Who plans your trip
Family Reunion Trips is run by Normand Schafer of Far & Away Adventures, a travel advisor since 1996 who plans group and multi-generational trips. He founded Far & Away Adventures in 1996, has travelled to more than 60 countries, and holds South Pacific destination certifications including Tahiti Tourisme, Fiji (Matai), Cook Islands, Samoa and Vanuatu. He is a licensed travel-insurance advisor in British Columbia. The agency is IATA-accredited, licensed with Consumer Protection BC and part of the Travel Leaders network, based at 2407 Bevan Avenue, Sidney, BC.
Call +1 250-385-3001 or use the form below, and you deal with Normand and his team directly.
Family Reunion Trips is the group-travel side of Far & Away Adventures, the agency Normand Schafer started in Sidney, British Columbia in 1996. This site exists for one kind of trip: several households, often three or four generations, travelling to the same place at the same time so they can spend real time together. The guides here explain how those trips are put together; the planning itself is done one family at a time, by conversation.
Why reunion travel gets its own site
A couple booking a beach holiday makes a handful of decisions. A reunion of twenty-five relatives makes the same decisions twenty-five times, with different passports, budgets, school calendars, mobility needs and departure airports. Most of the work is not finding a nice resort; it is getting a group to agree on a date range, a home base and a few shared moments, then keeping every household's bookings lined up with that plan.
That is the part Normand and his team focus on. The destination guides, trip-style pages and planning articles on this site are written to help the family organizer think through those decisions before the first quote is requested.
What we help with
- Narrowing destinations to two or three that suit the group's travel time, budget range and ages, using the destination checklist as a starting point.
- Comparing trip styles side by side: all-inclusive resorts, cruises, villas and vacation homes and private touring.
- Structuring room or cabin options so households can choose different price levels and still stay together.
- Lining up arrivals from several departure cities, as described in group flight coordination.
- Planning the two or three anchor events that give a reunion its shape, such as a welcome gathering, a shared excursion or a milestone dinner.
- Keeping one written summary of what is booked, what is optional and who owes what by when.
What we don't do
The pages on this site are planning information, not quotations. Prices, room availability, group terms and inclusions depend on your dates and the supplier, and nothing is final until you have the supplier's written terms in front of you.
We also don't replace official sources. Each traveller is responsible for their own passport, visa or entry requirements and health preparation, and we will point you to the government or visitor-authority page that applies rather than give a ruling ourselves. Finally, we don't push every reunion toward the same product. A family that wants a rented house and home-cooked dinners is planned differently from one that wants a ship or a resort with everything on site.
How working together usually goes
Most families begin with one organizer and a rough idea: a parent's anniversary, a year when the cousins are finally all out of school, or a wish to see an ancestral region together. The first conversation covers who might come, roughly when, from where, and what the group cares about most. From there the team suggests a short list of places and trip styles, explains the trade-offs, and confirms current availability and terms before anyone commits.
Once the group chooses, the organizer gets a clear outline to share with relatives, and individual households can be set up with their own bookings inside the group plan. The step-by-step version is on How It Works and Plan Your Trip.
Who the trips are for
Typical groups include grandparents marking an anniversary with their children and grandchildren, siblings bringing their own families together for the first time in years, cousins organising a trip in a parent's honour, and families travelling to the region their ancestors left. Group sizes range from two or three households to several dozen people. Some groups have relatives in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia; others all live within a day's drive of each other.
The common thread is a mix of ages and needs. A plan that suits a toddler, a teenager and an eighty-year-old at the same time is more about pacing, room layout and transport than about the destination, and that is where most of the planning conversation goes. Because Normand holds South Pacific destination certifications, the team is often asked about Fiji, Tahiti and the Cook Islands, but reunions are planned for Mexico, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Europe, Alaska, Canada and the U.S. as well.
Reaching the team
You deal with Normand and his team directly by phone, email or the form on this page. The mailing address is 2407 Bevan Avenue, Sidney, BC V8L 0C3, Canada. If you are still gathering ideas, the articles section is a good place to start, and the reunion travel tips page covers the questions organizers ask most often.
Frequently asked questions
Who will I actually be working with?
Normand Schafer and the Far & Away Adventures team in Sidney, BC. Enquiries from this site go to them, not to a call centre.
Do you only plan trips for Canadian families?
No. The agency is based in British Columbia, but reunion groups often include relatives living in several countries, and planning around multiple departure points is a normal part of the work.
Are the prices or inclusions on this site guaranteed?
No. The site gives planning guidance only; current prices, availability and terms are confirmed for your dates before you book.