I just got back from a five day trip to Charleston, South Carolina with three of my best friends— Jess, Pam and Emily. We’ve all been friends since college and ended up living in NYC after college was over, which was when our group really whittled down and solidified.
I will say, I am currently really jealous of people who have friends next door, in the same building, within walking distance or part of a neighborhood. I feel like I have lost a lot of my spontaneous "meet for a drink" friends this year. So I think that's one reason I really appreciated this trip. It made me stop and appreciate the friends who have lasted, even if the friendship is no longer convenient.
I’m 25 & I met my closest friends in high school (all girls school!) and not college. Since our senior year of college we’ve set aside president’s day weekend for each other & a low key trip that we rotate planning. Now that we’ve moved and have jobs and boyfriends/fiancé’s, we’re trying to establish a pattern of taking time for just us, one time a year. This post about old friends doing fun things in their 40s really makes me excited for our future trips and growing together as friends — and just moving through life with a really incredible friend group!
I am autistic and have always struggled to make friends. These past few years my best (only) female friend has just been overwhelmed in her own life and didn't have time for mine. I am incredibly fortunate to be super close to my brother and my parents. This year I have made a huge effort to make some loose friendships into better ones, and I have my first close male friend! Very exciting for me
I am jealous of these friendships. I have one good friend but she moved away, got married and is a workaholic. My other close friend passed a few years ago. I am finding it harder to make friends at 57 as it seems people are set in their routines and groups. Your trip looks like it was fun. I think friends do need to work at staying together, just like any relationship. Good for you and your group!
New Orleans! I went with my college girlfriends for one’s 30th birthday and we had a wonderful time eating our way through the French Quarter. We all lived in the same area then, and drove into town in one car, now we are spread out from DC to LA and we haven’t managed to do a good trip together in the 10 years since.
My local friend group tries to do weekends “away” 2-3 times a year (even just to a hotel downtown for the night) but the pandemic put a wrench in that for a bit. It’s definitely time to get that going again.
I’m like you, call me and I’m there, but I’m a TERRIBLE planner and don’t do a great job being the first to reach out. I’m trying to get better at that as well.
I love New Orleans. I have gone with the family more recently, but in college we used to drive down for Mardi Gras with these same women. We slept in our car! Would be a very different trip now.
I am not particularly good in large groups. And definitely not if they are strangers. Like I've never made a friend in a yoga class in my life and don't understand how that happens. 3-4 good friends in a group is perfect.
I have been friends with 5 women since middle school, and 3 live in the state we grew up in and 3 of us have moved quite a distance away. We started taking yearly trips in our early 40s. Last year we all turned 50 and luckily came back from our big birthday celebration in the Bahamas days before the pandemic changed everyone’s lives. (Our group chat has now been renamed the Bahama Mamas😂) Now that you’ve had such a wonderful trip, do whatever you can to try and make it a yearly event. These types of friendships are so important and you will cherish these memories together.
I feel like covid life has struck a huge blow with friendships for me. We moved to the states 6 years ago, and I was very fortunate to meet an amazing group of women through a mom and baby group. Women from all walks of life, some sahm some working. Within the big group I had a couple of core sahm friends, we meet pretty much every day of the week, walks, playgrounds, playdates. We survived frost year of preschool with the kids all on different school schedules and still managed to meet up a few times a week. I found that in this past year covid has prompted them to reconnect with college and childhood friends and I have just been left, I assume they all think I'm doing the same, but my friends from home are a 5 hr time difference away which makes real time connections tough, my closest friend has been juggling wfh and remote school. No one really wanted to commit to zoom get togethers, they had too many other things going on. I'm always the one reaching out to see how everyone is coping, catching up on what is going on in their lives, no one's seems to think to check on how I'm coping with the isolation. It's been 16 months since we've seen any family. Now that life is getting a bit more normal, I feeli like I'm hounding them to see if they want to meet up, life it seems is too busy for a playground playdate. Weeks can to by for me without speaking to anyone in the group, it feels like I've just been forgotten about 🙁
Missing my college girls so hard reading this newsletter and seeing your posts. I’m a few years behind you, and all of my girlies had babies a number of years after me. Between pandemic, babies, and all living in different states, it’s been too long. I love reading this and dreaming about our trips to come when we still have so much to talk about, but are a little more flexible with our time. Thanks Ilana!
Girls trips with old friends is literally the highlight of my adult life. I have been lucky...but also realizing lucky is relative...as these friendships do take time and work...to have the most amazing group of girls to travel with. We actually started an almost yearly trip when our kids were little as a way to honor ourselves and keep our friendship alive. Many women around me were not doing the same and sometimes I felt guilty to leave the family and my responsibilities behind. But I believe that taking that time for and with friends is a tremendously important value I want to impart on my kids. Friends make the complicated world around us tolerable and bring light and love to us in ways other relationships may not.
Charleston was a trip for us and we rented a hotel/house on Isle of Palm. Our other faves have been all-inclusive resorts (bc it is just SO EASY) in Cancun and Jamaica. We never leave the resort and just laugh for 3-4 days straight. Another fun weekend was going to a New Kids on the Block concert in Boston. Some of us had been teenage fans, but others had never heard a song. It did not matter, the amount of fun we had dancing and screaming was priceless. Good food and drink and shopping is almost always top of list. Little girls getaways will always remain a priority for me and my gaggle of gals!
Love this post!! When I first got married I moved away from home and had the hardest time making friends. A few years later my husband and I moved to Texas. We’ve been here almost 12 years and it’s only been the past 3-4 years we’ve found some really good friends (my girlfriends and I do a girls weekend every year!) Now we’re considering a move back to upstate NY where we both grew up. It’ll be nice for us to move and have built in friends already!
I’d say Nashville or Austin are great places!! Both have great shopping, food, and live music!
I’m with you 100%! Have a college friends girls weekend planned for September, 25 years after we met! We have really come together during COVID through an ongoing text thread, in a way we had neglected for a long time. It feels good to have something to look forward to!
One of these girlfriends doesn’t have kids and travels (or, used to) extensively for work. We spontaneously took a trip to London and Morocco a few years ago….another time we went to Nashville for a weekend. These have been life changing trips for me - prioritizing my self and friendship in that way.
On another note, I bet Memphis would be a great city for a girls weekend…at least it looks that way from Carmeon Hamilton’s Insta!
I have a group of friends (we met when our now-high school juniors were preschoolers!) who have gone on a girls’ weekend to a quiet Florida beach every September (minus Covid year) for the past 8 years. We just chose our dates for this year’s trip. It’s one of the best weekends, and we all look forward to it every year. It is just a weekend of sitting at the beach, drinking, laughing, dancing, and recharging for our busy lives as working moms. It’s so good for our souls. ❤️
My two friends and I did this in April! We stayed at the Inn at Eagles Watch (historic building/bed&breakfast) in Williamsburg and toured wineries and rode bikes and ate at the Inn for just about every meal! It was AMAZING!!
Female friendships is something that has really been a struggle for the past 3 years- it is so strange - I am 42 and have always had amazing women by my side. I think it's a mixture between working vs not working moms < none of my school friends or college friends living close and COVID, but i felt soooooo lonely. It made me realise i have to really be happy with me and appreciate all i have and the friendships will come. What a lovely post.... will hold a vision of a lovely weekend away with my school friends in our summer time! Fingers crossed it comes through.
I very much understand where you are coming from. I don't think I understood until this year how much harder it is for working moms to make a close group of local mom friends as compared to the non-working moms. And then I add in the fact that I now work on my own at home as opposed to having co-workers in an office and I realized that I don't see people unless I make specific plans. I tried to do that and then I fell behind at work. Plus I just think daily incidental interactions make it much easier to get to know people than scheduling a lunch every so often. These feelings are one reason why this trip was so important to me.
So glad you went! Working alone at home definitely isolates us but also gives us the freedom to be with our family all day. Such a catch 22- but so glad you got away! we are slap bam in the middle of our 3rd wave and your post gave me hope that i can maybe have a girls weekend in summer , too!
I love this!!! The pandemic made me realize how much I value my friends too and I love the easy friendships where even if you don't see each other all that often you pick up right where you left off. My college roommate is coming to visit this weekend and our one year olds are only 9 days apart. We're planning to put the babies to bed and have a wonderful girls night, she's an incredible baker so she's bringing macarons and I have wine so I'm sure it'll be a wonderful time! Girls weekends are so important!
That sounds so fun. I remember thee days when you could put the babies to bed early and still have a full night ahead of you!!! Take so much advantage of this time.
I am so envious of those sorts of friendships.
I will say, I am currently really jealous of people who have friends next door, in the same building, within walking distance or part of a neighborhood. I feel like I have lost a lot of my spontaneous "meet for a drink" friends this year. So I think that's one reason I really appreciated this trip. It made me stop and appreciate the friends who have lasted, even if the friendship is no longer convenient.
Same 😥
me too!
Me too.
Same here!
I’m 25 & I met my closest friends in high school (all girls school!) and not college. Since our senior year of college we’ve set aside president’s day weekend for each other & a low key trip that we rotate planning. Now that we’ve moved and have jobs and boyfriends/fiancé’s, we’re trying to establish a pattern of taking time for just us, one time a year. This post about old friends doing fun things in their 40s really makes me excited for our future trips and growing together as friends — and just moving through life with a really incredible friend group!
I am autistic and have always struggled to make friends. These past few years my best (only) female friend has just been overwhelmed in her own life and didn't have time for mine. I am incredibly fortunate to be super close to my brother and my parents. This year I have made a huge effort to make some loose friendships into better ones, and I have my first close male friend! Very exciting for me
I am jealous of these friendships. I have one good friend but she moved away, got married and is a workaholic. My other close friend passed a few years ago. I am finding it harder to make friends at 57 as it seems people are set in their routines and groups. Your trip looks like it was fun. I think friends do need to work at staying together, just like any relationship. Good for you and your group!
New Orleans! I went with my college girlfriends for one’s 30th birthday and we had a wonderful time eating our way through the French Quarter. We all lived in the same area then, and drove into town in one car, now we are spread out from DC to LA and we haven’t managed to do a good trip together in the 10 years since.
My local friend group tries to do weekends “away” 2-3 times a year (even just to a hotel downtown for the night) but the pandemic put a wrench in that for a bit. It’s definitely time to get that going again.
I’m like you, call me and I’m there, but I’m a TERRIBLE planner and don’t do a great job being the first to reach out. I’m trying to get better at that as well.
I love New Orleans. I have gone with the family more recently, but in college we used to drive down for Mardi Gras with these same women. We slept in our car! Would be a very different trip now.
I rarely enjoy the dynamics of a group and the fact that others thrive in it just fascinates me.
I am not particularly good in large groups. And definitely not if they are strangers. Like I've never made a friend in a yoga class in my life and don't understand how that happens. 3-4 good friends in a group is perfect.
I have been friends with 5 women since middle school, and 3 live in the state we grew up in and 3 of us have moved quite a distance away. We started taking yearly trips in our early 40s. Last year we all turned 50 and luckily came back from our big birthday celebration in the Bahamas days before the pandemic changed everyone’s lives. (Our group chat has now been renamed the Bahama Mamas😂) Now that you’ve had such a wonderful trip, do whatever you can to try and make it a yearly event. These types of friendships are so important and you will cherish these memories together.
I feel like covid life has struck a huge blow with friendships for me. We moved to the states 6 years ago, and I was very fortunate to meet an amazing group of women through a mom and baby group. Women from all walks of life, some sahm some working. Within the big group I had a couple of core sahm friends, we meet pretty much every day of the week, walks, playgrounds, playdates. We survived frost year of preschool with the kids all on different school schedules and still managed to meet up a few times a week. I found that in this past year covid has prompted them to reconnect with college and childhood friends and I have just been left, I assume they all think I'm doing the same, but my friends from home are a 5 hr time difference away which makes real time connections tough, my closest friend has been juggling wfh and remote school. No one really wanted to commit to zoom get togethers, they had too many other things going on. I'm always the one reaching out to see how everyone is coping, catching up on what is going on in their lives, no one's seems to think to check on how I'm coping with the isolation. It's been 16 months since we've seen any family. Now that life is getting a bit more normal, I feeli like I'm hounding them to see if they want to meet up, life it seems is too busy for a playground playdate. Weeks can to by for me without speaking to anyone in the group, it feels like I've just been forgotten about 🙁
Missing my college girls so hard reading this newsletter and seeing your posts. I’m a few years behind you, and all of my girlies had babies a number of years after me. Between pandemic, babies, and all living in different states, it’s been too long. I love reading this and dreaming about our trips to come when we still have so much to talk about, but are a little more flexible with our time. Thanks Ilana!
Girls trips with old friends is literally the highlight of my adult life. I have been lucky...but also realizing lucky is relative...as these friendships do take time and work...to have the most amazing group of girls to travel with. We actually started an almost yearly trip when our kids were little as a way to honor ourselves and keep our friendship alive. Many women around me were not doing the same and sometimes I felt guilty to leave the family and my responsibilities behind. But I believe that taking that time for and with friends is a tremendously important value I want to impart on my kids. Friends make the complicated world around us tolerable and bring light and love to us in ways other relationships may not.
Charleston was a trip for us and we rented a hotel/house on Isle of Palm. Our other faves have been all-inclusive resorts (bc it is just SO EASY) in Cancun and Jamaica. We never leave the resort and just laugh for 3-4 days straight. Another fun weekend was going to a New Kids on the Block concert in Boston. Some of us had been teenage fans, but others had never heard a song. It did not matter, the amount of fun we had dancing and screaming was priceless. Good food and drink and shopping is almost always top of list. Little girls getaways will always remain a priority for me and my gaggle of gals!
Love this post!! When I first got married I moved away from home and had the hardest time making friends. A few years later my husband and I moved to Texas. We’ve been here almost 12 years and it’s only been the past 3-4 years we’ve found some really good friends (my girlfriends and I do a girls weekend every year!) Now we’re considering a move back to upstate NY where we both grew up. It’ll be nice for us to move and have built in friends already!
I’d say Nashville or Austin are great places!! Both have great shopping, food, and live music!
I’m with you 100%! Have a college friends girls weekend planned for September, 25 years after we met! We have really come together during COVID through an ongoing text thread, in a way we had neglected for a long time. It feels good to have something to look forward to!
One of these girlfriends doesn’t have kids and travels (or, used to) extensively for work. We spontaneously took a trip to London and Morocco a few years ago….another time we went to Nashville for a weekend. These have been life changing trips for me - prioritizing my self and friendship in that way.
On another note, I bet Memphis would be a great city for a girls weekend…at least it looks that way from Carmeon Hamilton’s Insta!
I have a group of friends (we met when our now-high school juniors were preschoolers!) who have gone on a girls’ weekend to a quiet Florida beach every September (minus Covid year) for the past 8 years. We just chose our dates for this year’s trip. It’s one of the best weekends, and we all look forward to it every year. It is just a weekend of sitting at the beach, drinking, laughing, dancing, and recharging for our busy lives as working moms. It’s so good for our souls. ❤️
My two friends and I did this in April! We stayed at the Inn at Eagles Watch (historic building/bed&breakfast) in Williamsburg and toured wineries and rode bikes and ate at the Inn for just about every meal! It was AMAZING!!
Female friendships is something that has really been a struggle for the past 3 years- it is so strange - I am 42 and have always had amazing women by my side. I think it's a mixture between working vs not working moms < none of my school friends or college friends living close and COVID, but i felt soooooo lonely. It made me realise i have to really be happy with me and appreciate all i have and the friendships will come. What a lovely post.... will hold a vision of a lovely weekend away with my school friends in our summer time! Fingers crossed it comes through.
I very much understand where you are coming from. I don't think I understood until this year how much harder it is for working moms to make a close group of local mom friends as compared to the non-working moms. And then I add in the fact that I now work on my own at home as opposed to having co-workers in an office and I realized that I don't see people unless I make specific plans. I tried to do that and then I fell behind at work. Plus I just think daily incidental interactions make it much easier to get to know people than scheduling a lunch every so often. These feelings are one reason why this trip was so important to me.
So glad you went! Working alone at home definitely isolates us but also gives us the freedom to be with our family all day. Such a catch 22- but so glad you got away! we are slap bam in the middle of our 3rd wave and your post gave me hope that i can maybe have a girls weekend in summer , too!
I love this!!! The pandemic made me realize how much I value my friends too and I love the easy friendships where even if you don't see each other all that often you pick up right where you left off. My college roommate is coming to visit this weekend and our one year olds are only 9 days apart. We're planning to put the babies to bed and have a wonderful girls night, she's an incredible baker so she's bringing macarons and I have wine so I'm sure it'll be a wonderful time! Girls weekends are so important!
That sounds so fun. I remember thee days when you could put the babies to bed early and still have a full night ahead of you!!! Take so much advantage of this time.