- I’ve learned what works — and what doesn’t — when travelling with teenagers.
- Flexibility matters more than the perfect itinerary.
- A few simple strategies help reduce conflict and increase fun.
When they were really little, we used to call vacationing with the kids “babysitting with the palm trees. “Now that they’re teenagers, it’s probably become more like ‘travelling with the jerk’.”
I mean, sometimes they’re grateful and engaged. But as is often the case, it can feel as if every decision is being evaluated by the most ruthless, cold-blooded jury of exhausted, bored, entitled judges.
We travel a lot, and I’ve realised that there are tricks to making your vacation teen-friendly while still having the best time yourself. Some are easy, some are annoying. But when kids are happy, everyone is happy, right?
We spend a maximum of 30 minutes in museums
If you don’t have kids at the museum, still go, but limit your time. (If you do have kids in the museum, your holidays are obviously very different from mine.) This aspect is really key.
Even in the NYC area where we live full-time, we visit museums regularly, but we don’t stay for hours. Yes, you paid all that money for your ticket, but you decide how much time to spend there. For my kids, 30 to 45 minutes is often enough time to watch the stars of the show and choose their favourite slices to talk about pizza afterward.
No one is irritable. No one is afraid of this journey. As they get older, perhaps you can increase the amount of time you spend doing it.
We still do things we can do at home
Yes, we all saw that go-kart place on the highway we just passed by. But we are in Barcelona. And why would we waste a precious afternoon in Catalonia doing something we can do 20 minutes from home?
Because either way, it will be an adventure that is different from home in interesting and unexpected ways, and one you will all really enjoy. Do it.
We love to explore cities in different ways
Tour the city of Budapest, but do it by riding a three-wheeled Segway. My kids now love finding strange ways to go sightseeing, and they really learn a lot about our places.
In Marrakesh, we toured the city in the comfort of Soviet-era motorcycle sidecars. Sometimes age restrictions mean you have to give up, but when it works, it’s really worth it.
Know what your kids are interested in and plan accordingly
Are they kids from a teen club? If so, wonderful! When you go on vacation to the beach, it means you’ll have many options. We love the Riviera Maya, Grand Velas in Mexico, any Club Med (the new one in Michels, DR, is incredible), or the beaches in Turks and Caicos. The best possible outcome is that they make friends and have the best week doing their thing with their mates. if the teen club is not doing it, his point is, don’t make it a thing. There’s nothing worse than your mom pressuring her friends onto you.
take great classes
Now wherever we go, we take cooking classes. This year in Santa Fe, we did a very interesting job of creating sauces from the region. We learnt a lot about Indigenous history while developing a POV on the ubiquitous local question: “Red, Green, or Christmas?” In Bogotá, we learnt how to make delicious crushed bananas, which my kids now request whenever they see them on a menu and compare to their memory of what they tasted in Colombia. In Fez, we cooked a full five-course meal in a private home inside the medina.
Both of my children love to cook (as do we), so it is a destination “souvenir” that we cherish and revisit time and again.
screen time is flexible
If they put down the phones, they could appreciate the incredible once-in-a-lifetime sight. But it can be difficult to squeeze in every minute when travelling with your parents (and perhaps sharing a hotel room).
If they’re spending more time on their device than you expect but are still otherwise engaged, I would let it slide. Offer to help by being the photographer and shoot them in 4,567,354 poses for one of their IG posts from the trip. There. Now you’ve made it a family activity.
Divide and conquer to do what everyone likes
My son loves golf, but I couldn’t care less. So we are creating a time when we all do what we love, each in our own way. (And hey, they’re teenagers now, so they don’t need me every minute!) I walked to Canyon Road Gallery in Sedona, having the best morning of my life, while my son took his dad to play nine holes against the most spectacular, surreal red-rock backdrop. This was his favourite day of the trip.
