12 Ways to Ensure a Great Vacation
by Vin Miller
Vacation provides us with something to look forward to and gives us a much needed break from the stressful lives that many of us live, but without proper planning, an eagerly anticipated vacation can leave you feeling depressed and more exhausted than when you left.
A well planned vacation should make you feel refreshed with energy and inspire a positive outlook, and this is tremendously beneficial to your health. Here are 12 tips to help make it happen.
1. Stay Within Budget
Money is one of the most common causes of stress and poor health. While vacations can often be quite expensive, spending more money than you can afford is certainly not going to help you relax and take a break from your worries. In fact, it will prevent it and may even add additional stress to your life!
2. Start a Vacation Fund
If you aren’t good at saving money, then you should consider having a dedicated savings account for vacations. Most banks allow you to have multiple savings accounts within the same main account and also let you schedule automatic transfers that will occur at a specific frequency and day of the month. If you have your paycheck electronically deposited into your account, set up an automated transfer to move money into your vacation fund on the days of the month that you get paid. You’ll be nicely surprised by how fast your vacation fund will build up, and when it’s time to plan a trip, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that you can afford it.
3. Find a Good Place to Stay
Most people tend to skimp on their vacation accommodations figuring that they’ll be spending most of their time elsewhere. If you take a chance and end up someplace that’s not clean, it can certainly detract from the enjoyment of your trip regardless of how little time you spend there. Furthermore, if you don’t feel comfortable, you might have trouble sleeping, and the last thing you want on your vacation is to be tired. A good place to stay is one that’s clean and comfortable. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have to spend a lot of money on fancy accommodations to enjoy these characteristics.
4. Consider Renting a Condo or a House
When you consider how much it costs per night for a decent hotel room, accommodations for a week long vacation can be quite expensive. In many cases, you can rent a condo or a house for a comparable price. No matter how nice of a hotel room you may find, you’ll feel like a guest every second that you’re there. A condo or house will allow you to feel much more at home, provide additional convenience, and make your trip more enjoyable and stress free.
A great website that my wife and I have used multiple times to find condo rentals is Vacation Rentals By Owner.
5. Stay Someplace That Has a Refrigerator and an Oven
This is one of my most important requirements for any vacation that I go on. Most people who follow a healthy diet know exactly what type of meals keep them feeling their best and are rarely able to find them on a restaurant menu. Furthermore, relying on restaurants for every meal will consume a considerable amount of your budget. Being able to prepare some of your own meals will help you get more out of your trip by ensuring that you’ll feel your best, that you won’t overspend, and that you’ll have extra money to spend on more meaningful activities. As such, the convenience of having a kitchen is another great reason to stay in a condo or a house instead of a hotel room.
6. Don’t Overindulge
While on vacation, allowing yourself to enjoy unhealthy indulgences a little more frequently than normal will often add some excitement to your trip, but overdoing it can cause more trouble than it’s worth. If you eat and drink too much junk, you’ll likely experience the fatigue, poor mood and regret that often follow, and it will reduce the enjoyment of your trip. Finding a compromise that provides you with a bit more freedom while still adhering to most of your healthy habits will allow you to enjoy some additional indulgence without letting it detract from your vacation.
7. Consider Inviting Friends or Family
While everyone is different, I often have more fun when I travel with a group, and that’s coming from an introvert! Close relationships are one of the most meaningful aspects of life, and the worry free and fun nature of vacation makes it a great time to enjoy and cultivate them. Furthermore, having other people to share a rental car and condo with can save you a considerable amount of money.
8. Pay Attention to Seasonal Weather Patterns
Most people hope for their vacations to be filled with warm and sunny weather, but are likely to be disappointed if they choose the wrong time of year for their destination. For example, my wife was very disappointed one year when we visited northern Florida in April and had a week of chilly weather that was barely warm enough to enjoy the beach. With all of the money and effort that go into planning a vacation, it would be a shame to miss out on what you’re hoping for because of such a simple oversight.
In addition to periods of chilly weather, many tropical locations also have storm seasons or spans of brutal heat. You should definitely take these factors into consideration before committing to a location and time. Weatherbase is a great website that will give you all kinds of monthly statistics for many different locations. Some of the information you’ll find includes temperature averages, precipitation averages, and even the average number of sunny days.
9. Opt For Convenience
Most people bend over backwards to save as much money on their vacation expenses as possible. Some common examples include buying cheaper flights with awful departure times, driving to far away airports for cheaper flights, reserving a rental car far away from the airport, or staying in a location that isn’t convenient for the primary purpose of the trip. This often results in a lot of stress, missed sleep, frustration, and definitely doesn’t contribute to the rest and relaxation that a vacation should provide. When planning your travel and considering accommodations, make sure that they won’t create unnecessary opportunities stress or inconvenience.
10. Spend More Time Planning
Several of the previous suggestions may increase the cost of your trip. However, if you make the effort, it’s often possible to find great deals that will offset the additional expense. Unless you want to return home feeling like your trip didn’t meet your expectations, it’s worth the time and effort to research the destinations, accommodations and travel arrangements that will provide convenience and most closely meet your vacation objectives without exceeding your budget. You may even want to consider the economic conditions of various locations that interest you and evaluate which ones provide the most value for your budget.
11. Make Time for Rest
Despite rest being the most common objective for a vacation, most people fail to get it and return home feeling tired and unprepared to resume the busy life that inspired the need for a vacation in the first place. These people are so wound up from the excessive stress of daily life that they don’t know how to relax. Once they reach their destination and are free of responsibility, they don’t know what to do with themselves. If this is you, force yourself to slow down, even if just for an hour each day. Get yourself a massage, go outside and enjoy the beauty of nature, or simply sit back and enjoy the company of the people that you’re traveling with. To make sure that you don’t offset the benefits of your relaxing vacation before it’s even finished, go out of your way to make convenient travel arrangements for your return home.
12. Evaluate Life
After investing so much time in planning a vacation and anticipating it with such excitement, the thought of it ending is quite disappointing and it’s common to become depressed towards the end of the trip. While this may sound normal, it’s often an indication that your every day life is lacking the purpose and passion that would inspire an eagerness to return home.
We all have the potential to live a life that provides excitement and fulfillment every single day, and this excitement can very well be stronger then that for an upcoming vacation. Those of us who live with a strong sense of purpose and passion know how true this is and also know that it’s one of the most important factors in living a happy and fulfilling life. If you find yourself feeling depressed towards the end of a vacation, take some time to reflect on your life during your trip. Think about what’s causing you to be unhappy about your return home and what purpose you can add to your life that would replace the unhappiness with excitement.
Obviously, the need to earn a living is often a determining factor in what you do with most of your time. As a result, it can also dictate how much fulfillment you get from life. To help you identify your true passions and figure out how to make a living from them, I recommend that you get a copy of Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love by Jonathan Fields and read it during your trip.
What are your tips for having a better vacation?
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especially a vacation to Amelia Island!
Hey Vin! Great advice! I see so many people in my clinic that want (and sometimes really NEED!) to take a vacation, but they don’t plan accordingly and end up more stressed afterwards than they were beforehand! Your article is filled with great advice for the “healthy-minded” traveler.
Also, I loved the resources….especially the “Vacation Rentals by Owners”…what a great thing! Thanks for sharing that. As a single person, I would also like to mention CouchSurfing (www.CouchSurfing.com). For the traveler that is frugal, other frugal travelers will open up their homes to you and allow you to “surf their couch” and have a free place to stay! It’s a wonderful way to meet “locals” and you can stay with other health-minded people and prepare healthy meals together. It’s another great resource that your single readers might enjoy.
Lastly, I am also a Massage Therapist and I definitely concur with your recommendation to get a massage if you’re stressed out! Sometimes, they can be expensive, but if you look for specials and check with local Massage Schools and Training facilities, often you can find reasonably priced hour-long massage therapy sessions. This is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself while traveling (or anytime!) and will help you unwind and relax to enjoy your vacation experience.
Thanks for the great tips, Vin!
Hi Melissa, thanks for the additional information!
Couch Surfing sounds really interesting! I don’t think I’m outgoing enough to do something like that, but I could see how people with the right personality would love it. In a way, it reminds me of house swapping which is another interesting possibility for saving money.
I recently read that massage provokes endorphin release which is another great reason to have one. Looking for deals at a local massage school is a great tip!
I agree that vacations are very important. Number 11 is especially important in my opinion. We went on a family vacation recently and my husband complained that it was too stressful. For some reason he does not know how to rest during a vacation. Maybe we need to plan one away from the kids so he can rest. I’ll have to check out the book that you recommended as well.