There are four of us. We met in our late 20s — through work, through a mutual friend, through the particular alchemy of that life stage when you are building everything at once and you need people who understand what that feels like. We were close in the way that people are close when they are in the same city, seeing each other regularly, woven into each other's daily lives.
And then, gradually, we weren't. Moves happened. Marriages, divorces, children, career pivots. The group text stayed alive but the actual time together shrank to once a year, then less. The last time all four of us had been in the same room was a wedding in 2020 that got cut short by a pandemic.
It was my friend Diane who finally said it: "We need to actually do this. Not talk about it. Do it." She sent a date. She sent a location — a rental house on the coast of Oregon, four bedrooms, a hot tub, a kitchen big enough to cook in. She said: "I am booking this. Tell me if you can't come."
We all came.
The hardest part of a girls' trip is not the logistics. It is giving yourself permission to go. To say: this matters enough to prioritize. To say: my friendships are worth protecting. To say: I am allowed to have this.
What Happened When We Got There
The first hour was slightly awkward. Six years is a long time. We had all changed — our bodies, our circumstances, our concerns. There was a moment, standing in the kitchen unpacking groceries, when I wondered if we had waited too long. If the closeness was something that had existed in a particular time and place and could not be reconstructed.
And then someone opened the wine and someone else started telling a story about something that had gone wrong at work, and within twenty minutes we were all talking at once the way we used to, finishing each other's sentences, laughing at things that would not be funny to anyone outside the four of us.
The closeness was not gone. It had just been waiting.
What We Actually Did
Not much, by the standards of a travel itinerary. We cooked together — big, unhurried meals that took most of the afternoon to prepare and most of the evening to eat. We walked on the beach in the mornings, sometimes talking, sometimes not. We sat in the hot tub at night and looked at the stars and had the kinds of conversations that require darkness and wine and the absence of any obligation to be anywhere else.
We talked about things we had not told each other. Real things — the marriage that was struggling, the health scare that had been terrifying, the career that felt hollow, the grief that had not fully lifted. We talked about our bodies changing and what that felt like. We talked about our mothers. We talked about what we wanted the next decade to look like.
None of this would have happened over a group text. It required being in the same room, in the same time zone, with nowhere else to be.
There is a kind of conversation that only happens in person, over time, when the distractions are removed. The kind where you say the thing you have been not-saying for months. The kind that changes something. You cannot have that conversation on a Zoom call. You have to be there.
What It Fixed
I said this trip saved our friendship, and I want to be precise about what I mean. The friendship was not broken. But it was at risk of becoming something ceremonial — a relationship we maintained out of history and affection but no longer actively nourished. The kind of friendship that exists in the past tense.
The weekend moved it back into the present tense. We remembered why we chose each other. We updated our understanding of who each of us had become. We made plans — real ones, with dates — to do it again.
I drove home on Sunday afternoon feeling lighter than I had in months. Not because anything in my life had changed, but because I had been reminded that I was not navigating it alone.
How to Make It Actually Happen
The number one reason women do not take the girls' trip is not money or logistics. It is the belief that it is not important enough to prioritize. Here is how to override that belief:
Be the Diane
Someone has to send the date and book the thing. Stop waiting for someone else to do it. Send the date. Book the thing. Most people are waiting for exactly that.
Keep it simple
A rental house with a kitchen is better than a hotel. You want to be able to cook together, stay up late, move at your own pace. You do not need an itinerary. You need a space and time.
Protect the phone-free hours
Not all day — that is unrealistic. But agree on some hours when phones go away. The best conversations happen when no one is half-present.
Do not overschedule
The temptation is to fill every hour with activities. Resist it. The unscheduled time — the long meals, the walks, the sitting around doing nothing — is where the real trip happens.
Book the next one before you leave
Before you get in your cars to go home, pick a date for the next one. Even a tentative one. The hardest part is always the first ask. The second time is easier.
Your friendships are worth the trip. Go.
Coach Dana Wells
Dana Wells is an NSCA-certified strength and wellness coach who works with women navigating midlife fitness, energy, and resilience. She believes that community is a training variable — and that the right people in your corner change everything.
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