What Is An Extended Vacation Like?

[Midpack]

Just came back from 8 spectacular days in New England, and it dawned on me we have never had a vacation where we just relaxed and took things slow. Our longest vacation ever was two weeks and that was over 30 years ago. Most of our vacations, even now retired, have been one week or less. [-]We[/-] I usually figure out everything I want to do and see, and that determines exactly how many days we travel - I don't even add an extra day.

We always try to pack in non stop activities while on vacation, so much so that we're usually worn out at the end of each day - even if we thoroughly enjoyed it! We generally don't like to sit still, laying on a beach for hours would bore us to death.

A buddy of mine takes a month off every year in New England, and that got me thinking.

Maybe we should take a month off somewhere, and very deliberately limit activities each day, and just relax?

So those of you who have mastered relaxing on vacation - what are we missing? For the first time in 67 years, I am genuinely curious. Maybe we've been doing vacation wrong all these years, or at least might appreciate a different MO in this chapter of our lives.

 

[OldShooter]

Just came back from 8 days in New England, and it dawned on me we have never had a vacation where we just relaxed and took things slow. Our longest vacation ever was two weeks and that was over 30 years ago. And we always try to pack in non stop activities while on vacation, so much so that we're usually worn out at the end of each day - even if we thoroughly enjoyed it! We generally don't like to sit still, laying on a beach for hours would bore us to death. Most of our vacations, even now retired, have been one week or less. [-]We[/-] I usually figure out everything I want to do and see, and that determines exactly how many days we travel.

A buddy of mine takes a month off every year in New England, and that got me thinking.

Maybe we should take a month off somewhere, and very deliberately limit activities each day, and just relax?

So those of you who have mastered relaxing on vacation - what are we missing? For the first time in 67 years, I am genuinely curious.

We are very much like you. We can lie around at home. We are closing in on 20 years retired with a couple of trips per year/40+ countries. Things learned:

1) Our "wanna-go-home" limit is three weeks or a little longer.

2) We need a down day break roughly in the middle of the trip. Get up late, wander around a bit, maybe do some casual tourist stuff, scout restaurants for dinner and turn in early. This is a good reset for us.

3) A month-long relaxation period would be 95% boredom, beach or no beach. We have thought about multi-week French or Spanish language immersion schools but will probably never pull the trigger on one.
​

If ever there was a YMMV topic, though, this would be it.

 

[Sunset]

I cannot say I've mastered it, but it is something I desire to do more.
I'd like to rent a house/apt for a month or two in a place, to really soak in the culture.

We spent 10 days in Barcelona, which most folks would consider excessive, and still didn't see a few things.

What made it special was, the relaxed tempo of our stay, most mornings we walked to a local restaurant and had breakfast with all the locals, and could take our time.
Near the end, the owner asked us if we had moved into the neighborhood as she was not used to seeing foreigners return so often !

We used the public buses to get to sites, or just walked a couple of miles through the city to see the sites. Picking out where we would return to eat supper later that day.

Sometimes we would just sit on a bench and watch the people going by, it can be interesting in the right spots.

At the end of the day, I'd sit out on the balcony and watch the locals hanging laundry while drinking a wine I had picked up at the local store. <edit> Our hotel was not in a tourist area, but was convenient to lots of buses.

We never rushed through any sites.

After our 10 days, we got on a cruise ship for 24 more days, there we had a schedule of X hours to get off ship, go see a site (example Pompeii), and return to ship. So not as relaxing on port days.

 

[braumeister]

Most of our vacations, even now retired, have been one week or less. [-]We[/-] I usually figure out everything I want to do and see, and that determines exactly how many days we travel - I don't even add an extra day.

That is foreign to my experience, but I'm sure we have plenty of folks here on both sides of the issue.

When we go to a new destination, we plan two or three things we want to see but leave most of our stay unstructured. We love to simply walk and explore.

When we go to an old favorite destination, there are no more "must see" places, so our stay is totally unstructured. Having every day planned in advance would be horrible for us.

Serendipity is our friend, and too much planning obviates it. But it seems as if we're very much in the minority, based on how many folks enjoy the highly structured offerings of travel companies.

 

[Midpack]

When we go to a new destination, we plan two or three things we want to see but leave most of our stay unstructured. We love to simply walk and explore.

When we go to an old favorite destination, there are no more "must see" places, so our stay is totally unstructured. Having every day planned in advance would be horrible for us.

I think I may need to learn this skill. I have always been afraid I'd miss something when visiting on vacation, afraid I'd get back and someone would say 'did you see or do XYZ, it was our favorite!' - and I'd have missed it. I have always done of lot of research in advance before vacations, maybe I need to let that go or at least be a little less rigorous. DW doesn't plan much at all, but she's always pleased with the things we do and see.

 

[ElizabethT]

We have done many, many extended trips. 10 weeks is our longest to date, but in one single location our longest has been 30 days.

For our in-one-location 30 day trip, we were centered in an area with tons of things to do. I made up a 30 day calendar of activities in advance, just one per day. I also included one 'chill' day per week to waste time on the internet, grocery shop, do laundry, pay bills electronically, etc.

We loved it, because we could generally take out time in morning before heading out, enjoy our planned activity, and afterward were happy to relax back at our VRBO the remainder of the day smelling the roses if you will. To my surprise we weren't bored whatsoever and we got a good sense of what living in the area full time could be like.

It was nice to have a long term home base, and it was nice to have the flexibility to go hard or slow on any given day depending on what we felt like.

We are looking to do it again this next summer in the Seattle area.

 

[mystang52]

In the last 2 decades of our w*rking days we took 2 vacations, one of 10 days to 2 weeks, and the other a week (usually a cruise). Prior, when $$$ was a bit tighter, we usually just took one vacation, but it was likewise 10 days to 2 weeks. I never felt fully refreshed after just one week, which was why we had longer vacations.
This year, we took a 1 week vacation in May. DW insisted on the shorter time frame to be certain we (or should I say she) were comfortable staying at a hotel. We were, and so we're taking another 1-week vacation starting next week. Obviously, being retired means after vacation ends we have to go home to vacation.

 

[braumeister]

In Europe, most cities are eminently walkable, and if you get tired there are generally excellent public transportation networks (bus/tram/train) to get you around.

We're entirely capable of putting 8-10 miles a day on our feet while exploring a city, although 5-6 is more common. For outlying areas, a short train ride will usually get you in the vicinity, and then it can be both challenging and fun to figure out how to reach what you saw on the map. The locals usually enjoy helping, so that's another great way to interact.

 

[audreyh1]

Our trips to Europe tend to be about a month, with plenty of off days and not too packed even if we move around quite a bit. We enjoy taking it easy while traveling. A big part of the enjoyment IMO.

We enjoy walking around quite a bit, parks etc. Europe is wonderful in that there is always a spot to grab a coffee or sparkling water even in the middle of a large park.

 

[Helen]

As Americans, most of us are in the mindset of a long vacation being two weeks. I learned from people on this board (Hi Alan!) and others that extended vacations are a good idea.

In 2013 I spent 1 month touring the south island of New Zealand

Since my spouse retired in 2014, we spent:

1 month touring central California
3 weeks touring Vancouver Island, B.C.
4 months touring the US
2 months touring Australia
2.5 months touring Australia the following year
3 months in Europe

The last 2 years we also spent 3 months in Palm Springs and will go back again this winter.

I love taking my time exploring new places and not having to feel pressure or rush around. I am looking forward to resuming travel once covid is better controlled.

 

[kcowan]

We go to Europe for a month and spend minimum one week in each place. We violating that rule to make up for Covid next year: 6 cities and a canal cruise in 4 weeks.

We expect to return to our more leisurely pace after that.

 

[travelover]

Since I've retired, I tend to take longer to get to my destination, travel to fewer attractions while I'm there and take pleasure in simpler things during the day. When I was rushing around trying to check all the boxes, I arrived home exhausted and never really got to know the locals.

Most of the expense is in the travel, so adding on extra days to chill doesn't cost much extra and really adds to the enjoyment, for me.

 

[Souschef]

Our longest vacation was a 32 cruise from Buenos Aires to Los Angeles, up the west side of South and Central America. DW made me promise I wold not tell any of my jokes for the entire trip. I felt like I would burst.
Seriously, we did enjoy ourselves even though we were together 24/7.
If anyone is interested, here is the link to our trip.
http://stevekathytravels.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/southamerica2014.pdf

 

[skyking1]

We have yet to retire, and the longest vacations so far have been 23 days each.
One was visiting our adopted family in the UK. That was good stuff, leisurely, not jam-packed. They are not big on travel so we took a week in the middle to drive Scotland.
That is going to be our next trip I am fairly certain. This time it will be a week in Ireland followed by lots of hanging out and card playing with associated bad language in Crewe.
The other 3 week was a dash all over most of the US in a private plane. That one was a bit hectic.

 

[Midpack]

I guess I need to look into other options for accommodations for a longer stay too. That’s another reason we haven’t taken longer vacations as it gets really expensive at most hotels/B&Bs we’ve stayed at. Admittedly way more than normal for us (usually $150-300/night), but our stay last week was $600/night with fees & taxes (competitive where we were) - I can’t imagine that for a month. Airfare was $820 for two, so travel wasn’t the big expense…

 

[skyking1]

yes 600 would tend to dampen my enthusiasm too.

 

[pacergal]

Our longest trip, both pre and post retirement, has been 2 weeks. Mostly due to fur babies at home, but we also notice after about 10 days, we are ready to sleep in our own beds!

We have not traveled overseas, so that probably would be a game changer on time. There are still so many places here in the USA that we wish to visit.

We have made a pact to try to go 6-12 months without a new pet when our current pup passes. Perhaps that will allow us to want to be away longer. IDK.

 

[braumeister]

our stay last week was $600/night with fees & taxes - I can’t imagine that for a month.

Well, that's another issue. I can't imagine that for even one night. There is no way I would ever pay that much for a night's lodging. But obviously lots of folks feel they get their money's worth at such places, or else they would go out of business. I'm just not in that league.

 

[Alan]

We have done a great many long vacations with stays of 2 to 4 weeks in a single location in self catered rented houses or apartments. Since retiring we have taken 7 trips of between 5 and 7 months. Even bumped into Helen and her spouse on Vancouver Island while they were doing something similar

While in North America we usually drive to our chosen locations and in big cities park up and get around on public transportation. On our long trips to Europe and Australia we mostly got around by public transport, hiring a car from time to time. For example in Australia we got around using public transport while in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart and hired a car to tour the Great Ocean road. (We flew internally while transitioning between cities).

 

[brett]

Pre covid we do two extended trips per year. Anywhere from 2-3 months each. Plus some last minutes-mostly AI's or the occasional cruise.

Sept/Oct in Europe. Jan/March mostly in SE Asia/Australia but also once to Mexico, Once in Central America/South America.

Longest was 7 months after retirement. Aug-March.

We can lock and go. No indoor plants, not pets. HOA does the lawncare and
snow removal. Everything possible moved to email.

Why stay home? We have lots of places on our respective bucket lists.

 

[cyber888]

It really depends on your living arrangement. If you have a single detach house in the US, my max is 2 weeks. When I was living in a condo years back, we stayed almost 2 months in Nepal and Tibet exploring the Himalayas.

I told DW - if you want to extended travels for months, then you probably need a Lock-and-Leave Condo or Townhouse that is exteriorly maintained by HOA.

 

[CyclingInvestor]

Had a 54 day vacation in 1996 while still working, of which 48 days was bicycling from Los Angeles to Jacksonville.

In 2009 took a 23 day Alaska cruise / ferry trip.

In 2019 took a 21 day Alaska cruise. Numerous 17-20 day trips. I have always liked vacations.

 

[RetireAge50]

Last year we went to Texas for 4 months. Not one minute of boredom. About to leave for 6 more months just wandering around the USA to see what we can find. No pre-planning at all except reservations down in the Keys.
We have a lot of time remaining to live so if we don’t see or experience something in a particular area we will get it the next time.

 

[brett]

The ONLY thing my wife dislikes about our extended trips is that after six weeks or so she gets tired of her clothes. We travel with carry on only so anything we do pack is sure to be worn on a very regular basis. Two months is about her limit. I could easily do 5 months without any pangs of homesickness. We have compromised on 2-3 months max. per trip.

And she misses our grandchildren.

 

[Ronstar]

We used to do 3-4 months at our snowbird condo. But they weren’t vacations - they were just periods where we lived our normal lives - just in a different location. Otherwise, we’ve done some 2-3 week road trips. Most of these road trips were one night stays. Those get old after a while.