I find us, a MFM triad, disappearing either into big cities or camping in the middle of nowhere as the best retreats for the three of us. In either place, we find we can be a little more of ourselves than if we're just at, say, the local Target.
We have fairly similar interests (or at least can humor the others while they're pursuing something of lesser importance to one of us), so these retreats usually aren't forced marches for any of us.
Couple of tricks I've learned about dealing with hotels:
- Never put down that there will be three people in room when you're using an online booking system. A lot of times that will automatically bump the price up by at least $20.
- If you think a hotel is going to balk at three people in the room, check in as a "couple" with one of your people and get two keys. Go back out to the car and hand off the second key.
- If you're into co-sleeping, always book a king-size room. If hotels can't fill that offer, you usually downgrade to a workable two full-size beds room and push for some sort of comp.
- Join travel sites online and send invites to your people to join, too. Usually, a site will offer you bonus cash if you sign up, refer someone else to the site who signs up and books through the site. At one site, I can earn $50 towards a booking if both T and E sign up because of my invites and book one stay each through it. I love the economics of three!!!
Couple of tricks I've learned about dealing with long-ish vacations for three:
- Realize that people need together time, together with another time and alone time.
- Talk about what you want to do beforehand, and not just in the sack. T and I usually do a lot of research about our adventures and find crazy, intriguing things to go peep. E is completely different and usually has one, must-do thing per trip.
- Understand the strengths and weaknesses of the people who you love and are travelling with. If someone can't decide where to eat when he/she is overhungry (think the same condition as overtired), make sure you're either eating regularly, have packed enough snacks or are able to step in and make decisions during crunch times.
- Enjoy the economy of traveling with three. Our most recent trip was my present to T and E before my job gets pretty crazy for the next year or so, but we've more evenly shared expenses in the past. We stayed pretty cheaply, per person, in a some fairly nice places throughout the journey. Also, with three drivers going across country, we were able to do a little bit longer days of driving because someone was almost always fresh.
- Take lots and lots of photos. I'm in a mildly long-distance relationship where I only get home to T and E on weekends. It's nice to have photos up around the apartment where I stay during the week of our journeys and adventures.
Couple of things I still haven't mastered:
- Ugh, all of these sites have package deals (and sometimes quite good) geared towards two.
- Smaller inns and bed and breakfasts. I don't think there's any way to do that without drawing, at the very least, comment.
- Staying with friends/family. This is a no-brainer, when you're a guest in someone's home, your first concern should be not to make them uncomfortable - even if they do know the dynamic. If polyamory is the hill you want to die on, make a scene. I don't enjoy endangering friendships or family relations for the sake of one night. So if E's mom wants me to sleep in a bedroom half a house away from T and E, I'm fine with that just so long as the family dog - one of those quiet, big breeds loyal to the small circle of people they know - doesn't decide to snack on me in the middle of the night.
Part of what I love so much about the men with whom I'm involved is that we like going places. My only other experience with a polyamorous group was very claustrophobic for various reasons and I felt like a kept woman at times.