — they just might save your sanity and salvage your family relationships.
This is not a vacation, repeat, not a vacation.
It most certainly is not a vacation, so rid yourself of that common misconception as soon as possible. You are with family. It is impossible to relax with family. Why? Because you are an adult now, and you are no longer immune from family issues, dysfunctional patterns and travel tension. You are now aware of what your family is really like. And you are stuck with your family for the duration of the trip, because it is your duty. Because you are an adult now, and you are responsible. Isn’t it fun?
You are no longer a child, so think like an adult.
Here is where you have no choice but to think about things like how much the hotel costs, and whether the itinerary is correct, where and when to pick up the rental car, and how to take your relatives out to dinner and buy them gifts and send them thank-you cards and things like that. Even if your parents are still paying for everything and have arranged everything, you will still think about those things, unless you are spoiled rotten. Then you are lucky because it won’t even occur to you to think about those things because you are so shallow. Lucky! If this is you, please stop reading now.
Think of yourself as THE responsible adult, depending on how old your elders are.
This is where you realize that your parents and grandparents are getting older. This is where you start to act responsibly by doing things like keeping an eye out for your mother’s and grandmother’s luggage, asking them numerous times if they are sure they have all of their travel documents and taking charge of driving the rental car. This is where you blame yourself for your mother’s carry-on luggage being stolen in the confusion of customs because you ended up on a different flight than she did and she was also responsible for your grandmother and couldn’t keep an eye on everything and if only you had been there it wouldn’t have happened. OK, I’m over it now. I am. Really, I am!
You will gain weight, no matter what.
When you are visiting relatives, they will want to do nothing but feed you constantly. There will be a large breakfast laid out prior to your getting out of bed, which you must eat even if you aren’t hungry because you don’t want to hurt their feelings. There will be a large lunch three hours later because you got out of bed so late because of the time difference. There will be an even larger dinner. Each meal will include lots of good butter, amazing cheese and the best bread you’ve ever had in your life (because you are in Europe). In between, there will be numerous offers of coffee and alcohol. You will fall asleep in a stupor caused by overeating and too much drinking. The same thing will happen day after day. No, you can’t exercise to burn some of those excess calories — you will be too busy because you are visiting as many tourist sites as you possibly can because you are trying to pretend you are on vacation.
Prepare to converse — a lot and often.
Your European relatives live thousands of miles away from you, you have not seen them in many years, and you are trying to see as many of them as possible in a short time frame. They will be very curious and want to know everything about your life. You will repeat the same things about yourself many times to many different relatives. Get used to it.
Appreciate, respect and listen to your elders.
Now that you are an adult, you are probably much less self-centered than you used to be as a child or teen. This is a wonderful quality, because you are finally able to see and appreciate your relatives in a way you never could before. Your family members who are 60, 70, 80 or 90 years old have accumulated a wealth of wisdom and experience from living those years. They can tell countless fascinating stories from a different type of life than you’ve ever known. They have lived history, and they love sharing with you. They adore seeing you, relish your zest for life and enjoy witnessing your youthful energy (even though you think you are getting old). They are living treasures, so appreciate them.
Time is short, and so is life.
You won’t be on vacation forever, and your relatives won’t live forever. You might not see some of them again. Enjoy your precious time with them. Even if you grew up not really knowing them, try to develop relationships with them as an adult. You can see them as more than just gift-giving machines now that you are older, and you can gain so much more.
It will be over sooner than you think it will be.
It will. Trust me. You’ll find yourself back at home wondering what you were complaining about. You’ll find yourself telling everyone how great it was and conveniently forgetting about the moments (or entire days) when you were so fed up and drained that you were determined to take the next flight home.
Take a vacation within your vacation — minus family.
Plan on taking a few days away from all family members, except for maybe your sister whom you don’t mind being with. Go somewhere fun that you really want to visit. Don’t worry about spending money. Make it the best vacation you can in the few days that you can spare from doing your family duty. Party! Your sanity might depend on it.
Ultimately, it is family — your family.
These people are related to you by blood and they are probably good people whom you love (or at least like) and they probably feel the same way about you, regardless of tension or dysfunctional patterns or issues. They are family. Sometimes, that’s enough. (Besides, if they were truly awful there is no way you would be visiting them and this wouldn’t apply to you anyway.)
Now if only I had had this survival guide when I got on the plane this summer….
No, my trip to Europe did not meet my expectations. It was no vacation. But it ended up being an amazingly rich, wonderful experience that I couldn’t have realized except in retrospect.
I connected with relatives I had not seen in 10 years. I met tiny new members of the family and now realize the value of precious time with old family members, some of whom I had never met before and some of whom I may never see again. I experienced the bond of family, which is not always obvious, but has endured over the years and over thousands of miles.
So would I do it again? You bet. But not for a couple of years and after at least two or three REAL vacations — no family members allowed.