Holidays with friends are always amazing, especially if your friends also have kids. In fact, I don’t think going on holiday with friends who have kids when you don’t would be much fun unless you really, really like their kids! Holidaying with other families means a few things:
- Friends for your kids to play with, so you don’t have to
- Which means you can drink, chat and eat in adult company with less pestering from the kids
- Childcare swapping in the evenings – built in baby sitters so you can take turns to have a date night
- Memory making – the best bit of any holiday!
- It’s often cheaper as you can split the cost of accommodation with other families, cottages for large groups are ideal for this.
- Less cooking – if you decide to take it in turns to cook lunches or evening meals
We’ve had more than a few holidays with friends, from holiday parks to boats on the Norfolk broads, but the best ones have always been when we’ve hired out houses that have been perfect for us to chill out in and relax. One holiday in Cornwall saw 10 of us, and a baby!
Here are my tips to consider when thinking about a self catering holiday with friends:
- Choose a house with enough bathrooms! Especially if you’re bringing kids who might be wanting daily baths at the same time!
- It’s important to realise that quite often people in your party will want to be doing different things during the holiday, so make sure you’ve got enough car parking space per family/couple so if you do all head off in different directions you can all park close by when you get back without the need to tetris your cars in and out of a drive way
- What is there to do in the area? Is there enough to suit everyone’s ideal holiday activities? We loved Bluestone in Wales as there was a lot to do in the local area
- How will you manage the food budget? We tend to do a food shop to pick up from the closest supermarket and split it down the middle, providing you’re all planning on eating and drinking together. A lovely idea is to take turns with preparing the evening meal so you all get a ‘night off’, but we try and go out for a meal a couple of times too
- Make sure you make a note of how everything was set up when you arrived, taking a few photos on your phone can help make sure you put everything back where it was when you leave
- Make sure you know what time you can arrive from, and when you need to leave. Arrive to early and your property may not be quite ready, and you don’t want a mad rush on the last morning either!
- Do you want somewhere with more indoor space, or a big garden? If you’re holidaying in the summer then a garden with a BBQ would be really handy, but if you’re travelling in winter then it’s not so important… but a log fire might be nice!
Party houses have some absolutely amazing places you can book, for groups of ten up to fifty plus! Some of the houses are breathtaking, and would be absolutely amazing for large groups of friends or a big family gathering! You can search by area or party size and then whittle down your requirements until you have the perfect property for your holiday.