A Vacation From My Vacation

In a few days, I’ll be leaving for a long road trip up and down California with my family.

We have hotel reservations in four cities across the state for our thirteen-day excursion. The youngest in the family is only a year old, so we’ve decided to limit the driving to five-hours per day.

After attending a wedding in San Francisco, we will be heading down to San Diego where we’ll be swimming at Mission Beach and visiting Sea World and the famous San Diego Zoo. At some point, we will be taking the two older boys to Knott’s Berry Farm which will mean a small trip north for the day.

I remember some pilots I used to fly with—especially the ones with big families like mine—telling me how relieved they were to be working again because they’d finally get a chance to relax and sleep. They weren’t kidding.

Don’t get me wrong, this trip to California will be loads of fun—we’ll be nailing the whole work-hard, play-hard thing—but it’s going to be a lot more tiring than our normal day-to-day routine.

Most of us love vacations and we look forward to it all year. We get precious little time off, so it’s hard not to want to make the best of our vacations and squeeze as much as possible into every waking moment of the day.

As a result, our vacations somehow end up with the busiest schedule of the entire year! All travel arrangements, pre-paid events, and visits with family and friends have to be carefully coordinated.

Most of the time during vacations such as these, our brain is on overdrive, engaging in some sort of practical thought or another. We’re always doing something: ensuring everyone in the family has been fed, hydrated, and has had that all-important pee break, and doing headcounts so we don’t end up in some crazy HOME ALONE situation.

But you can still go on vacation with your family and get a real vacation from your thoughts.

When you’re not driving and the kids aren’t screaming in your ear and you have a second to yourself, just let go and don’t follow any thought. It just takes a few moments. (I’m going to give it a try and I’ll tell you how things turn out when I return. Promise.)

When taking mini-vacations from thought becomes a habit, then not only will you get some genuine R&R during your vacation, that inner peace will underlie your activities throughout the year, even when you’re working.

Have you gone on vacation yet?