Family vacations can be a wonderful opportunity to create special memories and discover amazing experiences that bring everyone together. Relationships become stronger, ties become more closely knit, and inner-happiness blooms.

Feeling good and sharing unforgettable times with family is a great way to connect. With the right setting, couples find they become closer whilst the child-parent bond gets tighter, and youngsters are engaged, energized, and entertained — all good news for self-development and the health and wellness of the family unit.

However, even in paradise locations, whether beautiful Bali or an amazing Thai island, family holidays can be stressful when everyone wants to do something different. A private vacation-villa rental is the perfect holiday hotspot for families who want to unite and spend some quality time together in their own space.

As well as being an ideal environment for families of all ages, renting your own holiday home gives you the privacy and flexibility to enjoy alone-time too. This means that those special moments when you are all together as one happy family can help you relax into each other’s company more easily.

To give you some inspiration for your next holiday, here are some of the activities you can do in a private villa guaranteed to bring the family closer:

Spend Time Alone..Together

It may sound like an oxymoron, but often doing your own thing can make you feel closer to other family members who are also doing what they want too. Your own private vacation villa is really a home-away-from-home, and one of the major benefits is being able to relax into your own comfortable and chilled-out vibe.

One person might be reading a book, while another member of the family is taking a dip in the villa’s infinity pool, with someone else soaking up the rays, and a fourth member of the family enjoying a workout in the villa’s fitness room. With everyone in close proximity within the villa grounds, there is a sense of balance and connectedness with each person content with what they are doing and feeling closer to their loved ones as a result.

Savor Family Mealtimes

Eating is a pleasurable pastime for families who enjoy sitting around a table together and sharing love, laughter, and good times. In a private villa, guests often eat at a big family dining table indoors, close to the kitchen, where adults can cook and chat at the same time.

With sunny days and balmy nights, destinations such as Bali, Phuket, and Koh Samui are incredible for al fresco dining. There’s something magical about a family dinner by the pool, looking out to incredible views from your private villa across the blue sea.

You can also savor the delights of a private family dining experience with your own personal chef to cater for everyone’s tastes whether fine dining or classic home-style favorites.

Enjoy a Night In

Absolutely one of the best things you can do as a family when you’re staying in your own vacation villa is to stay in. With a hotel or a resort, the size of the living space usually means that come the evenings you are ‘forced’ to venture out to avoid feeling restless. Not so with a holiday home, where you can dine at home, create your own surround-sound family party or simply hunker down with a movie in your own private cinema with popcorn and a cozy blanket.

After a full day in the sun, it’s nice to have the option to relax, watch TV, chat in your open-plan lounge-kitchen-diner, with plenty of space to mooch around. Staying in a luxury villa is the experience, so why not stay in for at least a few nights of your holiday and enjoy all the facilities on offer whilst bonding as a family.

Take a nighttime swim while it’s still warm outside before enjoying a long soak in a glorious tub or refreshing rain shower and settling down for a good, old-fashioned family-night in, luxury style of course.

Play Family Games

When was the last time you let your inner child out to play? Kids love to see grown-ups letting down their hair and enjoying pure, unadulterated fun. A games room in a private villa can become a focal point for families. All you need is a fuss-ball table or billiards, and you have hours of entertainment that everyone can enjoy.

Bringing good-humored competitive spirit to the fore, working as a team, and being able to tease each other creates the feeling of frivolity that any family needs. Forgetting your pecking order in the family dynamics, and connecting with a shared activity, can be a truly positive bonding experience.

Related: How To Know If A Private Villa Rental Is Child-friendly

Embrace Al Fresco Living

Light and airy indoor spaces seamlessly extend out to grand private grounds with a luxury villa stay. Think outdoor lawns, infinity pools with hot tubs and day beds, and dining salas, as well as BBQ pits, sofas, and lounge-style seating.

The variety of activities just a few steps from your private villa creates an outdoor living zone, with an atmosphere that changes throughout the day and into the evening. Kids splashing about in the pool can be watched over more easily by grown-ups lounging poolside too.

Meanwhile, any accompanying grandparents or older relatives, as well as toddlers, can join in the fun more freely knowing that they can retire in the cool indoors for a siesta whenever they want to rest.

Be Creative

Being in a luxuriously laid-back ambiance, there is less of an impetus to spend longer away from where you are staying. This is the beauty of staying in your own private villa and adds a mindful, retreat element to your getaway. This opens up leisure time so that creative ideas and activities spring forth.

You might enjoy some meditation together or perhaps spending time painting or focused on making something with your hands. Families are often so busy that slowing down the pace and surrendering the time to creative endeavors becomes an expression of love and unity.

Trying-out activities you’ve never experienced before can be a great way to level out the difference in ages too. Another idea that can work wonders in harmonizing everybody is to let each member of the family take turns in taking the lead with an activity they have chosen.

Keep Active

Working out in your private gym can be a great way for the whole family to start the day feeling energized. A refreshing swim as the sun comes up, with breakfast to follow courtesy of your private villa butler, really gets everyone in the mood for the day ahead too.

What’s superb about a villa stay is this sense of flexibility where even a simple activity such as a morning swim becomes a family ritual without other guests around.

Some vacation villa guests like to organize a private, poolside yoga session and you can search for facilities such as tennis courts and putting greens to add to the sporting options. There are also beachfront villas that come with kayaks to explore the blue waters.

All that’s left to do now is to choose a gorgeous villa that fits perfectly with your family’s personality, individual style, and interests.