Family Villas

Planning a Multigenerational Villa Trip

When three generations travel together, a villa is often the only accommodation that keeps everyone happy. Here is how to plan one.

Planning a Multigenerational Villa Trip

There comes a point in many families when the answer to "where shall we all go?" is Bali, and the answer to "where shall we all stay?" is a single large villa. Grandparents, parents and children under one roof is the whole point of the trip — but it takes a little planning to keep the togetherness from tipping into the top of everyone's patience.

Bedrooms are diplomacy

The single most important decision is who sleeps where. Grandparents generally want a ground-floor room away from the pre-dawn toddler chorus; parents want to be near their own children; teenagers want to be as far from everyone as possible. A villa where bedrooms are spread across the plot, rather than stacked along one corridor, keeps early risers and late sleepers out of each other's way.

Shared space, private corners

The magic of a good large villa is a generous shared heart — a big kitchen, a long table, a pool everyone gathers around — balanced by quiet corners where a grandparent can read and a parent can escape for twenty minutes. Look for that balance in the floor plan, not just a high bedroom count.

Divide the load

Agree before you go who's paying for what, and consider a staffed villa with a cook — it removes the question of who's making dinner for nine, which is the argument that ends more family holidays than any other. Build in a night or two where the generations split: grandparents babysit while the parents go out, parents take the kids so the grandparents rest.

Get the sleeping and the catering right and a multigenerational villa week becomes the trip everyone talks about for years — the one where, for once, the whole family was genuinely in the same place at the same time.