Traveling with Friends & Budgets

[winnied]

How do you handle traveling with friends and different budgets? 

My group of best friends try to get together every year and we're now at the point where not everyone has the same budget. Do you usually just go with whoever has the smallest budget and what he/she wants to do? Do you break off into smaller groups if some people want to do X and others don't? 

In my particular upcoming trip, it's not even necessarily budget but how we spend our money. Some people want to get cheap food (ex: pizza in the hotel room) and then bar hop all night. Others want to eat somewhere a little nicer but then not necessarily spend a ton of money at the bars. At the end of all of it I think both options would end up costing the same. 

[VillainV]

Sounds like different people just want to do different things. Personally, I think it's fine to have different groups do different things. Group A might go do a nice dinner out while Group B stays home and eats pizzas, then everyone meets up at a bar somewhere. People can stay out as late as they want and come back in groups when they want to come back.

Or, depending on how long the trip is, you can try to do a night of each. As long as people are responsible for paying for what they consume, they can eat cheap and then drink lots, or eat a nicer dinner then pay less for booze.

[imojoebunny]

We just don't do everything together. It's not a budget thing for us, DH and I just really don't like having to go to fancier restaurants. We are happy to vacation with friends, and frequently have people at our vacation house, and either cook dinner for/with them, or stay home, while they go out. 5-6 hours of doing stuff together during the day is plenty for us.

[wavepool]

We go to AIs with our friends where everything is included! Sometimes some of us will do massages/excursions while others don't, but this has been seriously awesome as far as not having to worry about $, who is paying for dinner, etc.

[Deleted]

We just don't do everything with everyone. People are allowed to do what they want when they want.

[mbcdefg]

If the point is to get together with certain people, we plan an activity/location/etc. that accommodates everyone (within reason ... we don't re-plan every single time someone hems and haws).

If the point is to do a specific thing ... whoever can make it, makes it. If not, oh well. There have been plenty of times where MH and I have said no to things out of our budget, and plenty of times where we did stuff with some friends but not others.

[aurora]

We've gone on trips with friends and then done our own thing when we felt like it and hung out with the group when we felt like it. I don't think it's that big a deal.

[ECB]

My post seems to have been eaten. I think you all just need to get on the same page that it's ok to not to everything as a big group.