Jessi Honard is a Travel Writer and avid traveler, you can find more of her works on the Outbound Adventurer Travel Blog.
It isn’t uncommon for people to take a yearly vacation. In fact, it’s pretty much the norm, and the one to two weeks a year that everyone in the workforce unanimously looks forward to.
We all know that feeling of anticipation as those coveted two weeks away from home draw near. The excitement of looking up activities, weather forecasts, and tours.
And we can certainly recall that last day of work before you pack up, head home, and leave it all behind for a blissful two weeks.
When you return your pocketbook is infinitely lighter, but your spirits are high. At first.
Then, as time goes on, your mood starts to shift. You realize you have to wait an entire year before you experience that sort of freedom and luxury again. The prospect of all those days, stretching out endlessly before you, settles on your shoulders like a ton of bricks.
And, inevitably, post-vacation depression sets in. Suddenly nothing is bearable. Your office, your job, your neighborhood. It all becomes a cage, trapping you and preventing you from pursuing what you really want – the freedom and time to explore new places with the people you love.
Have you felt this way before? If so, you’re definitely not alone. We live within a flawed system, where two weeks of reprieve, all packed together, are supposed to sate our adventurous spirit for an entire year. It’s unrealistic, and it’s harmful.
Which is why Outbound Adventurer does everything it can to put travel at the forefront of our plans. It isn’t easy – we have full-time jobs of our own to work around – but it is a priority. And it’s a priority because we honestly have seen the benefits of taking more than one trip a year. These benefits include,
Improved mood
My office doesn’t feel like a cage, despite the fact that it looks like your typical cubicle. This is because I have made it a priority to escape it often enough that I don’t lose appreciation for it. As a result, my morale is higher and I enjoy being at work. I look forward to chatting with my coworkers, tackling new projects, and contributing to a larger team.
The optimism doesn’t stop at work, either. Immediately following a trip, I have fewer fights with my partner, I’m more likely to pursue my hobbies, and I am generally happier. That cheerful feeling that you get after a vacation can extend for weeks, and if you take more than one trip a year, you’re maximizing the amount of time spent in that happy zone.
Improved productivity
With a boost in optimism comes a boost in productivity. Beyond the fact that you’re generally more amped to take on a project when you’re in a good mood, there are additional benefits. Stepping away for a few days gives you a chance to come at your tasks from a new angle. Often times the simple act of turning away from something you’ve been eyeball-deep in will allow you to see the big picture, and catch new opportunities and solutions you may have missed otherwise.
Taking more than one trip allows you to revisit this more productive, more creative state of mind more frequently.
More focused time with loved ones
You might spend every evening with your loved ones, but how much of that time is also taken up by Facebook feeds, text messages, and television shows? Family time has evolved to mean something very different these days, and often times it doesn’t involve interaction with one another at all. Simply sitting in the same room, each individual staring at separate screens, can sometimes qualify as “family time.”
When you’re traveling, there’s almost an expectation that you put the technology away. It’s a time for exploring, experimenting, and experiencing, and it’s an unprecedented opportunity to spend true quality time with those you love, making memories that you will cherish for years.
Finding the time to travel
It can be hard to find the time to reap the rewards mentioned above. Full-time jobs are full-time responsibilities, and often the enormity of planning just one trip a year is overwhelming, let alone several.
While everyone’s situation is different, there are a few ways to make multiple vacations more accessible.
1. Travel for long weekends
Instead of going on a big, two week trip in July, take those days and space them out throughout the year, tacking them onto already existing days off for four- and five-day trips.
2. Negotiate remote work
While not feasible for everyone, many of today’s jobs have at least some opportunities for working remotely. If you find yourself on your computer in the office day-in and day-out, there’s a good chance that some of what you’re doing could be accomplished from a laptop just about anywhere in the world. See if you can negotiate working remotely for a few weeks a year, so that you can maximize your travel time.
3. Streamline your planning
Planning for a vacation can be fun, but it can also be daunting. By buying vacations in bulk, using itinerary apps, and speaking to experts that have traveled to your destination before, you can make the process much smoother – not to mention more affordable.
At Outbound Adventurer, we value budget travel, and we are passionate about the learning experiences that come from traveling far and wide. Despite holding down full-time jobs, we make it our mission to seek out new adventures regularly, and to share those experiences with the travel community.
If you’d like to follow our adventures, feel free to check out our blog, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook.
Sundance Vacations occasionally seeks out travel writers in order to help bring you the best travel news, advice and advice. It’s important to view not just travel, but any subject from a different point of view, which is why guest posts can be so interesting and fun. If you would like to collaborate with us, please feel free to contact us via the form on this site or via our social media channels like Twitter and Facebook. We look forward to hearing from you! Thanks again to Outbound Adventurer, and especially Jessi, for contributing this piece.