Vacation with Adult Children

Oldest ds works full time now and has very few bills. We went to Italy in May and he paid for his airfare. He also paid for some souvenirs that he wanted. We paid for everything else. We had 2 adjoining rooms and it was nice to have the space, but we told him we may not be able to do that every trip. He said he would be happy to pay his share of an adjoining room.

I would absolutely agree it depends on who "picked" the vacation.

We recently did a reunion and the house we rented was split equally "per family" my mom included. She volunteered to pay for a lot of the groceries as she was the only one that didn't have to also fly to get there. Everything else -rentals, activities were just paid for by whomever went.

We travel with our adult kids. Now everyone chips in some. While everyone can do what they think works for them, I personally don't get how/why adults feel like someone else should pay for their trips whenever they travel. I can see it if there is a large divide in money, but expecting your parents to pay for everything for every trip seems wrong. A special trip somewhere where the parents want to take the whole family? Sure, but the family should also plan on treating the parents to a nice night on their tab to show some appreciation.

I love this and would especially love having the meal planning done by someone else.  When we travel with our kids, one kid takes care of breakfast, one lunch and we do dinner.

It has nothing to do with expecting and everything to do with going along with what my parents want…they are still top dogs in our family.  😆.    I go in with the expectation of paying but know that they will probably pay for a lot of it.  

It gives them pleasure, I think, to be able to do this for their kids.  🤷🏻‍♀️  All families are different. It is the same when I go out to lunch or dinner with them.  I try to pay or at least leave the tip but they prefer to pay. Their response is always until they are unable to or don’t want to it is their choice.  Who am I to argue…and the big joke is just that I am getting some of my inheritance early.  😄.   I certainly show my appreciation to my parents all the time, I know that I am lucky and I don’t take that lightly.  I would certainly not judge how any family navigates these types of things as every family is different…this is just how our family works. 

I am the oldest of three children. Once we graduated and had a full-time job we were expected to share the expense of lodging. We paid for our own transportation to/from. Everyone paid their own tab for meals.

My children are 25, 27, and 29.  Their dad died when they were 14, 16, and 18.  I cannot afford to pay for everything when we travel, so they pay their part. The exception is if we are camping. I pay for the campsite and most of the groceries. They pay their own tab if we go out for a meal and bring some of the groceries, usually chips, sodas, or bread.

The adult children pay part of housing, their flight, and help with food. If we drive, we do not make them pay for gas. We also cover cost of a rental vehicle. Neither dh or I ever went on vacations with our parents at any point. Neither had the means and we both come from large families.

I don't think most people do expect it from their parents, but some do.  My kids always joke that they are getting their inheritance early.  My point was every trip every item paid.  I think most adults aren't cool with that and pay something or try to pay something (even if the parents say no).  My point was how/why adults feel they are owed this.  You certainly don't sound like you feel you are owed this.  

I am the adult child and when we do family vacations (rare, but we've done a couple), we typically fight over who will pay because we both/all want to!

When we did our big Europe trip, we all paid for our own flights/hotels and then fought over who would pick up the tab for everything else. 🤣

This is probably unhelpful, but if your children have means, they should probably start carrying their own weight (unless you got big money and you WANT to pay their way and have made that clear). If you're not comfortable with that, it's time for a conversation about expectations.

My parents took me and my husband on a trip out west right before we finally got pregnant (Mom always said the vacation relaxed us enough that we were finally able to conceive because...it was on the trip or right after. LOL). We were fresh out of grad school, bought a house, and saving up for invitro.  They paid for everything except our meals.

Fast forward 10+ years. 2 kids, better paying jobs, less student loans, no invitro, but college and retirement.  Mom invited us to go on the same trip.  We declined as we were saving for Disney.  Plus--she said they wouldn't pay for anything this time. And we've already been on this trip (it's a bus tour).  Yes, it will be different with kids, and they will enjoy it...but also more expensive with them. And it felt like...they were choosing for us how we should spend $5K.  Nah, we decided to pass. She offered again this year and said they would pay for packages, we would just pay for meals. So we agreed.

Maybe we should pay for more, but as she likes to remind me, I'm an only child, so it's my inheritance either way.  I don't think there's any easy answer.  I figure we'll pick up what meals of theirs that we can.  

ETA: I should also say we've invited them on our trips, but they refuse to do anything that's not a bus tour package.  And that is not our thing. Also, neither of us travel a lot.  They literally haven't been anywhere since the last bus tour out west, and we go on a trip every 3 years or so.