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Four Families, One Beach Rental: What Could Go Wrong?
Our etiquette expert offers smart planning tips on rooms, meals and expectations to prevent tension on multifamily trips
As multifamily and multigenerational trips become increasingly popular, open communication is key to a good time.
Jon Krause
As multifamily and multigenerational trips surge, shared vacation homes have become a popular way to travel together. Data analytics platform AirDNA reports that in 2025, the demand for short-term rental properties with six-plus bedrooms exploded by 12.6 percent year over year. But travelers, such as the anonymous questioner below, realize that coordinating a crowd like that can be tricky.
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We’re renting a large group house by the beach for two weeks together with three other families this summer. What do we need to know and discuss ahead of time to avoid any drama and just enjoy ourselves?
Your vacation sounds like so much fun! But you’re right to be thinking in advance about how to handle all the logistics of a few families merging into one house for a couple of weeks.
As the group of adults renting the house, it’s up to you to decide how to allocate the bedrooms. Some people view all bedrooms as equal, regardless of layout, while others feel that suites with private bathrooms carry more weight. Another consideration is bed type — some couples may value a queen or king bed over twin beds or a bunk-style room. I’m not about to say what’s right or wrong, but the important thing is to talk about what feels fair and what will work best for your group.
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You’ll also want to consider food and drinks in the house. Will each family have its own set of snacks, and will meals get divvied up, with each family taking the lead on a meal in rotation? Or will a certain subgroup of people be the “chefs” for the week, with others rotating out dishwashing duty? Planning ahead will keep meals on schedule and prevent all four families from trying to use the kitchen all at once for their separate purposes.
Planning a rough schedule of activities and who will do them will also help. Not everyone has to participate in everything. Offer alternatives or let people know it’s OK to opt out of the activity and just relax or nap. This ensures that no one gets burned out or stuck doing an activity they aren’t interested in.
In addition to a schedule of activities, have some house rules (and pay attention to the rental rules), such as “No wet towels on the floor” or “Wash off sandy feet before coming inside.” This can go a long way toward keeping four families organized in one house.
It’s especially important that parents talk about some of their rules and norms for general behavior. Communicating things like little-kid nap schedules (and work schedules, if anyone isn’t fully on vacation), who can swim or bike on their own, what kind of language or TV shows are OK, and how you each handle consequences when things go wrong, is important.
Finally, while you’re together on this trip, be sure to do two things regularly. The first is to use the magic words please, thank you, you’re welcome, excuse me and I’m sorry as often as possible. Those phrases aren’t just politeness for politeness’ sake. They have a real and positive impact on our communication with each other. And second, check in with one another about who’s watching the kids, who’s “off duty” and who is monitoring the kids’ energy levels.
While it can seem like a lot of pre-work, when vacationing with other families, we want to do everything we can to function well as a group — and, hopefully, book the house again next year!
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