10 Great Group Trip Ideas, Courtesy of Our Editors

13.12.2024 - 11:35 / cntraveler.com / Shannon Macmahon / Rebecca Misner

Planning a group trip can be exciting or paralyzing, depending on who you ask. There's a pressure to make everyone happy, both in the decision-making process, and during the vacation itself—but whether you're organizing for 3 or 13, trying to please a range of personalities is always going to be its own challenge.

That's why, when a group trip goes really well, it feels kind of miraculous. You want to tell everyone about that massive Airbnb you found that every single person in the group raved about; you want to mass email the city-hopping itinerary that gave both the extroverts in the family enough to do, and the quieter folks enough time to escape everybody else. Group travel usually involves a bit of compromise, but, ultimately, every guest wants to come home pleased with (most of) the experience. So we asked our editors: Which group trips did you get right this year? Which would you do all over again, and recommend to others? (We'll save the recap on the ones we wouldn't repeat for another time…)

Below, our destinations editor Shannon McMahon shares fond memories of a music-lover's road trip to Louisville that brought her family together; senior features editor Rebecca Misner reflects on a leave-the-family-at-home getaway in Mexico that gave her uninterrupted time with friends. All that and more below.

Here's to a 2025 in which group trips continue to hit just the right note.

An impromptu roadtrip for a Pride festival this past June was the best trip my family and I have taken to date (and we’ve taken many). After realizing through the Nashville grapevine that Chappell Roan was playing a $5-ticketed outdoor concert at Kentuckiana Pride (no doubt scheduled before this year’s Coachella thrust her into the spotlight), my sister and I hopped a plane for our cousin’s Nashville abode to spend a few days listening to live music (Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, anyone?) before driving three hours to a weekend of rainbow-hued delights in Louisville. The highlights were a massive pride parade, tons of Kentucky barbecue and bourbon, and a stylish, dog-friendly stay at the lovely Hotel Genevieve (by Bunkhouse Hotels) that made me fully realize how truly cool, colorful, and inclusive the Southern city is. Not to mention, the Chappell show itself was well worth the five dollars—plus a plane ticket and group lodging. —Shannon McMahon, senior destinations editor

A trip that started as a WhatsApp message way back when COVID forced us to stay apart in 2020 was extremely worth the four years of planning, deciding, debating, and painfully waiting for it to happen. In September, six of my closest girlfriends and I met up in Indonesia, publicly calling it (and justifying the expense) a 40th birthday celebration—but mostly, we