It’s your last week at work before you take a month off to travel the world. You have an important project due, and everyone else is on vacation. How do you handle it? You should definitely setup your site’s social media accounts before you go. Let your clients and employees know that you will be offline on your travel dates, and when you’ll return. If you’re like me, you get an incredible feeling when you plan a holiday months ahead of time. After weeks of dreaming about it, the day actually arrives, and suddenly…you have problems. Here are some things to keep in mind if your vacation is coming up soon.

I need to book a flight for my trip” you think to yourself. “I wish I could just find some cheap flights that don’t have any stops, and won’t make me sit next to screaming babies!!!! Oh yeah, and close to the airport.”

In August 2020 our summer family vacation consisted of a 3-week road trip visiting friends and family who we’d been separated from for much of the year due to Covid-19.

Going On Vacation For A Month

It was good to catch up with our nearest and dearest — we hugged and laughed, ate and drank, making merry as much as social distancing would allow. I suspect novelty was a big factor in making the trip fun, but it was relaxing and energising nonetheless after months confined at home.

As summer 2021 rolled around and with little appetite to travel overseas given the continuing need for Covid tests pre- and post-travel, we opted once again for a prolonged road trip as our family vacation.

I took August off work, parked my writing ambitions for a month and we hit the road, hoping for a rerun of last summer’s fun.

Suffice to say it was less successful this time around. Like going back to the same bar after a fun night out, it was always going to be hard to achieve the same experience twice. We certainly enjoyed good times and made fond memories, but it felt lacking in many ways.

My biggest takeaway from the vacation was to have realised how much I appreciate many aspects of my normal daily life, to the extent that I was glad to get back to work yesterday.

That’s never happened before. What’s happening to me? Was it really that bad?

After a bit of soul-searching I’ve identified the reason for this change of mind, and it’s not just about me growing older, more miserable and less willing to make-do when I’m not having the best of times.

Instead I’d convinced myself that for a vacation to be fun and relaxing, demands metaphorically and literally “getting away from it all”.

I believed that for a vacation to be enjoyable, it needed to be completely different to normal daily life, abandoning all structures, routines and habits. I’ve come to learn that this isn’t always the case however;

Escaping daily life isn’t the ultimate goal. Removing all aspects of normality can be damaging and detrimental when you realise how much your happiness relies on the structures you’ve built around your life.

For many, there are things that a vacation provides them with temporary respite from — the stresses of a daily commute for example. But should it naturally follow that for a vacation to be enriching, it needs to be entirely and completely different from what we do on a daily basis?

I think not, and I’d like to present how I’ve come to realise this.

The myth of getting away from it all

There’s much to be said for taking a break from everything, conceptually at least.

In the always-on, always-connected world, simply sitting alone with one’s thoughts and no distractions can feel immensely refreshing. That’s if we can calm our minds and summon the resolve to do it.

Jessica Wildfire has written a number of excellent pieces recently, in praise of quitting, slowing down and letting go of that which is unhelpful or harmful to us.

Certainly there’s a case for escapism to some degree if we’re to relax and recuperate while on vacation, particularly in the current era of global chaos and uncertainty.

But I think it’s a myth to believe that true relaxation and peace can only come from escaping all aspects of our daily life. Indeed it would be a damning indictment upon our existence to feel like nothing about the day-to-day was enriching, positive or even tolerable, wouldn’t it?

And yet when summer vacations and the Christmas holidays have come around in recent years I’ve repeatedly cast aside most routines from my normal life — exercise, structured sleep, moderate eating, limited alcohol consumption and regular writing to name a few.

These positive habits and practices are summarily replaced with complete, hedonistic abandon.

It’s as though I’ve mentally ring-fenced these habits, labelling them as constraints upon my existence rather than recognising them for the benefits they bring. I’ve acted like I see making productive and positive use of my time and money or maintaining my health as shackles that somehow hinder me or have to be suffered and endured until I can break free for a couple of weeks each year.

As bizarre is the other tendency I’ve exhibited — replacing these habits and practices with other surrogate activities in the pretence that they’re somehow preferable, more fun or enriching to my life.

There’s a reason I don’t play cards for fun

I enjoy playing cards and board games as an occasional diversion, but during this vacation it became a daily ritual — a default way of passing time.

It turns out that if you’re not an avid fan of such things, the novelty wears off quickly — the games becoming a chore to be suffered.

Why is it then, that when vacations come around we feel compelled to temporarily take up such things in the belief that what we really need is to get away from what we do normally? Should different automatically equate to better? Sometimes it does, but not always.

Guilt is a factor too — we played games as a means of luring the kids away from their screens and spending quality time with them. This summer (perhaps due to the kids getting older) it felt increasingly like nobody was playing because they wanted to — but rather under sufferance because “we’re on vacation and this is what we do”.

The lesson — maybe it’s not necessary to do different things than we would normally do in the name of fun? Could it be that you already enjoy what you do in the day-to-day — if so, maybe do more of that instead?

A spontaneous workout can be enjoyable if you’re doing it voluntarily rather than because your schedule tells you it’s got to be done regardless of how tired you feel? It can feel creatively-satisfying to write a story just because the idea strikes you, rather than having to meet your monthly quota of published pieces. Waking early doesn’t have to be a chore if you’ve had sufficient sleep and want to marvel at a sunrise, even if your daily routine involves waking at an ungodly hour in normal life too.

If you don’t love your daily life, do different things on holiday — but if you do, why change it for other random things?

There’s a reason I don’t drink alcohol every night

I’ve long recognised my love-hate relationship with booze. This summer like many summers and Christmases before it was another when I abandoned all restraint — I estimate having had only two dry days throughout August.

This contributed to inevitable weight gain, lowered mood, crankiness and moderate self-loathing. It was also responsible for my yearning to get back to normality, to a time when I’d no longer defaulted to a beer with lunch.

I’m in my mid-forties now — way beyond the point where I can take a hangover or even a heavy, late dinner in my stride. Limiting my alcohol intake and eating modestly in normal life isn’t done with a sense of self-denial — it helps me feel good inside.

Why then do I feel like it’s a positive or somehow indulgent to do the opposite at a time of year when I’m supposedly living my best life?

The lesson — Indulgences and treats seem appropriate during a vacation, but there’s a law of diminishing returns the more of them you allow. Things feel less special and less like a treat when they become the norm or the default.

Loving your life is a privilege

I don’t wish to sound like a spoiled brat — there were many positives about our vacation and I’m determined not to overlook these. Being able to take a month off work with family is a blessing in itself, and not one that I take lightly when others are fearful for their livelihood.

During a month away from normality I got used to waking naturally around 8am each day feeling (mostly) rested and regenerated. I spent precious time with my wife, kids, family and friends. There were many laughs and experiences that I’ll treasure for a long time.

The single biggest takeaway though is to have recognised that there’s much about my normal life which I value and am grateful for too.

My life isn’t just about getting through the day-to-day. The habits, routines and practices I’ve established over time aren’t just a way of nursing myself through the tortures of daily life. It isn’t an unpalatable existence that I suffer for a prized couple of weeks of downtime and escapism every six months or so.