The idea of a girls’ vacation is seen as a rite of passage. Those sun-drenched, booze-filled trips are the pillars of our teens and twenties, and those memories live on in the mythology of your friendship, keeping the embers burning when life gets in the way – at least temporarily – of creating new experiences together.
As I write this for the first time in 2019, I’ve noticed a decline in those all-girl vacations, according to a statistic that more and more women are choosing to vacation with their friends rather than their partners, contrary to those numbers. They used to be a concrete pillar of our annual calendar, but now they feel more moveable – and that feeling has intensified over the past few years. As we get older and fill our lives with partners and children, priorities naturally change and time becomes increasingly scarce. Even if the budget does extend to vacationing with family and friends, doing so can feel indulgent. For a million reasons, taking a break with your best friend seems impractical.
It’s entirely possible to get drunk in the company of your best friend
As the years go by, friendships wrap around a girl’s vacation like a damp, cold blanket – relationships, work, kids. Not all friendships can and should survive these stages, but the best ones can. If the idea of flying off to a foreign country with your closest friends may not be feasible now, it won’t always be so. There is no point in our lives where friendship becomes unimportant or unnecessary. Spending time with people who support us is one of the most nourishing and healthy things we can do. Sometimes it’s worth it to leave our partners or children at home and remember who we are away from them.
But as impractical as this may seem, there has been a significant increase in the number of women vacationing with friends rather than significant others. Women-only travel has boomed in recent years – with a reported 230 percent increase in the number of women-only tour companies in 2021 – likely due to demand. Girls-only vacations to the arena are a lucrative market, accounting for 4 percent of all U.S. travel spending (about $200 million annually). For more than a decade, Harvard University has touted the health benefits of social relationships, such as taking breaks with friends. in 2011, the respected institution said strong social relationships “bring us joy …… They also affect our long-term health in a variety of ways, such as adequate sleep, good eating habits and not smoking. Dozens of studies show that people who have satisfying relationships with their families have happier friends and their communities, fewer health problems and longer lives.”
Sometimes it’s worth it to leave our partners or children at home and remember who we are away from them
Now that I’m in my 30s and surrounded by friends with children, I feel more justified in escaping for a few days with my closest friends. The older we get, the more responsibilities we take on, and as women, we aren’t always good at thinking about our own happiness. We need a break from the emotional labor of life and from the daily expectations and responsibilities to snicker, plan and comfort each other in a way that goes beyond a few hours at a restaurant or bar. While a trashy, carnival trip spent at a cheap Bed and Breakfast may not seem as appealing as it once did, a good all-female vacation is still an enriching experience because frankly, female relationships don’t age. You may not drink with reckless abandon in exactly the same way (the increasingly debilitating hangovers are not worth it), but it’s entirely possible to get drunk in the company of your best friend. Our travel adventures may look different, with less spontaneous skinny dipping, significantly shorter nights out, and a much lower tolerance for sleazy wannabes, but they’re just as fun. If there’s one difference, it’s more comfortable – and it includes better food.
