How long do you have to spend with the people you are visiting to make it worth the trip to see them?
For example, if they are an hour away, do you have to spend an hour or two with them to make the drive worth it?
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When its just us, Total drive time should be less than visit time (2 hours driving for at least a 2 hour visit). Or to visit my parents, 10 hours driving, for about 12 (awake hours) of visiting.
Now with kids, its even less. To visit my parents, we try to be down there for at least a day and a half, preferably 2 days for the 10 hours of driving. Just so the kids dont feel like they have to turn around and be in the car super long. Also to make it worth it to pack all their stuff up. Even for 1 night away kids need a lot of stuff!
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My ILs live a 2 hour flight followed by either a 1 hour train or 1.5 hour drive from the airport. My minimum to make it worth our time/money is 4 full days.
If we had a 1-2 hour drive somewhere, I would probably want to spend at least half a day, but I guess that also depends on how frequently you see your relatives. If you saw them weekly, maybe you wouldn't feel the need to spend half a day.
ETA - we don't spend 4 full days glued to my ILs when we go visit. I mean it in terms of time spent at their home.
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@T.H.O.U.: @lamariniere: These are great!
We're visiting my in-laws who live 4 hours away (though presumably the drive will take even longer because of stops). We're planning on getting there around dinner time Friday night and leaving after lunch on Sunday. But I recently found out my in-laws will be in and out of work both Saturday and Sunday AND going to a concert for a couple hours on Saturday night! I'm trying to figure out how much time we need to actually spend with them to make the drive worth it (I'm worried we probably won't see them enough to make this trip worth it, but I'd like an idea of how much we need to see them before we go).
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I think it depends on a lot of factors! If it's been forever since we've seen my in-laws, we will do some pretty ridiculous stuff to see them. My SIL lives in another country and we recently flew up for 1.5 days (it's a fairly long flight - probably 12 hours in total of travel) to be with her when she was visiting the States.
I am also impacted by if there is other stuff for me to do where I'm going. Even if I only see the person briefly, I'm okay if I can make it a fun sort-of vacation for my family.
Ultimately I think it's that I want the person I am visiting to have equal excitement to see me. It's not the quantity of time it's the quality. If I am visiting and they are making an active choice not to see me, I would be irked.
ETA: I'm a fairly laid back person in general and we all travel relatively well.
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@Adira: My LOs end up spending a lot more time with my ILs than I do.
But we do eat at least 2, sometimes all 3 meals together per day, and I know that's important to them. They also have busy lives for semi-retirees, so they often go out for a few hours to do their own thing. I would probably be fine with your situation.
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My mil lives about a 4-hour drive away and we've found that it's only worth it for at least a long weekend so that we have 2 full days. So like, leaving Friday and coming back Monday at a minimum, but we usually go a little longer (dh works from home and I do too unless I'm teaching [undergrads, so class is 1-3x/week depending on the course] or have meetings, so our schedules make it easy for us to work from anywhere most of the time).
ETA mil is willing to come up more often and whenever we need, like she offers to come up just to babysit for like a few hours, but we don't take her up on that. But she will drive up on a Friday and leave Sunday no problem
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Driving? I would say my max in the car is about 4 hours, so if I had to drive, I'd probably stay the weekend, at a minimum. I wouldn't want to do the drive on two consecutive days.
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@LBee: "Ultimately I think it's that I want the person I am visiting to have equal excitement to see me. It's not the quantity of time it's the quality. If I am visiting and they are making an active choice not to see me, I would be irked." Yes, this makes a lot of sense! I think that's why I'm already kind of dreading this trip to see my in-laws, because they picked the weekend we are coming and now I'm finding out they are going to be working and going to a concert while I'm there, so it doesn't really feel like they really care that we're coming. Hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised when we get there though!
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@Adira: if it's over an hour away we would aim to spend several hours to make it worth it
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@Adira: Dude, I'd be so mad! If I'm making a 4 hour drive to see them and only to find out they're not even really around?! I mean, if they could not have taken off work I would've like to know when we were discussing the trip. I would've expected the host to be fully there with us, and if they can't be, that it would've been disclosed at the time (understand if emergencies pop up).
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@snowjewelz: Yeah, I'm pretty annoyed, especially because we picked this weekend because it was supposed to be "less busy" for their work. Now come to find out there's no "less busy" weekend?? Why not just say that then? We were going to visit them over the 4th, when my SIL and her family were going to be there, and our kids could've all played together. But SMIL made it very clear that they were going to be busy at their store, so I asked if another weekend would be better and they chose to have us come up a different, supposedly less busy, weekend. Now they are still working AND going to a concert while we're there. What??
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My parents and in-laws live 1.5 hrs. Away. To make it worth it we leave Saturday morning and come back Sunday afternoon. DD does not do well if we try to go there and back the same day.
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It depends. I've driven an hour plus, each way to visit someone in the hospital for 15 minutes. I've driven 12 hours, each way, to spend 24 hours at a wedding.
But, normally, I'm okay driving an hour away in a day, up to 4 hours for a weekend.
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My Ils are 5 hours away, we are going this weekend and leaving home Saturday am - we will leave my ILs Monday at noon. It's shorter than I like, we usually leave Friday at noon but DH couldn't get time off work so we are just leaving Sat am. But yeah, they spend the entire time with us so it would be weird if we drove all that way and they went to a concert.
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@Charm54: Right??
Originally I thought the amount of time we were spending there would be fine - get there around dinner on Friday, spend all day Saturday and all morning Sunday with them, and then leave after lunch. But now that they are going to be in and out of work and going to a concert, it just doesn't seem like we're going to see them enough for the trip to be worth it.
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In general if I always driving about 2 hours I like to stay at least 2 if not 3 nights. I rarely stay anywhere just 1 night. It's too much of a pain. For friends and family that live an hour away usually it's only 3-4 hours because of nap schedules.
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My IL's are about 45 mins away and I like to spend 2-3 hours when we go there.
My family is 4-5 hours away and the shortest amount of time we do is two nights.
We are going on vacation and it's going to be an 8-9 hour drive and we will stay one full week.
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I visit friends that live an hour+ away and I usually want to stay 3+ hours but less is ok too. I never consider it a wasted trip/time if we want to squeeze in some time to hang out and catch up.
My parents are 7 hours away and we usually stay 3-5 days! I feel like anything shorter than 3 days isn't worth the 14 hours in the car!
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@Adira: I think, as others have said, it really depends on the circumstance. If they're relatives you see all the time, it sounds like a lot of travel for not a lot of time visiting. However, if these are people you don't see often, and this is the weekend you both agreed on, I think you might have to just grin and bear it, especially if it means a lot to your husband. Hope it's better than you're expecting!
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@Adira: I probably wouldn't consider it worth it to do 8-10 hours round trip in the car if the people I was visiting would be working both days I was there. Sometimes we will go visit our families over the weekend and they will work one day but not both. However, we are from the town my parents and ILs live in, so we can always visit friends if they are busy for part of our visit.
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Honestly, some things you just have to do whether they are worth it or not and this is probably one of those things.
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@ChiCalGoBee: Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to go! I'm just bummed that they are going to be working while we are there, so it kind of sounds like the visit won't really be worth it. Plus we're going to see them a few weeks later anyway a LOT closer to home!
@AprilFool: Hahaha, probably! I'm just thinking if we only see them for a few hours while we are there, it'll be a good reason not to go again!
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I occasionally take DD to visit my girlfriends and their kids in Toronto. It's a 2 hour drive one way and we are usually there about 3-4 hours. So it's about equal driving/equal visiting time. It makes for a long day but I do it to maintain friendships.
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My MIL works retail hours and her time off just sucks, but a full day would make the 7-8 hour drive there and back worth it.
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@Adira: in your situation I would try to stop worrying if the trip will be worth it or not. Just go, spend the time you have allotted there and come home! It's tough not to have expectations of other people but sometimes you just have to let it go because you can't make them care
But we do eat at least 2, sometimes all 3 meals together per day, and I know that's important to them. They also have busy lives for semi-retirees, so they often go out for a few hours to do their own thing. I would probably be fine with your situation.
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