I have sipped wine at Les Deux Magots cafe in Paris, climbed a pyramid in Egypt, laid like broccoli pool side in Hawaii, marveled at the Grand Canyon, sounded like a fool using my broken Spanish in Cabo San Lucas and got caught in the freezing rain with my three year old in Vancouver.
Growing up overseas gave me the travel bug and I have always loved it! I believe wanderlust is a wonderful thing. But vacations can be different and I’ve taken many kinds of trips… there are girl’s trips, couples retreats, action-packed tourist attractions rich with history, two-fer destinations, where you get to see family and friends but also the opportunity to explore a new place, road trips, camping excursions and good old fashioned long weekends.
Who doesn’t love vacation? If we are lucky we get away a couple of times a year and it’s never enough. Vacation recharges us, makes the everyday bearable, gives us something to look forward to, get in shape for and save up for. Vacation is glorious!
13 Things I Love About Vacation (in no particular order):
1. No schedule.
2. No laundry.
3. No meal planning, grocery shopping or cooking!
4. Hotels.
5. Room service (on occasion).
6. The experience to see, do and try new things (food, culture, environment or activity).
7. Being on vacation means my family is all together and we’re bonding.
8. Getting to meet new people and possibly making lifelong friends.
9. Procuring souvenirs or small trinkets that will forever remind us of our time away.
10. Making lasting memories.
11. The opportunity to take great photographs.
12. Being out of touch for a while. I don’t know about you, but I rarely watch the news or pay attention to headlines when I’m away from home and I try to unplug too.
13. Finding inspiration to create, write, laugh, let go and just be.
Taken Labor Day weekend, 2013 – La Jolla, California
I love this passage from Wanderlust For One:
Travel is not just recreation. It is re-creation. Through travel, I come face to face with the unknown and the unfamiliar disrupts the familiar. Travel throws me off balance while helping me to find it again. It reawakens my childlike wonder and reaffirms my sense of self. Travel makes me approach my life with a fresh perspective. It deconstructs my cozy, comfortable existence and teaches me…
What do you love about vacation?
This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop Prompt 2.) List 13 things you love about vacation.
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Well done! I saw the vacation prompt and immediately dismissed it because there was no way I could think of 13 things. You nailed it!
Yes! I could use a vacation, too. And I agree with everything on the list, except #3. I wish I didn’t have to pack all the food and worry about where we’ll eat when we’re traveling, but it’s our “normal.” At least we don’t have to eat it at home, though!
The thing I love best about vacation is being there for my family without any other care. That’s when our relationship seems cemented, and not rushed.
I love that quote! I chose the vacation prompt as well – because I’m getting ready to embark on a huge road trip with my kids (our 5th). Most of us who picked this prompt all seem to have similar reason. I just love to ravel and explore.
I love vacations because we get to do things we normally don’t have a chance to, or don’t think to do. I like that we don’t have schedules. BUT, we do laundry wherever we go because we simply have to. I hate overpacking 🙂
Now I REALLY want a vacation! 🙂
I think the photo taking is about 70 percent of the reason I love vacation. Don’t ask me why…everything I do, I do for Instagram. 😉 I will add that I LOVE watching my kids experience something new. I think that might be 20 percent of my love for vacation and the then the remaining 10 percent is a combination of everything you mentioned. Vacation is the BEST!!!
For me, it’s “book recall.” If you read a book, for the first time, on vacation, it cements things in your mind beautifully . . . think of the book, and you’re transported back. Think on the vacation, and you’re reading the pages once again. No idea how it works, but I’m so glad it does.
Vacation is almost a magical thing, isn’t it? Everything – even people – transforms.
This reminds me. I’m in desperate need of a vacation. 🙂