Why It’s Time to Let the Group Trip Die

Secret attendees. Mismatched budgets. Missed transportation. Lame itineraries. Drunken fights in Uber rides. You’ve probably already read or heard about group trip horror stories that ended or forever changed friendships. Or you may have been on a nightmare group trip of your own.

I certainly have. One minute, I was strolling through the streets of Chania, Crete. The next, my most rambunctious friend corralled the group into a near-empty strip club, which we weren’t allowed to leave until we each spent 50 euros. I was broke, covered in coconut body oil, and furious.

Yet, despite how they so often turn out, group trips almost always start off idyllic: a conversation over dinner or in the group chat. Excitement for the opportunity to go to a new destination with people you care about. Links are shared. Outfits are purchased. And, before you know it, flights are booked. 

But as soon as the itinerary-planning begins, things start to get sticky. Determining where are you going to stay, what to prioritize, and how to set budgets are basic challenges for any trip, but when you’re doing it with a group of friends, things get even more complicated.

“It’s this really intense time-bound experience outside of someone’s regular familiar environment,” licensed therapist and relationship expert Layne Baker explains of the group trip dynamic. “Everyone handles that experience really differently in terms of the best parts of themselves that may show up as well as some of the more difficult parts of themselves.”

Rosemary, a registered nurse, recalled getting sucked into a group trip she didn’t even intend to be on that quickly veered out of her control. The original friend she was planning to travel with brought along not one, but three additional guests. “One of these people proceeded to change the entire itinerary,” she said. “We went to Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark. It was a two-week trip. We had loads of communication, we all got together multiple times to make plans and reservations. We also had a group text chain for ongoing planning.” 

But one of the surprise invitees became domineering when it came to the plans. There didn’t seem to be any room for making changes to the itinerary, and Rosemary found herself getting bossed around by a person she had no intention of traveling with in the first place. “The attitude seemed to be that her way was the only way, and everyone else should just get in line,” Rosemary says. “There was no compromise.”

The intrusion of the new people on the trip, including one of who lorded control over the rest of the group, didn’t ruin Rosemary’s relationship with her friend, but things were permanently changed in their dynamic. “I did not make any major plans with this person again,” she says.

For Savannah, an editor, the downfall of her group trip to Europe was the the massive difference between travel budgets. “We were trying to take a train from London through Brussels and then to Germany,” Savannah says. One friend wanted to take the pricier sleeper car, but it was out of Savannah’s budget. “She wanted to do the overnight train where you sleep in a bed, and said I can’t afford that.”

Finally, the conflict reached a boiling point. “She said, ‘It’s not my fault you’re poor.’ She said those exact words to me in front of the ticket lady.” Like Rosemary, the fight didn’t immediately end the friendship, but it did stop her from ever traveling with her again.

While people I spoke to for this stories gave all sorts of reasons for why their group trips went south—including eating schedules, preferences on partying, and varying needs for sleep and rest—budgets and money were cited most often.

I’ve seen issues around money affect group travel dynamics up close, too. My boyfriend went on a boys trip with his friends earlier this year, but there was quickly a falling out with one of the guys because he owed everyone money, and did not seem inclined to pay anyone back. It led to tension the entire trip, and the end of a friendship upon the group’s return.

Of course, there are more extreme examples of group trips falling apart as well. Look no further than Reddit, where people have described their friends turning into absolute bullies, freeloaders, and flakes. These are the kinds of examples that often end up as story times on TikTok. Like the girl who only brought $135 for a group trip to Cabo. Or the friend group that argues every single night of the trip. And even the girls who try to bring their boyfriends on the girls’ trip. 

Traveling with friends is also much different from taking a trip with family or a significant other, who have likely already seen you at your worst—or at the very least, spent multiple days in a row with you without interruption. But we go on friend trips to escape our everyday lives with our families and partners; these trips are supposed to be an escape from your troubles.

So why are they often so miserable? How is it that traveling with a group of people you really enjoy as a friends ends up being a nightmare situation? “People are going to bring their whole life loaded into the experience of a trip with friends,” Baker says. “They’re not going to be able to cut off whatever’s going on at home. It’s just going to get amplified.” You’re out of your known environment, without the control you typically have in your daily life. You’re spending lots of money, and maybe using some precious PTO. There’s an expectation that you will have fun—thus a pressure to enjoy yourself. And on top of all of that, the trip is trying to meet the needs of multiple individuals, meaning there’s inevitably going to be some compromises and sacrifices throughout the trip.

“Without the language or the ability to talk about that, that’s where things start to come out in strange ways, whether it’s being really short with each other or being weird at dinner and leaving early or getting in an argument about something silly,” Baker says.

So, is the solution to just skip out on group trips entirely? It certainly doesn’t have to be that way. In order for the group trip not to turn into a viral yet depressing TikTok story time, the way you plan the trip will have to be just as focused on expectations as it is on picking an Airbnb and restaurants. Baker advises treating group trip planning like putting on a production. “If someone is planning a production, they’re going to go through pre-production,” Baker says. “They’re going to have those meetings ahead of time to make sure everyone is on the same page.”

Or, instead of doing all of that meeting, talking, and planning, you simply let the group trip die.

Instead, you can travel with just one person, or go somewhere totally solo. Travel doesn’t have to be a shared experience, especially if that shared experience winds up being debt, trauma, and getting banned from Uber. So do your friends a favor and just grab dinner with them when you get back from your next vacation. You can all talk about the recent trips you took—separately. 

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