Q: When you visit someone’s home for the first time, is it polite to ask the hostess to give you a tour?
A: It is up to the hostess to ask her guests if they’d like to see the rest o f the house; a guest shouldn’t ask for a tour.
House Tour: Is it okay to ask?
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It’s more of a question. What is the proper etiquette for people that are invited to go on a weekend vacation trip with family? For instance, if your brother invited you to go camping with him and his family. He was already going if you weren’t going to go and then while he is out camping he decides to go to the boardwalk or out to a casino and paying for parking is required. Is the person who was invited required to pay any part of the campsite, food, gas, and parking costs?
My brother and I have been argueing about this after a trip he took where he invited my blind sister and our elderly aunt and expected them to pay 1/3 of the bill when he also was there with his wife, 20 yr old son and his wifes 14 yr old nephew.
Thank you for your time.
Debbie Milliron
Sean-Thomas is on the right track. Communication is the key to avoiding confusion about who should be paying. There is an understanding that if you are invited by someone to attend something that the cost will be covered. If this is not the case and two parties are deciding to do something together they need to decide, and ahead of time is the best time, how they are going to divide the cost.
In the case you describe above, everyone should have talked about who was going to cover the cost of the trip. This might have included travel, accommodations, and maybe even food. Activities are sometimes hard to plan ahead but as they come up there needs to be an agreement each time something new is planned if the hosting role is not clear. If someone is unsure what the expectation is around money it is better to ask and talk about it sooner than later to avoid the type of misunderstanding that you have experienced.
I may be wrong, but I believe that the same consideration for invitations to dinner applies here. If he invites someone to come along, then your brother would be responsible for paying. If he merely wanted their company, he could have said, “My family and I are going ….., if you would like to meet us”. There might even be a better way to phrase it.
I have to say, your brother’s treatment of his sister and elderly aunt was not gracious. If he expected them to pay for part (and it should only be their percentage), then he should have made it clear beforehand, but a clear invitation is expected to be followed by the host to treat the guest.
My best friend and I have known each other for almost 30 years and we still follow that rule.