Recently, articles have been popping up about whether you should vacation with your extended family, and the answer is a big, fat YES! Whether your family is close and already does it, or you barely know your cousins and think of them as strangers. You should vacation with your extended family, because something special happens when you do.

Spending time with my extended family has been a constant in my life since I was born. During our younger years, we alternated between spending Thanksgiving and Christmas together, as well vacationed yearly to our parent’s childhood summer vacation spot. Now we’re a little more spread out across the U.S. and a little older with jobs and college, but we still have Christmas every other year and our annual summer vacation marked on the calendar till the end of time.

At this point in my life I don’t understand not vacationing with them, and not just because it’s a tradition. They are my past, my present, and my future, without all the ghosts, and vacationing without them is simply unheard of.  Here are my three reasons.

Because they are family 

Only so many people in your life see the real you without hesitation to be something you’re not, and that’s your family. Growing up with family, you’re yourself and they may not always understand you, but they still get you. They’re okay you’re a little unhinged when not in public because they are too – who else sings campfire songs on the party bus to the bar before alcohol? With your family, it’s okay to be everything you are, which makes the company and time enjoyable.

Because we’re not family just by blood, but by choice

We make a point to see each other despite jobs and other obligations. We choose to see each other, bask in the sun and laughter and occasionally rage with the waves and anger, because we want to.  Having a family is something we’re born into, but being a family is something we grow into. When a job stands in the way, we say no, even threaten to quit because it’s not summer vacation without each other and a chorus (or 500) of “Doe, a deer, a female deer. Ray, a drop of golden sun”… On karaoke night at the bar (and typically every other night). 

Because not only are we choosing to be family, we’re choosing to be friends

They say you can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends, but that’s necessarily true, because sometimes you choose to make your family your friends. It happens when you enjoy spending time with them so much. I’m not one for sharing the bed –it’s mine! (I swear I’m not an only child)- but I make an exception for them, even when they sleep diagonal across me. We’re more than family staying in a cabin; we’re friends who talk and hang out outside of family obligations and reunions. We choose to be close, sometimes disturbingly so, because of the friendship we’ve developed over time to last a lifetime. 

When your friends are your family it enriches your vacation and makes it impossible not to enjoy. You’ll live, you’ll laugh, and you’ll love.

Do you choose to vacation with your family?   

Brianna Krueger is the Chief Editor of Wandering Educators

All photos courtesy and copyright Brianna Krueger