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For many years I was the quintessential travel snob. You know the type.
“I’m not a tourist, I’m a traveller!” That’s right, with two “L”s! “Oh you went to Florida on vacation? That’s cute, I LIVED in Florida and I TRAVELLED to Australia,” I would quip. “I don’t go on tour groups. When you really learn to travel you won’t have to.”
I still don’t go on tour groups.
That aside however, my travel ego has shrunk considerably in my maturation and I understand those that want or need to take a tour group for various reasons. There is nothing wrong with it and if you are comfortable seeing the world that way, its exponentially better than not seeing the world at all.
Another thing I would do in my youth was vow that when I was able to travel, I would never go to the same place every year like so many of my friends did growing up. What I didn’t realize at the time, was that I was talking about travel, and what they were talking about was vacation and the two are completely different entities.
Growing up, I didn’t understand vacation. Being young and full of energy, the concept of “needing a break” wasn’t something that was on my radar. As someone who just turned 40, unplugging from work and letting all of the responsibilities of daily life go doesn’t just become something nice to do from time to time, it is a necessity.
The other part about vacation that really bothered me in the past were those that never changed destinations. I couldn’t for the life of me understand going back to the same place year after year when there was so much else out there! Why on Earth would you do that?
With all that in mind, you may be shocked to find that despite just coming back from a couple of glorious weeks where we drove around the southern half of Ireland and explored London, decidedly not as part of a tour group, that we are now headed for Cape Cod, Massachusetts for our 6th (I think?) year in a row. Renting the exact same house, in the exact same little town, eating in the exact same restaurants that we did when we first discovered it.
While this is punishable offense to my normal style of travel, it is exactly what I need at the end of every summer before heading back into the grind of work for the fall and winter seasons.
Here are a few key differences between what I think of as “travel” and “vacation” and why, if possible, there should be room for both in your life.
When travelling, there is a want to get out and explore a new location, culture, cuisine, and people that make a certain location unique. Depending upon how far away you are from home, and how much time you have on your trip, there is an expectation to cram as much as possible in the time you have, because you don’t know if you will ever make it back to that place.
For more on travel theory I recommend “The Art of Travel” by Alain De Botton.
All of that exploring takes time and effort, both to plan beforehand and to actually accomplish in the moment! Before your trip, documents have to acquired (ask me about the time I needed a passport one week before travelling!), reservations made, transportation secured, routes scouted and timed, and that is before you ever set foot out of the door.
Once you get to your destination, there are timetables to meet, miles to travel, weather to navigate, and other unforeseen obstacles to overcome. Depending upon how far you have travelled, jet lag may be a concern, and the longer the trip goes, the more you find yourself just generally burning out.
Enter vacation.
The goals of vacation are immensely different than with travel. The point of vacation is to unplug from your daily grind and actually give yourself a chance to recharge, balance, and focus on your well-being before returning to all those things that are consuming you day to day.
Travel as described above, will not achieve most of those goals for you, although I will be the first to tell you that travelling will significantly improve your mental health. A two week jaunt around five European countries isn’t always therapeutic, relaxing, or recharging.
With vacation however,a lot of the challenge that comes with planning travel tends to fade away. This is particularly true if you tend to favor one location like we do with Cape Cod every summer.
Every fourth week in July, I know exactly where I have to go and what I have to do to make vacation happen. The route is familiar, I know what I have to pack in the car, and how to play Tetris with it to make it fit. The house we rent is the same every year. I know where shop for food for the week, and what I have available to me as far as equipment in the house to cook with. I know the roads around our little town like the back of my hand.
Everything about the trip is basically automatic. The one exception being not knowing how much the price to park at the beach has increased compared to last year, and it will most certainly have done so. Not having to spend time and energy planning any of this allows me to truly enter vacation mode as soon as I leave work.
Fear of Missing Out vs. True Relaxation
One thing that I struggle with when travelling is the fear of missing out or not doing enough on my trip. Knowing that I have a ton of destinations that I would like to explore, I know that I might not be back in a particular place for a long time, maybe ever. Ugh, the fear is creeping in as I write this.
For someone that wants to explore everywhere, this can be extremely anxiety inducing. I find myself wanting to shove as much as possible into each day of a trip in the hopes of soaking in what I would consider enough of the experience to be satisfied. It’s never enough by the way.
Vacationing in the same spot year after year takes a lot of this off of the table. I don’t feel pressured to overschedule because I am of the mindset that I will be back next year. At the same time I can still blend in a nice mix of “places we have to go every year,” (or even every day in the case of the Ice Cream Café) and exploring a new place or restaurant or two each year to keep things fresh.
The repetition, while not allowing for many brand new travel connections, does allow for a deeper connection and understanding with a place and people on a greater level than if just visiting once. This connection only gets stronger the more the process repeats. I don’t consider my knowledge of Cape Cod on the same level as places I have lived, but it isn’t far behind and that is something I have grown to greatly appreciate and find comforting.
Comfort and Family
Speaking of comfort, the act of vacationing opens the door for focus on people and relationships that may or may not get all the attention they deserve during the rest of the year.
We all have so many responsibilities that pull on us at any given time, that I like to use this time to deepen the connection with my family and truly enjoy each other’s company.
Simple acts, like going to the Ice Cream Cafe each day and picking a new flavor or eating a dirt bomb (amazing cinnamon and sugar muffin from the Cottage Bakery in Orleans) are moments to be cherished.
These snapshots in time matter even more as we look back and see just how much our son has grown from his first Cape Cod adventure to now. Vacation has become both a literal and figurative measuring stick for just how far we have come as a family.
If you know or follow me, you know that one of my favorite sayings is from the Japanese, mono no aware (pronounced M-oh N-oh N-oh Ah-Wah-Ray), which is an understanding that all things are temporary. This is often used in reference to the Sakura or cherry blossoms which only bloom for a few weeks every year. Vacation has become a great reminder of mono no aware in my life.
So yes, this year I am going to set up camp on the same beach, eat in the same restaurants, go to the same baseball games, and violate all my rules of travel because this isn’t travel. It’s vacation and it matters just as much.
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I recommend the following titles to explore more about Cape Cod.
