Beach Week and family-friendly don’t typically go together. Although time at the beach with friends will always be a good time, sometimes it’s nice to go on vacation with your real family instead of your “fam.” I just got home after beaching it with my parents for a week, and it was actually a great time! Here are some reasons to consider doing beach week with your family…
1. Parents pay for everything
Good-bye college budget. Hello free everything!
2. You travel to much nicer places because parents have standards
Your mom's face when she sees your apartment.
Parents have been around the block a few times, so they don’t try to cram 12 people into a three-bedroom house. They also believe things like air conditioning and cleanliness are not optional.
3. You actually do activities that aren’t oversleeping or partying on the beach
Chilling on the beach can be fun, but the morning is actually a beautiful and underrated time of day. At the beach, sometimes it’s nice to be outside when the sun is out instead of waking up at 2 p.m.!
4. You can bring friends and have all of the fam together
This trip I just went with my parents, but last year they wanted to meet my college friends. So, we all travelled together; and it was the best of both worlds!
5. It’s nice to feel like a kid sometimes
I don’t miss curfews or chores, but it’s nice when your parents make you your favorite childhood meal or insist on going to the old favorite ice cream shop.
6. Mom’s food > anything you might throw together
On group vacations in college, dinner is typically thrown together with the cheapest things you can purchase in bulk. When I’m with my parents, we cook together after going to the grocery store, not avoiding vegetables because they’re too expensive.
7. Your mom wants photos of everything, which works well for posting later
She might take a while to get the lighting right, but when she does you’ll be happy to have the snaps; plus, you earn brownies points for posting her photos.
8. It lessens the blow of finding out finals grades
When on vacation, you can tell your parents after they’ve had a lot of wine instead of after you come home from the beach with your friends in a dirty car filled with laundry. If they're a little tipsy, they can’t really tell the difference between a “+” or a “-“ on a transcript (or they might be too buzzed to care).
9. They realize you can act like an adult with them when you choose to do so, which can lead to more nice things down the road
The more you successfully pretend to be an adult, the more nice adult things your parents will want to take you to do.
10. They remember how expensive it is to pay for trips, so they stop bothering you about finding a boyfriend because they don’t want to have to pay for him too
File this "more people = more money" argument away for when they ask you about grandkids 5 to 10 years from now.
11. Mom always encourages you to eat more since “you haven’t eaten my cooking in so long”
Any excuse is the perfect excuse to eat too much (especially when not surrounded by all your friends in bikinis!).
12. It’s nice to see your parents after hanging out with your friends all year
I know this is irrelevant, but it's the cutest picture that came up when I googled "family photos."
Friends are like family, but when you haven’t seen your family since Christmas, going on a trip together is the perfect reunion!
