The Gap Between What You Want and What You Get on Vacation

But the Cliff Notes version of that episode is that sometimes a vacation needs to satisfy a current feeling that you are maybe lacking or solve a negative feeling that you're currently having in your current season of life.

So Maybe you are bored out of your mind with life right now and you need a vacation to re-inspire you or give you a new idea.

Or maybe you're exhausted and you truly need downtime and rest.

Or maybe you're in full-on mama mode and you just desperately wanna feel like a unique human again.

It could be so many things.

But also so many of us don't stop and ask ourselves what it is we need from this vacation before we start to plan or decide to go.

So that is just one purpose a vacation could be, though, because also some vacations or trips are meant to serve a bigger purpose of like, what do you want from travel anyway? in general, in your life.

So maybe you take a trip that's super exhausting, even though you are currently exhausted, but it's still filling you up in other ways.

Like if you look back at your life at age 70, you wanna have memories and stories that you can tell or photos to reminisce on, and you wanna feel fulfilled by the experiences that you have.

So sometimes a trip is fulfilling that purpose for you.

So I will be the one to stand on a soapbox and say that for too long, we've been treating vacation like it's just some product we buy off a shelf to check a box to be like, yep, I got away this year.

I recharged myself.

I got some nice photos at the beach.

I mean, for example, like the beach, like the poster child Caribbean beach vacation at the all-inclusive resort.

There's nothing wrong with the Caribbean or the beach or an all-inclusive resort.

I'm not picking on any of those things, but that image itself has just been presented to Americans for decades now as the ultimate answer to your vacation desires.

Like, oh, you're burnt out.

This is what you need.

You need this image.

You need to go there.

But think for a second with me.

Have you ever come home from a vacation that was like a perfectly fine vacation? You stayed at a really nice hotel.

You had great weather, gorgeous views, but it just felt kind of flat or off.

Like you relax, sure, but you still didn't feel fully recharged or you didn't actually feel filled up after the vacation.

Or maybe you came home and honestly were more restless than when you left.