You have been waiting long for your vacation. Why do the first days always feel just like any other day of the year? Packing and traveling to your destination can be stressful.
Have you ever felt you only truly enjoy your vacation in the last few days? Feeling you lost so much time getting used to being on vacation that you missed out on all the fun and joy?
How to make every minute of your vacation count this year:
- Begin your vacation before you travel. Prepare mentally for your time away. Check out your destination on Google Maps. Read reports about your destination from fellow travelers on TripAdvisor.
- Get a realistic picture of your destination. Even the occasional negative review will help you a lot. At least you know what to prepare for. If you find a common theme in those evaluation of, say, medical and health supply items being overpriced or simply not available, you can bring your own. Less frustration – more joy!
- Don’t overplan. What good does it do to be on vacation when all your days are planned minute by minute exactly like at home? Give yourself total free time. Free from “musts” and “shoulds”. Check out all available entertaining options if you want but restrain yourself from filling your every minute with sight-seeing trips, museum visits and other things travelers supposed to do at the travel location.
- If you have the chance, plan on having a day between work and vacation so you can pack without stress and take care of small chores before you hit the road.
- Give yourself 3 days to get used to your vacation location. The different climate, food or customs will take some time to get used to. It is unrealistic to expect that you will feel totally at home the minute you arrive!
- Decrease your expectations. Most of the times we look at the vacation time to solve all our relationship issues. In fact, statistics say that families argue more than usual when away. Why? All the routine programming that makes life easier at home is gone. Plus they spend more time together in one day than in a week back home. So automatically there is a bigger chance of conflict.
- Gift yourself with time alone. Of course it is wonderful to spend so much time with your friends or family. Don’t forget about your own needs, though. Enjoy time alone at the beach, get up earlier for a morning run or book a massage session for yourself.
- Do nothing, just be. Give yourself the gift of a “Do nothing” day. Sleep as much you feel like, eat when you feel like, read a book in a day, jump into the pool, daydream…. Without checking the time once. Be in a flow of life, just be!
- Do some yoga if you feel like it. As inspiration, below is a yoga video Michelle made at her last Grenada yoga teacher training.
Wishing you the vacation of a lifetime!