7 Important Things I Learned Taking Girls Trips
A few years ago, I made a promise to myself that I would make travel a top priority and that I would do at least one girls trip a year
Photo: Courtesy of Johanna Ferreira
A few years ago, I made a promise to myself that I would make travel a top priority and that I would do at least one girls trip a year. I made this promise to myself early in 2015, months after breaking an engagement with a man I had been in a relationship with for over 8 years and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I have since kept my word and over the years it’s evolved from one girls trip to quite a few a year. Just this past year alone, I traveled multiple time with girlfriends—close friends and new friends and I plan on doing even more next year. So you could only imagine my excitement when I learned that Chevy was setting me up on a weekend road trip to Woodstock, Vermont and I was able to invite two girlfriends—I was hyped!
We had the opportunity of driving a 2019 Chevrolet Traverse for our road trip, making it a very comfortable and relaxed ride for all of us. The car itself was incredibly spacious. It comfortably sits 8 people and has a cargo space of 98.2 cu.ft so considering there was only three of us, you could only imagine how much space we wound up having for all of our stuff. Also drying for 4-5 hours was definitely challenge in terms of occasionally getting a little lost. But thank god for the Traverse’s Onstar feature that got us in touch with a representative that provided us with navigation help. It made us feel safe and definitely gave us peace of mind whenever we were on the road.
We also got to stay at the On The River Inn, a cozy and adorable Inn in Woodstock surrounded by lakes and nature.
It was a great weekend getaway but I learned a lot regarding how to approach girls trips in the future. Let’s be real: When it comes to traveling no one ever talks about the challenges that can come with vacationing with friends—they just talk about the fun stuff. To avoid any unnecessary drama on your next trip—here’s a few things to consider before planning your next vacation with your BFFs.
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Discuss in advance what you all actually want to do on this trip.
There are a few things I’m normally very upfront about when it comes to vacationing. I prioritize hitting up historical landmarks, museums, restaurants, and bars that city is known for. I always prefer the local scene rather than the touristy spots and meeting and socializing with locals is an important part of the travel experience for me. My friends are very similar to me when it comes to travel—so it normally works out. But on this trip, we didn’t expect it to snow so a lot of the places we wanted to hit up and a lot of the things we wanted to do—we just weren’t able to. It shifted our expectations for the trip and there was a tad bit of back and fourth in terms of what we wanted to do. But we eventually figured it out.
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Someone in the group might feel left out.
This has actually never ever been an issue for me with girls trips or vacations before, especially because I tend to travel in small groups but ironically enough I wound up being the one feeling a bit left out on this trip. I wound up expressing it later to my bestie who came on the trip and she was super kind and understanding about it. Moving forward I now know to open up about things like this a lot sooner instead of towards the end of the trip.
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Figure out if dancing and partying is a priority.
Because it was Halloween weekend, everyone was pretty much on the same page about hitting up a bar that Saturday night and going out dancing and we had a blast. It was definitely one of the biggest highlights of the weekend. The entertainment system in the Traverse was amazing too. It silences any outside noise which was able to allow us to comfortably listen to our Halloween music playlist on our way to the bar.
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Discuss budget.
Fortunately, we discussed this pretty early on and everyone was more or less on the same page when it came to our spending budgets. But you want to always make sure this is spoken about even before planning a trip with friends. The last thing you want is to plan to stay at specific hotel, resort or AirBnB and then learn that your friends would rather stay at a hostel.
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Discuss how planned you like your days to be.
When I vacation I like my days to be jam-packed with fun things to do especially if it’s a short weekend trip with limited time. This is important to talk about in advance especially if your friends are more into winging it.
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Be prepared to deal with a crisis.
The truth is, even on vacation—shit happens. We experienced a mini crisis that could have literally resulted in us fighting but instead we all put on our thinking caps and made sure we kept our cool and were able to calmly come up with a solution to the issue we eventually got resolved. Because we all worked to calmly figure things, no arguments came out of it. We were even able to laugh about it all afterwards. The Onstar feature was also very helpful whenever we got lost and needed help getting quick directions.
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Value your friendships.
Vacations are great but the point of vacationing with friends is to enjoy their company—not to argue. Don’t allow hiccups on a vacation to come in the way of your relationships. No trip is worth losing a bestie or friend over.
