As someone with multiple different groups of friends, when it is time to take a vacation together, there are several factors I have to consider in order to plan the perfect girl’s trip. I have friends that I’ve known since I was a teenager, friends who are parents, bougie friends, beach bums, and those who are just always with the shits. Each set of friends we keep will come with a different set of needs and preferences, which all have to be considered when booking trips.
Comparing budgets and dietary restrictions is just the beginning of the things you need to factor in to ensure that everyone’s needs are met. Truly understanding what type of friends you are traveling with will allow you to accurately choose the right destination and activities to satisfy everyone.
And I know for some people, group trips are a no-no due to the reputation for people leaving as friends and coming back as enemies. We’ve all heard stories about people beefing on vacation and losing friends in the process (looking at you, Miami). Conflicts often arise when the destination doesn't align with the group's diverse interests, leaving some feeling left out or unsatisfied. This makes it crucial to choose a location that resonates with the collective vibe of your friends.
Choosing a peaceful beach destination may not work for adventure-seeking friends, and a “we’ll only be sleeping there” mindset when choosing a hotel won’t cut it with your luxury-seeking girlies.
Understanding the unique dynamics and desires of your group—whether they crave adventure, relaxation, cultural experiences, or vibrant nightlife—can help ensure a harmonious and enjoyable trip for all. In this article, I’ll delve into a variety of destinations tailored to different types of friend groups, helping you select the perfect spot that meets everyone’s needs and creates lasting memories.
From serene beaches and bustling cities to mountain retreats and cultural havens, let's find the ideal location for your next girls' trip!
For the luxurious friends...
Italy
We all have that one friend (or group of friends) who does not believe in budgets when it’s time to travel and requires the best of the best, from hotels to restaurants to activities. This is not a group trip to try out hostels or 2-star Yelp restaurants because the standards are high. For this group of friends, Italy is the perfect destination to jet-set off to. I like Italy for the bougie friends because with so many different cities, each providing its own vibes and feelings of luxury, everyone in the group will leave happy.
If you want stunning countryside and opulent wine tasting, take the group to Tuscany, which is known for art, culture, food, and wine. Stay at the Grand Universe Lucca, located in the heart of the city, which offers lavish rooms and suites that will fit the high standards of the group. If the group consists of fashionistas, take a trip to Milan, the fashion capital of Italy, and drop a few racks on some luxury shopping.
For the partiers...
Cabo San Lucas
If your friend group is often referred to as the “Too Live Crew,” then you're gonna wanna head to Cabo for a turn-up trip for the books. Sure, some people go on vacation to get some peace and quiet, but for others, it’s an opportunity to let loose and have fun. Cabo is the perfect destination to balance enjoying some sun and then hitting the town. The nightlife here is not one to mess around with, so grab the girls and hit up the Downtown Tourist District, a turnt-up strip of bars, lounges, and restaurants to hop in and out of.
And did you even go on vacation if a boat isn’t involved? Book one of Cabo’s many party catamarans, where you can take in beautiful views, sip cocktails, and twerk while overlooking the ocean.
In terms of accommodations, there are a number of resorts that keep the party going, like RIU, which has three resorts in Cabo that all host daily events and activities, such as an all-white party and foam party, and also has its own club. Another option is Corazón Cabo Resort & Spa, which boasts its own beach club and rooftop bar and is located a short walk from the main party strip. Leaving you and the crew just steps away from the action at all times.
For the foodies...
San Antonio
Calling all foodies! If you didn’t know already, San Antonio has a huge culinary scene and offers a lot for folks like me who will travel for food. For reference, San Antonio was designated as a Creative City of Gastronomy by UNESCO, specifically because of the city's rich culinary heritage and diverse food options. From authentic Mexican and Tex-Mex to mouthwatering BBQ and healthy farm-to-table dining experiences, the city has something for every palate. Foodies should spend a Sunday Funday exploring the iconic River Walk, which is lined with an array of different restaurants, bars, and cafes paired with scenic views.
If you really want to maximize your trip, plan your visit around one of San Antonio's renowned food festivals, such as the Tasting Texas Wine and Food Festival, which showcases the best local cuisine, wines, and craft beers. With its blend of traditional and contemporary culinary delights, San Antonio promises a memorable and delicious adventure for food-loving friends.
For the friends who stunt for the 'gram...
The Bahamas
In the age of TikTok and Instagram, some groups are filled with influencers and people looking to “do it for the 'gram.” If that’s your friends, The Bahamas provides a range of picturesque backdrops and fun activities that will provide you with plenty of dope content to make your followers jealous. The crystal blue beaches alone are perfect for an IG post, but there’s so much more. Pig Beach in Exuma is a popular experience for travelers, and you can film videos swimming alongside pigs. Another way to really stunt is to visit Bimini, arriving in style on a seaplane from South Florida or booking a private charter for a truly VIP experience showing your followers the views from the sky.
Then head to Resorts World Bimini, where y’all can post pictures from the private beach, rooftop infinity pool, or the 600-foot stretch lagoon pool with a swim-up bar. If you have the time, plan for the group to hit up Nassau, first checking out the famous Fish Fry, which is a lit-uation full of amazing food, good music, and all of the vibes. Then book a stay at Baha Mar, one of the most luxurious resorts in Nassau, which boasts its own beachside waterpark and beautiful suites with the best views. The whole crew will be sure to snag the perfect Insta shot!
Courtesy of 8, The Experience
For the self-care mami's...
Curaçao
Sometimes, booking a vacation stems from literally needing a break from the day-to-day aspects of our lives and wanting to relax. Curaçao, with its serene turquoise waters and tranquil beaches, is the ultimate destination for a group seeking peace and self-care. This is ideal if your friend group is the type that doesn’t need a packed itinerary full of excursions but could benefit from laying out on a beautiful beach followed by a body scrub and massage. This island offers a plethora of luxurious spas, wellness retreats, and peaceful resorts that will allow you and the girls to take care of yourselves.
Book a spa day for the group at 8, The Experience, where the group can enjoy full body massages or hang out in the whirlpool with spectacular views of the ocean. Staying at luxury properties like Kontiki Beach Resort will allow for the ultimate self-care retreat, with an onsite spa, restaurants, and beach club, so you won’t have to plan out things off the property.
Courtesy of Robin D. Thomas
For the No Passport Crew....
U.S. Virgin Islands
No passport, no problem! If you live in the United States and need to plan a getaway somewhere tropical, someone being passportless can seriously limit your options. Whether it’s because someone has never had a passport, misplaced theirs, or waiting for a renewed passport because the wait times are ridiculous right now, that shouldn’t stop the girls' trip from making it out of the group chat. For U.S. citizens, the U.S. Virgin Islands offers the allure and beauty of the Caribbean without the need for the little blue book.
Grab the girls and visit Saint Thomas, spending your days on one of the many crystal blue beaches and eating all the conch and fresh lobster that your heart desires. Aside from beaches and delicious food, Saint Thomas also has a great nightlife for the party folks, as well as a lot of opportunities for shopping. You can also visit the other two Virgin Islands, Saint Croix and Saint John, each of which offers its own vibes but the same beautiful, passport-free beaches.
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Ding. Ding. DING.
A life coach by the name of Thomas Leonard once said that “Clarity affords focus” and, believe you me, when it comes to dealing with other human beings, if you don’t get clear on where you stand when it comes to your interactions with them, you can very easily find yourself “focusing too much” on those who don’t deserve it and too little on those who absolutely do. And y’all, this lil’ PSA couldn’t be more relevant than when it comes to what I call “casual friendships.”
Let’s dig — and for some of us, dig our way out of — what it means to have a casual friend, so that you can get clear on if you really need those in your life…and if so…why?
Article continues after the video.
It Can’t Be Said Enough: Always Remember What “Casual” Means
GiphyThere’s a reason why I decided to share two videos by mental health coach Isaiah Frizzle at the top and bottom of this article. It’s because a lot of what he shares in both of them complements a piece that I wrote for the platform last year entitled, “This Is Just What Purposeful Relationships Look Like.”
It’s the author M. Scott Peck who once said, “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it” and please believe that the older (and hopefully more mature) you get, the more you tend to see just how valuable — and fleeting — time is; and that is what plays a huge role in motivating you want to only involve yourself with people, places, things and ideas that will honor your time — and when something is casual? In my opinion, it’s highly debatable that it’s worth much of your months, days, hours, or even too many of your minutes.
The main reason why is addressed in an article that I wrote back in the day entitled, “We Should Really Rethink The Term 'Casual Sex.'” The gist? When it comes to relationships, “casual” is certainly not a favorite word of mine because I know what it means. Have mercy — why would you want to invest your time, energy, and emotions into something that is, by definition, apathetic, indifferent, careless, lacking emotional intimacy, and/or is without purpose?
I don’t know about y’all but that sounds like a complete and total crap shoot to me — especially if you are going to go so far as to consider this type of dynamic a true friendship (check out “Ever Wonder If A Friend Is Just...Not That Into You?,” “6 Signs You're About To Make A Huge Mistake In Making Them A Close Friend,” “5 Signs Of A Toxic Friendship That Is Secretly Poisoning Your Life,” “12 Friend Facts That Might Cause You To Rethink (Some Of) Your Own,” and “Less & Less Of Us Have Close Friends These Days. Why Is That?” ).
To me, when you decide to call someone “friend,” it means that they are loyal, reliable, consistent, trustworthy and willing to be there to support you to the very best of their ability — even if it’s inconvenient to do so sometimes (check out “Life Taught Me That True Friendships Are 'Inconvenient'”). How in the world can you expect that from something that has the word “casual” in it?
And you know what? That actually segues into my next point about casual friendships pretty darn well.
Ponder the Purpose “Casual Friends” Serve in Your Life
GiphyA couple of years ago, Verywell Mind published an article entitled, “How the 4 Types of Friendship Fit Into Your Life.” The four that it listed were acquaintances (which I actually don’t consider to be friends; check out “6 Differences Between A Close Acquaintance And An Actual Friend”), casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. After reading the piece, I think they consider casual friends to be the “pleasure” friends that I mentioned in the article, “According To Aristotle, We Need ‘Utility’, ‘Pleasure’ & ‘Good’ Friends.”
And although I certainly get that, I think my “cause for pause” is calling those people “friends” when they probably should be called something like an associate or possibly even a buddy instead. Why do I feel this way? Well, I’ve shared in other articles that I think social media has jacked up vocabulary words and their true meaning on a billion different levels.
Take “friend,” for example. Facebook had us out here calling everyone we connected to on their platform “friends” when some of them, we’ve never even spoken to before — and I personally think that influenced, affected and perhaps even infected our psyche to the point where we will call folks, both online and off, “friend” even when they haven’t earned it and/or who possibly don’t deserve it.
That said, do I think that we all could use lighthearted interactions that don’t go very deep and are filled with not much more than fun? Sure. However, if we were to move this over into a sexual thing — those types of people would probably be called a sneaky link, and there is nothing significant or substantial about ‘em. In fact, if anything pretty much automatically comes with an expiration date, sneaky links would have to be it.
And that’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make about a casual friend — so long as you know that the word “casual” is being used to describe them, while you may enjoy the people who fit that bill, they aren’t really anything that you can or even should fully rely on. Instead, take them for what they are and don’t really expect much more than that. Otherwise, you could be in for some profound levels of disappointment. And who wants that?
Final point.
How a Casual Friend Can Become a Huge Red Flag
GiphyI’m telling you, y’all gonna quit clowning Tubi. LOL. To me, the best way to describe it is it’s the Cricket of current streaming apps. What I mean by that is, back when Cricket (the cell phone service) first came out, people, like me, who used it service got incessantly clowned because it was seen as a bootleg provider. Now it’s owned by AT&T, and as someone who has rocked with them since I was in my 20s, I don’t have one regret for doing so. Cricket has always been good to me, chile.
And Tubi? Well, when you get a chance, check out CNBC’s article, “CEO at 33, Tubi’s Anjali Sud on success hacks she learned at Amazon, IAC on way to top of Fox streaming” — take note of the moves the streaming app is making and the quality of programming that is transpiring in real time.
Anyway, I find myself bringing up Tubi more and more in my content because it helps to amplify some of the points that I like to make. This time, it’s a movie that’s (currently) on there calledRight Man, Wrong Woman. If you haven’t seen it before, I don’t want to give too much of the film away. What I will say is that the main female character, she had a casual friend and then she had a close friend.
That casual friend—the one who liked to kick it all of the time—was a lot of fun; however, dealing with her came with a ton of semi-unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, the close friend? She’s what the Aristotle article (that I mentioned earlier) would call the “good friend” because she tried her best to hold her friend accountable.
And really, it shouldn’t be a shock that the casual friend turned out to be a plum trip because if someone is loads of entertainment and pleasure and yet they are indifferent towards you, they make careless decisions around you and/or they don’t really make known the purpose for you being in their life other than to pass some time — where really do you and that person have to go past drinks after work or dinner on a rooftop restaurant from time to time? And if that is all that the two of you are doing, again, why are they deserving of the word “friend”?
Hmph and don’t get me started on the lack of reciprocity that typically transpires when it comes to dealing with people like this because, while they won’t mind you spending your coins on them, taking their calls in the middle of the night or listening to all of their issues — when it comes time for them to show up for you, they very well may gaslight you into thinking that you are being dramatic, clingy or “doing the most.” Why? Well, it’s mostly because the two of you never really established what the hell the both of you are to one another.
And so, while you’re somewhere taking them seriously, they are out here seeing you casually, and as much as it might hurt to hear, that doesn’t automatically or necessarily make them a bad person. You shouldn’t expect much where no clarity is involved. After all, casual is just that: CASUAL.
____
I’m hoping that you can now see why I entitled this piece in the way that I did. It’s because a red flag is pretty much a warning, and to me, a casual friend is about as big of an oxymoron (again, to me) as casual sex is. Friends and sex are both too intimate to be seen or treated casually. Oh, but if you step out and take that risk, you could find yourself getting far more involved than the other individual ever wanted to go, because casual is how things have always been. “Friend” was simply to get you more mentally and emotionally invested. SMDH.
American columnist Walter Winchell once said, “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” A wise person once said, “One good friendship will outlive forty average loves." Former President Ulysses S. Grant once said, “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” Does any of this sound casual to you? Yeah, me neither.
Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have people in your life who aren’t on deep levels. I’m just saying that you might want to consider putting them into another category than friend, because what friends do for people? There ain’t nothin’ even remotely casual about it, sis. Not even a lil’ bit.
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