11 tips for the most fun friends weekend ever

A successful year consists of three weekends. One weekend with your best friend, one with friends, and the friends' weekend. For the last one, the only rule is actually: the more the merrier, but since giving tips is free, here are the 11 where your weekend will become epic.

1. The house

First things first: find a house with a wow factor. For a weekend away, you really only need a large house, an outdoor fireplace, and a stocked fridge, but a sauna (which you might not even use) or a hot tub is still fun. Check out the Ardennes or Veluwe.

2. Cook

If you're going away with ten or twelve or twenty people, you always have the organizers, the organizing aunts, and the chefs who already have the spice rack in the back of the car. Add a grill master for the better barbecue work and you don't need to eat out.

3. Do a silly group activity

Bowl, shuffleboard, or mini-golf, the only rule is: the more awkward, the better. The activity should last a maximum of two hours, because the friend who absolutely hates games should still be willing to join next time.

4. Create a group chat

In ours, we chat all year round, at least half of our group, a quarter sends silly photos, and the rest ghosts until a day before we go. The name is always subject to the next destination or the one we just visited.

5. Nothing is mandatory

You don't have to join, you don't have to clean up, you don't have to walk, you don't have to cook. The secret to a good weekend is that everything is allowed.

6. Save together

For when you want to splurge but not feel it too much. Suppose: you go away with ten friends and each sets aside twenty-five euros a month in an account, then you can throw away three thousand euros. You also don't have to puzzle later about who gets what back or still owes money.

7. Be lazy

Make the evenings as long as you can, sleep in a bit (but do think about what time you have breakfast together) and watch Formula 1 or the Tour. It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you just relax a bit.

8. Don't set the forest on fire

This is actually a note to my own friend group, but I believe other friend groups can benefit from this too. Hence. It was a stroke of luck that the Veluwe wasn't on fire this summer.

9. Get annoyed with your mates

I like being with people, but I also like being without them. So make sure you don't have a packed schedule, but that you can also retreat to a room or a book sometimes. Nothing is more annoying than getting irritated with friends when you just need fifteen minutes to yourself.

10. Never go grocery shopping together

It goes wrong when you find yourself in a too-small supermarket where each friend is at a different aisle or has different ideas about what should be on a barbecue. Just give everyone a task in advance. Head Fire does the fire and especially doesn't go into the kitchen, Head Kitchen does the shopping with Assistant Kitchen and doesn't interfere with the fire, Chef Booking arranges the accommodation and Jack of All Trades takes care of the rest.

11. Book immediately

Make plans for the next weekend during your weekend. Set the date, think about potential locations, and change the name of your group chat.