Post-Vacation Reflections

I’ve just arrived home from a two-week vacation with my husband and 3 kids in Florida.  It was a lovely vacation, but I was also somewhat tense and stressed throughout it.  There were definitely times I was relaxed and could let go, but it wasn’t as much as it should have been given it was a vacation.  After some reflection, I realized some of the reasons for this.  I’ve captured some post-vacation thoughts and learnings that I want to put on paper, so I don’t lose the thoughts, learnings, and momentum they give me for my home life and future vacations.   

• Quit setting to-do lists – I’ve had a problem for a long time of setting goals on vacation. I think I am going to get caught up on random work things, personal projects, email, and more.  I leave for my vacation with a to-do list that’s likely longer than I could accomplish if I worked full-time while on vacation. Also, I’m on vacation so I’m not supposed to have a to-do list.  I know this is a terrible way to set my expectations for vacation. As the vacation goes on and I don’t get the things done, I think about them a lot and it just erodes into my enjoyment throughout the vacation.  There’s something about writing this down that helps.  As I am writing this, I fully realize how ridiculous it sounds to have a list of goals and a to-do list for my vacation.  If you knew me, you might not be as surprised though.  It’s even more ridiculous for a vacation with kids, which I call a “family trip” versus a “vacation.”  I still create to-do lists for kids-free vacations with just my husband, and those are even longer than the ones that include kids. 
• Lower my expectations – Aside from the expectations around to-do lists, I tend to create expectations that aren’t realistic. From how much I can get done, to what the kids are going to want to do, to how much time we have to do things.  I expect to work out more than I do at home, that I am going to be on point with my daily meditations, that my kids will want to have these deep talks and amazing bonding time, and more.  And many of these things will happen – I will work out, I will meditate, I will spend some quality time with my kids.  But they won’t all happen in the exact way or the level I am expecting, and that’s OK.  I create ridiculously high expectations for myself and those around me.  I am on vacation, and my expectations need to also go on vacation. 
• Have more fun – We had a lot of fun on this vacation, and many moments I will remember forever. But due to the above-mentioned items, I didn’t have as much fun as I could have.  And I want to have more fun.  I want to have more fun with my husbands and kids.  Spend more time being silly.  Spend more time getting in the pool and doing whatever my kids want me to do with them, because I know there will be a day when they aren’t begging me to get into the pool with them. 
• Do some meal planning – I am big on cooking and eating at home as much as possible for many reasons, from health to money to time. As a result, I typically prefer to rent a house with a kitchen as opposed to staying in hotels.  And with a kitchen, I like to go grocery shopping to stock up while on vacation.  On this trip, I intended to do some meal planning and started to make a rough list of meals for the trip so I would know what to buy.  But I got busy and just never finished my planning. I just went shopping with a rough list and idea of things, but no real plan.  As a result, I spent $259 at Aldi, and that’s a lot for Aldi.  I didn’t fully realize it until about a week later, but I bought enough food for 3-4 weeks.  My husband said it looked like I went shopping as if we were going back into quarantine for a couple months.  It was way too much food, and it began stressing me out.  The last few days of our vacation I practically had to dictate what everyone should and could eat to focus on what was going bad and/or wouldn’t travel home well.  We have a smaller car, and don’t have a lot of room for extras, but I ended up with multiple bags of groceries full of packaged food we had to bring home and we didn’t have room for it.  We ended up putting more things in the backseat with the kids, which they were not super happy about for a long drive home.  In the future I would like to do some thorough meal planning and grocery list prep so that I do a better job of judging how much food I need to buy while on a trip.  I underestimated how stressful and distracting it would be to have too much food in the house and then have to deal with transporting it safely home, or letting it go to waste. 
• Pack less – I pack lighter than most people on trips. For this trip, I packed a small carry-on size suitcase for 2 weeks away, but I ended up only wearing a small set of items that could have easily fit inside a backpack.  I knew there would be a washer and dryer on the property, but even without that I could have gotten by with fewer items.  The reality is, I wear the same favorite things over and over again, and when I’m at the beach a house with a pool I wear my bathing suit a lot of the time.  I could have gotten away with packing only: 1 bathing suit, 1 set of clothes for running/working out, 2 pairs of athletic shorts, 2-3 tank tops, 1 sports bra, underwear, 1 t-shirt for sleeping in at night, and my chacos and running shoes.  This is seriously all I wore for 2 weeks straight.  All of the additional unused clothes I brought with me were just  extra work to pack, unpack once there, and smush into a slightly overpacked suitcase. 
• Owning less stuff makes me happy – When I got home and was unpacking into my closet, bathroom, workspace, etc. I was noticing how much stuff I have vs. what I needed while on this two-week vacation. I was stressed returning home and seeing all of this stuff that I own.  I realized I could happily live without most of these belonging for weeks and I didn’t once miss or think about them.  It’s just another reminder of what I already know:  Less stuff and cleaner spaces make me happy.   I’ve known this for a long time, yet I am still on a journey to own less stuff and get rid of the items I already own.  I am a pretty good minimalist around bringing new things into my house, but I still have a lot of work to do with getting rid of things I’ve owned for 10+ years.  I still struggle with getting rid of some things that I think I might use someday, that I spent a lot of money on, or that I don’t want to go to waste.    I am really trying to remember and hold on to the feeling of how happy I was in a sparse and simple house for two weeks with only a small set of my existing possessions.  I wasn’t lacking anything.  I didn’t miss anything.  I was okay.  I was more thanokay, I was happy.  I want to use this feeling to fuel more decluttering and minimizing within my home over the coming weeks and months. 
• Trust you gut and know what you and your family enjoy or need right now – This is the one area I’ll really compliment myself on with this vacation. We decided to rent the one house for two-weeks in a location that was about 20-30 minutes inland from the beach, but had a private pool, hot tub, and was on a canal where we could kayak.  My kids like the beach, but they don’t love it.  They often start complaining about an hour in that they have sand all over them and ask when can we go back to the house.  When you’ve paid for a house by the beach, this is a frustrating thing to hear from your kids.  So this year I really did some soul-searching and prioritize a private pool over anything else and that was an accurate decision on my part.  We had a great house that was fun to hang out at, had a huge outdoor patio/lanai area, and a pool inside one of those huge screened-in “bird cages” that are all over Florida.  And it was less than half the cost of if we had stayed closer to the beach.  Instead of doing the trendy thing and staying at the beach, I trusted my gut and thought about what we and our kids really enjoy right now. 
• Vacation more – I’m always reminded while I am on vacation how important vacations are, and how life’s short and I need more of this and less of work. I’ve also been really enjoying two-week vacations for the last few years.  I know that’s not realistic for everyone, but for us it’s been working really nicely.  We’re willing to work a little bit here and there to be able to make such a long time away from work more palatable.  It takes me a few days and sometimes even a whole week to really get into vacation mode, so I’ve found longer vacations give me time to settle in and then also finish it out nicely at the end. 

I’ve written these reflections down for me, so perhaps I can read them again before my next vacation to remind myself what I really need, how to plan better, and how to enjoy my vacation as much as possible.  I hope reading these can also help you as you’re thinking about your upcoming vacations.  These reflections are also inspiring me to explore the idea of a solo vacation or staycation to make progress on things I feel like I am not able to while in my normal day to day life.  The idea is to take some time off and not actually go anywhere.  Perhaps I can find a quiet place away from my kids and others to get through that to-do list I took on my last vacation.  This might allow me to make more progress on some personal projects and goals.  I’m not sure what to call this, but I like the idea and will keep thinking on it. 

Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.