BONUS: Navigating Friendship Dynamics on Group Trips

Group travel can create incredible memories and deeper friendships, but it also exposes relationship dynamics that usually stay hidden. When you're sharing rooms and splitting costs, those little friendship quirks get magnified. The indecisive friend becomes a bigger challenge when deciding dinner plans. Budget conversations can't be avoided anymore.

Here's the thing: when done thoughtfully, group travel can actually strengthen your bonds. It requires honest upfront conversations about money, boundaries, and expectations. It helps you recognize not just your travel style, but how you show up as a friend under pressure.

Everyone brings their unique role on the trip, and recognizing these patterns transforms group dynamics. It's about creating space for authentic communication and developing skills to navigate challenges together.

Stay tuned for more from this series of bonus episodes, presented by our partners at Chase Sapphire Reserve, focusing on travel, mental health, and the power of putting joy at the center of your life. 

About the Podcast

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

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Grab your copy of Sisterhood Heals and take the quiz to find our what role you play in your friend circle. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, I'm doctor Joy, host of the Therapy for
Black Girls podcast, and welcome to another bonus episode in
our special mini series helping you to optimize your travel experiences,
brought to you in partnership with Chaser fy your Reserve.
Picture this. You and your girls are planning the perfect
group getaway. Everyone's height, The group chat is going off

(00:21):
with ideas, and you're already picturing all those moments for
the Graham. But then reality hits. Some people prefer luxury
accommodations while others are strictly budget conscious. One friend needs
every minute planned out, while another prefers to go with
the flow. Y'all know how this goes, right. Here's the
thing about group travel. It can bring out the absolute

(00:43):
best in your friendships, but it can also expose some
stuff you didn't see coming. All those little dynamics that
slide by in regular life, they get magnified when you're
splitting hotel rooms and deciding how to spend your time
and money together. So today we're talking about how to
actually make your friendship stronger through group travel, not weaker.
We're covering those conversations you need to have upfront about

(01:05):
money expectations and boundaries. Trust me, a little awkwardness before
the trip beats major drama during it. I'm also bringing
in the friendship archetypes from my book's Sisterhood Heels, because
they show up big time on group trips. Are you
the leader organizing everything, the wallflower dropping wisdom when you speak,

(01:26):
the firecracker who's keeping it real, or the peacemaker trying
to help everyone stay happy. Once you know your type
and can spot others, everything clicks differently. We'll get into
managing different travel styles, when to split up the group
on purpose, and what to do when conflict pops off,
because let's be real, it happens and we need to
know how to handle it without ruining relationships. Whether this

(01:49):
is your first group trip or your tenth, I've got
some tools that help you come back closer, not ready
to block each other. So this is one of my
favorite things to talk about, and I feel like we've

(02:09):
been seeing much more of this on social and you know,
people talk about how trips to Miami often result in
friendship group splintering, and I think that this is really interesting,
not in a good way, because we never want friendship
groups to splinter necessarily, but I think a lot of
this is related to not actually having the difficult conversations

(02:31):
that we need to have before we embark upon something
like a group trip. Now, I think as you get
older and have a better sense of yourself, maybe we
do a little bit better job of this. But I'm
thinking back to like some of the trips I took
in like undergrad or you know, when it was my
first time maybe like traveling with people and had no
idea that you should even be talking about some of

(02:53):
this stuff. And so when I think about it, there
are five categories that I think would be really helped
full for us to consider as we are thinking about
embarking on group trips. Now you already heard me talk
about I think that group travel is a great way
to bond. There's a lot of research that talks about
how having new experiences with one another actually helped to

(03:16):
strengthen friendships, and so going to a new place and
exploring new things together is actually a great way for
you to kind of spice up your friendships and to
make some new memory together that you will then have
to like laugh about and our commiserate about over the years.
But it does require some intention, and I think it's
important for us to think about how we can have

(03:37):
some of these conversations on the front end so that
we can have the best chance of having a great experience.
But I also think it is important to know so
if you have read Sisterhood Heels, you know that I
talk about four different types of sisters that we often
find in friendship groups. And this happens just kind of
in your regular everyday life with your girlfriends, but I

(03:59):
think it is as special, really important to think about
as you are preparing for something like a group trip.
The four different sisters that you might find in a
friendship circle are the peacemaker, so this is somebody who
is kind of keeping the peace wants everybody to get along.
The wallflower, so this is the person who is not

(04:22):
often saying a whole lot necessarily in the friendship group,
but when they do talk, everybody stops to listen because
they are probably pretty observant and paying attention to maybe
some of the interpersonal things happening in the group. The firecracker,
So this is the person who is probably first out
on the dance floor, but they are definitely also the
person who is addressing the elephant in the room, so

(04:44):
to speak. And then the leader in the group. And
this is the person who likely decided where y'all were
going for the group trip. They may be the person
who puts their car down and says, okay, everybody, just
ben moobi this amount of money. This is the person
who is largely responsible for the group continuing to go

(05:05):
and is largely responsible for the cohesiveness of the group.
And so when you think about those different personality types,
you can see what this might look like when we're
thinking about a group trip. So, if you haven't read
the book or you're interested in finding out who you
are in your friendship circle, you can go to sisterhood
Heels dot com sash quiz. There is an easy quick

(05:25):
quiz that you can take to figure out who you
are in the group and who your girls might be
in the group as you're thinking about preparing for a
group trip. So, like I said, five questions that I
think are important for you to consider and to actually
have conversations about before you embark on the group trip.
So the first one is what type of trip is this?

(05:46):
So is this a chill, kickback trip, We're relaxing, hanging
by the pool, maybe catching up on some reading. Is
this an excursion heavy trip? Right? Like? Is this a
tight itinerary where there is a group breakfast every morning
and we are expected to follow by the hour? What
the itinerary is or are we just winging it? I

(06:08):
think that that is really important because I think we
often have different expectations as we are heading into group experiences. Right.
If you heard episode one of this mini series, you
heard me talk about the fact that we often prolong
our getaways, right Like, we are saving up all of
our time to take this one trip, and so that
means that we may have lots of expectations for how

(06:31):
we are planning to spend this time. But if we've
not actually had a conversation with the other people we're
traveling with, then there can often be some tension related
to different expectations of how that time is being spent.
So that's the first thing that I want you to
talk about before you embark on this group trip is
what type of trip is this? Is this a goal
with the flow kind of chill vibe or is this

(06:53):
an excursion we're doing all the things kind of vibe.
That's important. The second question is how how much alone
time should be expected. So is the expectation that we
are doing everything together breakfast, lunch, dinner, massages, shopping trips,
like all the things, we are all together all the time,

(07:14):
we're sharing rooms. Like is it an all the time
together kind of trip? Is it we're doing our own
thing and then we meet up for meals kind of trip?
Or is this the kind of thing where we just
happen to be in the same place at the same time,
and I'll see you back at the airport when we
catch our flight. Right Again, different expectations, I think lead

(07:35):
to different results, and there's no judgment about any of it.
It's just important for you to talk about it and
make sure that everybody is on the same page before
you embark on the trip. The third one, and this
is a big one. This is a big one. What
are the funds looking like for the trip? So, are

(07:55):
you somebody who requires five star amenities or is your
we just need a place to crash and to store
our bags, because those are different, right, And again, no
judgment about either one of those, but those are very
different experiences. And so if you are somebody who wants
to spend time at the m facility BA and have

(08:16):
a whole spa day. You are likely going to be
looking for a very different kind of experience than somebody
who is just like, Okay, I want to spend most
of the time outside of the room anyway, and so
I don't really care, no judgment, again, but those are
very different experiences. I think it's really important to think about.
And we know anytime finances are involved and there's a

(08:36):
potential for things to go haywire, and so it's really
important to talk about these kinds of things on the
front end. In addition to like what kinds of amenities,
what kinds of places are we going to be staying at,
you also want to talk about like how are we
paying for the trip? So I think I recently saw
TikTok or maybe with Instagram about a group of friends
who actually have like a shared checking account or savings

(08:58):
account because they travel frequently, and so every month or
every so often they're putting money into the account, so
that that is what they use to like pay for
group dinners and those kinds of things when they travel.
That may be something for you consider. But again, this
is a conversation you want to have on the front end.
So is the idea that this is something that is
going to be split by however many people are traveling.

(09:21):
Is it everybody pay for themselves? Is it one person
trying to get points on their card and so they
want to pay for it all and then you just
send them the money? Like what are the funds going
to be looking like? And how are we planning to
pay for share things on the vacation. It's also important,
I think, to think about like shared dinners. If you

(09:42):
are not somebody who eats the fancy food or drinks
alcoholic beverages, those things can definitely add up on a bill.
Is the expectation that you will be paying for those
things even though you may not have been participating in it.
Right Again, things that may seem little and trivia and
not that big of a deal but actually can turn
into a big deal if you do not address them

(10:05):
ahead of time. So that's the third thing that you
want to talk about is the financial situation. How much
are we paying for hotel, airbnb? How are we paying
for things when we get there? Like what is the
deal with that? Okay? The fourth question is what are
the guidelines for shared spaces? So this may not be
that big of a deal if everybody has their own

(10:26):
hotel rooms. But if you are sharing a room or
sharing a suite, or if it's an airbnb situation, what
kinds of guidelines are you having for shared spaces? So
are you somebody who's cool with like hosting people that
you meet on vacation in a shared space? Are you
okay with your friend bringing back somebody to the hotel room?

(10:47):
What is your vibe? Because again, you want to know
that going into the traveling situation. Now, this may be
a friend or a group of friends that you travel
with before, and so you may already have a sense
of what that is, but especially if you've not traveled
with these people before, you do want to have an
understanding of what kinds of things are okay and not okay,

(11:08):
especially as it relates to shared space, because everybody may
not be on the same page right, So make sure
you have that conversation ahead of time. And then finally,
the fifth question is how are we going to handle
any hiccups that might come up? So will we sit
down and address it head on? Do we feel like
we need to write some things down and then take

(11:31):
a break and come back and talk about it because
we would like to hope that there is no conflict
that will happen on the trip, but that may not
be the case, right, Like, we're human. Things happen, and
so how are we going to actually address this if
it should happen? And so we may not come to
an agreement about how to handle it. But I think
it is a good idea to at least put it

(11:52):
on the table that this is what we're thinking we
will do if some conflict actually happens. Right, it could
be the thing where you decide you want to address
it head on, or it could be the kind of
thing that you say, hey, I'm not cool with this,
but it's something that we can talk about when we
get back. Right, So maybe it's not something that needs
to be addressed in the moment, but you do have

(12:13):
a plan to address it when you get back to
wherever you are. I think either of those is totally fine,
But I do think at least putting it on the table, like, hey,
how would you like me to address you if I
feel like something's off? Like just putting that kind of
conversation out there, I think is a good example. That's
a good model for like, hey, we understand that things
might happen, and this is how we're going to attempt

(12:35):
to remedy any situation that might pop up. So those
are the areas that I think are really really important
for you to address pre group trip. But I would
love to hear if any of you have regular friends
that you travel with, like, what kinds of conversations have
you had before so that you can optimize the group

(12:56):
chip and have the best chance of actually having a
great experience. Please share those with us on social media
if you have them. So as we wrap up today's
conversation about group travel and friendship dynamics, I hope you're
feeling a little more equipped to approach your next group
adventure with intention and clarity. Remember, the goal isn't to
avoid all conflicts or pretend that everyone has identical travel styles.

(13:18):
The goal is to create space for honest communication, set
clear expectations, and develop skills to navigate challenges when they arise,
because they will arise, and that's completely normal. The conversations
we've discussed today about budgets, boundaries, and expectations might feel
uncomfortable at first with their investments in your relationship, understanding

(13:38):
your own friendship, archetype and recognizing others can transform not
just your travel experiences, but how you show up in
your friendships overall. Group travel at its best create some
of our most treasured memories and deepens connections in ways
that everyday life simply can't. When done thoughtfully, these shared
experiences become the stories you'll laugh about for years to come.

(14:00):
If you're planning a group trip, start those conversations now,
or if you've just returned from one. Don't let the
experience fade without processing it together. Your friendships are worth
the intentional effort. Thank you for joining me for another
episode in our travel optimization mini series, brought to you
by Chase sapphirer Reserve. For more resources on friendship and

(14:21):
mental health, visit Therapy for Blackgirls dot com and Sisterhood
Heels dot com. Until next time, take good care,