A vacation from vacations

I don't know if you have ever come back from a frenzied vacation so tired out that it took you several days to recuperate. I heard about a couple that took a whirlwind tour of Europe with one of those budge tours you can sign up for at a travel agency. They visited a different country of Europe each day. When they got back, the couple co-wrote a book about their vacation entitled, "If this is Thursday, it must be Italy," or something like that. I can't believe they really enjoyed their vacation--at least not as much as they could have.

Some people have so much planned out for their vacation that if they see something that looks like it might be interesting to explore it is "too bad -- we are on a tight schedule." Work-a-holics tend to plan their vacation like it is an invasion or something: every moment filled with activity, and each thing planned out to the minute. It seems to me that this is not really a vacation at all, but just another form of work. And when things slow you down (as they tend to do) these people get super upset because they are "behind schedule."

Once when I was out backpacking in the Marble Mountains of Northern California and hiking a leisurely 6-8 miles a day on the John Muir Trail, I met up with this one fellow who was hiking at least 25-30 miles a day, and some days even more, because he had to get to the end of the trail in about a week. Somehow a forced march doesn't seem like much of a vacation to me. His schedule was like this: 6am eat a big breakfast. By 6:30 start hiking. Hike all day until 8:00 pm snacking trail food along the way. By 8:00 he was setting up camp and since he was so tired, he was basically eating supper and then crashing. Sure, he was hiking in the mountains, but -- was he really enjoying it? I sure did not envy him.

Vacations in my opinion should relax the person. I once spent 3 days camped out by one lake. That is all we did. We went to the lake, and then we camped out. In fact, I had a motor home, so my setting up camp was pretty simple--drive the motor home to the edge of the lake and park it. I really enjoyed this vacation. We swam. We built fires in the evening. We sat around and sunned ourselves. We ate a lot of good food. And we watched the other campers. I went home feeling refreshed.

So if you ask me, if you need a vacation from your vacation--you are trying to do too much. Slow down and enjoy yourself.

Happy vacations,
David A. Youngs