Don’t Turn Your Vacation Into Work
We’ve all read the articles about how we need to shut off notifications and take a real vacation, yadda yadda yadda, but this is not that. Nathan Bransford has an interesting piece on not turning your vacation into work by scheduling yourself with activity after activity.
He pushes against this mentality: “We can’t just vacation sometimes and do whatever we want, we need to vacation in a ‘good’ way that maximizes our return and helps restore our productivity.”
The whole essay is really about how not doing anything sometimes becomes doing something amongst other thoughts, but the idea of an unplanned trip is what caught my attention.
My first thought: But you’re going all that way and taking time off to boot. Don’t you want to make sure you see what you want to see and do what you want to do while you’re in that other place? After all, maybe you’ll never be back and have missed something that would have been meaningful to you. I don’t mean hitting all tourist points on a list. I mean doing whatever is drawing you to that place. That means something to you.
My second thought: But that would also be so nice. I often wake up exhausted every day of the trip, and one of the nicest things we’ve ever done for ourselves is give permission to skip Toulouse during a heatwave and head to three days in Perros-Guirec at the beach.
My third thought: I hate feeling like I’ve missed something.
My fourth thought: Why am I always obsessed with holding onto experiences and items?
My fifth thought: I wonder what others think about this idea of going somewhere without plans and seeing where the day takes you, every day.
9 comments
I am definitely like you in wanting to squeeze as much as possible out of a new location while on vacation. I will research all of the things to do and try to make a plan. Some of my best vacations have been when I actually had very loose plans. I feel like I’m able to relax and just see and do whatever comes up. This has lead to some very organic experiences and extremely fun things I would have never planned. By not having a plan, I also feel MUCH less stressed when things don’t go according to plan. This is hard to do now since travel has become competitive and so many hotels and experiences require reservations 6-12 months in advance. My parents were bold when I was a kid (about 13) and took us on a family Europe vacation in 1993. We went for 2 1/2 weeks and they only had booked a rental car and the first and last night at a hotel near the Frankfurt airport. They had a rough route planned out, but we just drove and found a new place to stay every evening. It was amazing and they really instilled the love of travel and adventure. It is so hard for me to embrace the unknown, especially with 3 kids in tow.
I think it depends on your travel companions too. My kids are at ages where they need activities to fill time. They can’t go off on their own and they have too youthful energy to sit and read on the beach all day (yet! I know those days will come.). So for me the way to have a fun vacation *is to plan outings so I don’t spend all my time trying to relax while listening to complaining. But we do always go to bed. There’s no staying up wildly late even though we are on vacation and I guess that’s one way we don’t do “all the things.” When the time hits, we go back to our room/tent/whatever and the day is done, regardless of what we did or didn’t see.
Not to brag, but I’m pretty good at doing nothing on vacation. 😉 It doesn’t bother me to spend all day in the hotel room. I figure, the room costs money too so why not enjoy it? I bring books to read or watch shows or movies on tv. I like to look up things to do in the area and I like to venture out and check out venues, parks, museums, etc. and especially restaurants. But I also don’t *have* to do something every day. I just like to chill. And eat. Lol.
Of course, this was all pre-2020. Maybe things have changed for me. Maybe next time I go somewhere I’ll do more than usual since it’s been so long.
Usually we combine travel with a conference or wedding or family gathering. But we tend to have one thing roughly planned per day that isn’t going to take all day. DH tends to pore (pour?) over tourist things before we go and he makes lists of possibilities if we feel like we don’t have enough to do.
Generally I try to hit the major attractions the first time I go somewhere and otherwise just focus on food.
I think we need to distinguish between “vacation” and “travel”.
If I’m travelling to a city I’ve never seen before, or somewhere that costs a lot of money (Disney for example) – that’s travel. To make it worthwhile, I’m going to plan out every second and make sure I see and do all the things I want to do. Yes, I’m going to come home exhausted and not refreshed, but the goal of a trip like that isn’t to relax, really, but it has value.
But then there’s “vacation” – when you unplug and unwind, and do nothing. Like a trip to the beach or some other quiet locale. The goals are different, and the value is different.
For my family, we try to mix the types of trips we take and how we spend our time off.
Oh, this reminder couldn’t have come at a better time, Mel. I like ANDMom’s distinction! I think of it as travel-vacation and relaxation-vacation and hope there’ll be time for both–preferably in the same block of time or over the year. Someday, I’ll travel like AnneB’s parents and be completely spontaneous.
I’ve got my vacation scheduled, which is just going to visit family – don’t really have any plans beyond that. Then I’m taking the following week off too, because why not? I think I will have a garage sale.
Let’s talk about it tonight!
I agree with ANDMom. I always say that there are three different types of holiday (in kiwi terms, a holiday = a vacation – a word we understand but don’t use):
1. There’s a trip or a tour. That’s the one where you move on regularly, or have things planned out (though not necessarily booked) which is how we like to travel. It’s exhilarating and exciting and interesting, but can be exhausting.
2. There’s visiting family. NOT a holiday! lol
3. There’s a rest and recuperation holiday. Often, for me, that’s been a beach holiday, or perhaps a safari (which is recuperation for the mind, if not the physical body). When we were both working full-time, this was essential, otherwise you get back to work exhausted from your holiday, and you need another holiday!