Traveling with Teens | Challenges we face and how to overcome them | Pushback
Helping parents through the challenges of traveling with teens
In this on-going series, we continue to dive into the many challenges that we as parents face when traveling with our teens. There are so many joys that come with traveling with our young adults such as authentic conversations, shared interests and the fact that they can pack and carry their own bags but we’d be lying to each other if we said there were not struggles as well.
In case you jumped to this topic first, let’s recap how we got here.
This series on traveling with teens started with a online friendship of three moms—all of us with teens in the house (seven total to be exact). We started by sharing stories and experiences and realized we had a lot in common, so we did our first Instagram live together (you can watch that here if you want) and after great response from our audiences, we had so many questions that we did a follow-up live and now we are sharing the information here.
All the tips and suggestions in this series are pulled from a combination of insights and experiences of our own lives so before we get started, let’s re-introduce the women who participated in the live with me. For the full introduction, head to the first blog post in this series, Traveling with Teens | Teen Schedules.
Meet Jen: a mom of three teens based in South Carolina. Jen is the founder of Go Family Adventure blog and Instagram page.
Jen is passionate about enjoying the great outdoors near and far and getting her kids outside and off-screens.
Jen loves to encourage busy families like hers to take that trip to getaway and reconnect and proves over and over again that travel doesn’t always have to mean exotic locations and far away places. Sometimes the best adventure is just a short drive away.
Jen with Go Family Adventure
Click this picture to read her blog post and 3 day itinerary for Puerto Rico, perfect for families with teens.
Laura with Travel 80 by 80.
Laura and her family recently traveled to Guatemala. Read more about her adventure with her teens and husband on her recent blog post!
Meet Laura: Laura is a mom of two teens based in Southern California and is the creator and founder of Travel 80 by 80.
Laura shares her passion for traveling intentionally to international locations with her husband and two teens.
Laura is proof that teen schedules don’t always allow for international jet-setting so when she can’t venture off to far away lands, she explores all that Southern California has to offer!
Check out her blog for International adventures and local hikes and highlights around San Diego.
If you are new here, I’m Juli, mom of two teens based in Georgia!
I’ve created this blog to encourage families with teens to travel in a way that feels authentic to them and also try to inspire moms that may have lost a bit of their adventurous side to rediscover themselves through travel.
No doubt traveling with teens will take you out of your comfort zone but it’s in those moments that you find what you are really capable of and let go of what was holding you back.
As a family with two teens, we travel every chance we get to a variety of locations—from NYC to Montana and the Caribbean to Peru.
Juli with Celebrate and Explore
Here we are at the US Open in NYC. If you love tennis and want to visit during the Open, be sure to check out this post.
Let’s get started on our third topic….pushback from teens.
After all, if a teen isn’t pushing back in some way, do you really have teens in your house? It might be hard to understand why teens would not want to take a family vacation but trust us, we have all experienced pushback.
Q: When we suggest a trip, my teens never have the reaction we hope for. How do you get your teens onboard to travel?
Let’s be honest, the emotions of teens can often present its own set of challenges. As they get older, they have more opinions, needs and wants. It’s important to listen and talk with them about travel plans. Below we are sharing some personal experiences and ways we work through the challenge of pushback.
Pushback. I think we can all recall a time that a teen’s reaction to travel plans included questions like “do we have to?”, “Can I stay home?” or “Why do we have to go for that long?”.
It can be understandable—teens are creatures of comfort, they like their space, friends, freedom and sometimes aren’t willing to give that up. We have all found that making them a part of the travel planning process as opposed to announcing decisions without their input goes a long way.
Teens feel valued when they feel heard, so ask for their opinions and ideas before you start planning and chances are you can come up with a travel plan that offers compromise and balance and keeps everyone happy.
Busy, sports, social life, applying to colleges. Teens are busy people and especially in this day and age, they are facing a lot of stress in their every day worlds. Most parents want to travel with teens to escape the stress we all feel but teens can feel that going away for a period of time adds to the stress. It’s important to listen to all they have on their plate, help them find ways to organize their time and workload and help them recognize that time away from the stressors is greatly needed.
FOMO. So often our kids want to stay home because their friends are doing the same and convince themselves that something amazing will happen at home while they are gone then it ends up happening that everyone makes plans and they spend more time at home than they had hope for.
If that’s happened to them before, you might want to gently remind them of that. FOMO is a real thing for teenagers but like most fears, they are rarely substantiated.
Traveling with friends. During our conversation, we found that this is always something they ask for. Each and every one of our kids have asked “can we bring a friend?”
The three of us are very honest that we fiercely protect our time to travel with our teens as best we can but sometimes the opportunity to bring a friend fits the scenario so it’s not always something we shut down immediately. Trips like ski or beach vacations, camping & hiking trips are types of travel that give teens a chance to be adventurous & independent with kids their own age.
College visits are also trips that often make sense to let them bring a friend. Having a friend to help them visualize and relate to as they start to explore the next phase of their lives can bring a lot of comfort and confidence to the experience.
A few tips to traveling with teens and their friends.
If you are considering opening your trip up to include friends, be sure to find a family that has a similar travel style. It’s also good to have some honest and open conversations with the other parents before you go (even if they are only sending their child with you). Expectations, boundaries and budget discussions are all easier to have in advance of travel as opposed to after the trip is done.
If bringing a friend on your family trip is not an option for you, one way to compromise on the discussion is by sending your teen with others. This can be in the form for group trips, traveling with a friend’s family if an invitation presents itself or traveling with a club, church group or community. Trips like this can give them a sense of independence that they are searching for but doesn’t have to impede or interrupt your family travel experience.
Above all else, you have to make sure it’s right for your family and everyone traveling and we all agree there is no shame in saying “not this time” to ensure that as a family you get the time together you need. It’s ok to be selfish, protect your time with kids
A hike might start out with some grumbles and complaints but once they get going, teens are always grateful for the time to move more and be outside! Photo courtesy of @joshuas via Unsplash.
Finding balance in trips is key when traveling with teens.
We all know teens need their downtime, like adventure & independence and need to burn off extra energy at times. The key to a successful trip is finding balance with all those things. Constantly busy, boring historical tours or hours and hours of shopping are all things that might turn a teen off from traveling as a family.
A few key tips are:
1) let them choose and activity or destination that interests them.
2) if you are traveling for more than a few days, schedule a down day where they can sleep in, veg out or go out an wander on their own (if you are comfortable with that).
3) Do something that scares you a little. We all know teens have less fear when it comes to adventure and thrill so book a fun adventure that gets you out of your comfort zone and gives them an opportunity to shine and show off their mad skills. Learn to surf, swim with sharks, zipline, bungee jump, parasail—there are tons of ideas but enticing them with an adventure will often get them on board quickly. This may mean facing your own fears but we can all attest to the fact that the moments we just went for it to be with our teens ended up being absolute highlights to our trip.
Some final thoughts…
Laura, Jen and I all believe that travel is the way we all connect with our kids—it’s the best one on one time. Distractions, whether it be stress, routine, other people, busy schedules are all put on hold when we travel. It’s not uncommon for us to find a place where there is no cell signal like international travel or remote outdoor locations—-spots where there is little to no signal keep them off their phone and reduces the amount of time we have to nag to get off their phones.
Speaking of phones, let’s tackle a topic we all struggle with!
This is a conversation that all parents have—-phones keep us connected to our kids but also take our kids away from us ( or at least their attention!) We all have our own rules and limitations but phones while traveling is an inevitable part of the equation when traveling with teens.
Be sure to share your thoughts and questions below. This is a conversation that we want to continue with all parents wanting to travel with their teens. Life with teenagers isn’t always easy but it does help to talk to other parents in the same stage of life. Comment below with your thoughts!
Celebrate your teens, explore the world together!
Feel free to pin this image