Why Girls’ Trips Matter Most in the In-Between Years
ORMOND BEACH, FL | JAN 2026 | FLY-IN TRIP
| 01. WHY WE WENT
Four girlfriends. Forty+ years of friendship. One promise we made at a funeral that we’re still keeping.
If you grew up Irish dancing in the ’80s and early 90’s, you know it was…well, different. Not only did we forge incredible friendships with the friends within our own dancing school, we forged many with dancers in other dancing schools. Unfortunately, the next three decades pulled us in different directions…college, careers, families…and like most early friendships, time and space got in the way.
My closest Irish dancing friends and I relied on seeing each other every year at the North American Irish Dancing Championships (NAIDC) now as dancing teachers and parents. We’d apologize for not reaching out more, catch up on everything that had transpired over the past year and then say goodbye til the next one. And then, as it does, life changed and Deirdre M. and I were no longer consistently attending NAIDC. Tara and Deirdre T. would still catch up, but we missed out; the four of us were rarely in the same state.
In early 2022, when we were brought together unexpectedly by loss, we made a commitment that, in the absence of our annual dancing event to bring us together, we couldn’t let time and distance continue to get in the way of our 40+ year friendship. We committed that day that we would make time (because that’s really what it’s about) for an annual weekend together, despite busy careers with lots of travel and family commitments.
Is it easy? Absolutely not. Do we make it happen? Absolutely.
San Francisco was year one – old times, new memories, Sonoma wine, lots of laughs. Chicago was year two – same city we’d all seen a half-dozen times over the years, but somehow it felt brand new at fifty. This past January, it was Ormond Beach, Florida. Tara’s family, Terence and Jim, opened up their beach bungalow to us (you never have to tempt me with a coastal getaway) and we enjoyed a weekend of sandy toes, ocean breezes, reminiscing and memory making…it was just what the soul needed after the busy holiday season.
| Trip Score | 9.5/10 |
| Perfect For | Long-distance girlfriends, reunion trips |
| Would We Go Again? | Every year, that’s the whole point |
| Getting There | Direct flights into Orlando + hour drive to Ormond Beach |
| Trip Mood | Reunion energy, unhurried coastal |
| We’d Skip Next Time | Attempting frozen Ellios for dinner |
| Pack This | Beach Essentials |
| Biggest Surprise | Fern & Fable |
| 03. OUR 4-DAY ITINERARY IN ORMOND BEACH
AFTERNOON
Flights into Orlando (MCO) from San Francisco, NY/NJ and Charlotte
EVENING
Arrivals in Orlando, rental car pickup and drive north through Daytona to Ormond Beach. Orlando is a busy airport so if you can do “skip the line” car rentals, I highly recommend it; we lost a good 45 mins on this.
Evening dinner stop at SoNapa Grilled on the way into town, quick grocery run for essentials
MORNING
Coffee catching up on the couch while our hostess, Tara, made breakfast – we hadn’t yet discovered the boardwalk benches right outside! Late morning beach walk with a Dunkin stop on the way back.
AFTERNOON
What every girls weekend needs…open-ended beach time. No schedule, no commitments and the option to go whichever way the wind blows. Our afternoon on the beach turned into happy hour complete with classy Hormel charcuterie platters to carry us to dinner.
EVENING
Late dinner got improvised (burnt Ellios, rescued by an emergency Instacart run), then a competitive round of Hearts.
MORNING
Huddled on the boardwalk for morning tea/coffee and easy conversation.
MID-DAY
Trip into town to visit some of Tara’s favorite shops. We got caught in The Pink Beach Boutique for a good hour and most of us left with something. Fern & Fable was the most adorable bookstore, and the Ormond Collective, an artisan market, had so much to see.
EVENING
Dinner at 63 Sovereign did not disappoint – fantastic small plates and delicious cocktails. Enjoyed after-dinner drinks after at 31 Supper Club, a throwback to the 1930’s complete with zebra striped chairs, moody red walls, live entertainment and fabulous craft cocktails.
MORNING
Enjoyed our final boardwalk coffee/tea chat before getting ourselves organized for the trip home.
AFTERNOON
Packed up and headed back to Orlando for return flights to our homes around the country
| 03. My Honest Take on Ormond Beach
SHE SAID
Our commitment to meeting up annually is far less about the destination than it is about the company and celebrating decades of friendship. We spent two solid days catching up, telling stories, reminding each other about parts of our lives we’d forgotten over the decades, laughing, making new memories. These weekends are far from easy to coordinate: work, family, three time zones. But the commitment we made at Roisin’s funeral isn’t going to fall by the wayside. Not on my watch, and not on theirs either.
Mornings were the best part, honestly. The short boardwalk by the bungalow had benches perfect for tea and coffee, so that’s where we congregated every single morning. Nothing like coffee and coastal views with people who’ve known you since you were a kid. Deirdre McLoughlin and I peeled off most mornings for a beach walk with a Dunkin stop on the way back, which became its own quiet ritual within our trip ritual.
Our first full day was that day every vacation needs…easy morning, beach chairs and no plan, which turned into happy hour on the beach and no fuss over a proper meal. Tara, official hostess, found Ellios pizzas in the freezer and since none of us had eaten one since the ’90s, we all agreed they’d make the perfect dinner. Unfortunately, our skills for cooking up Ellios had faded like the memories of eating them, and let’s just say, an emergency Publix Instacart order became dinner.
I taught the girls the perfect four-person card game, Hearts, while we snacked, sipped and laughed our way into evening, and if you’ve ever watched four former competitive Irish dancers turn a card game into a blood sport, you already know how that went.
On our last full day, we made it into the town of Ormond Beach to check out the shops. Fern & Fable stopped us all in our tracks, the cutest bookstore any of us had been in. For dinner, we enjoyed a table full of small plates at 63 Sovereign, and then had to pop into 31 Supper Club to experience a supper club of the 1930s. From the live music, to the ambience, to the well-crafted cocktails, this stop is not to be missed in Ormond Beach.
Ormond Beach turned out to be a perfect spot for this year’s girls weekend with the right amount of quaintness, convenience, quietness and craft cocktails. The hardest part of the trip was the drive from Orlando Airport, but when the point of the trip is catching up with friends, an hour-long car ride can feel like 15 minutes.
| 04. Is An Ormond Beach Girls’ Reunion Worth It?
MUST DO
- Fern & Fable bookstore. The unanimous favorite of four women with very different tastes. That alone should tell you something.
- Book a beach house or bungalow over a hotel. A shared kitchen and a couch to actually sit on together changes the entire shape of a girls’ trip – the closer to the beach, the better.
- 63 Sovereign + 31 Supper Club. Our one night out, and they both earned their spots on the list.
CAN SKIP
- The frozen Ellio’s pizza plan. Funny, nostalgic, and genuinely not a great dinner strategy. Save it as a story, not a real menu item.
TOP TIPS
- Hit the grocery store the moment you land, not the next morning. A stocked kitchen on day 1 made the whole trip low-key and easy.
- If your rental has a boardwalk or porch nearby, claim it as your morning coffee spot. It becomes the real gathering place, more than any restaurant will.
- Flying into Orlando is the easy button for a coast-to-coast friend group, so check for direct flights before assuming you need a connection.