Do you live for the holidays ?

[Wanderlust75]

I think my hobby and favourite pass time is planning holidays and looking at places to visit, dreaming with being by the sea which is my happy place.

I am not unhappy with my life; but dream of sun, sea and relaxation. This feeling has grown stronger since I started working full time in a fast paced environment. I like my job but I feel my live is just spent working.

Do other people feel this way?

Definitely. I am always planning something. One of the worst things about covid was that everything had to be cancelled and it was impossible to think where and when we might go away again. I have been trying to make up for it since.

No. I love holidays but I like our everyday life at home too, we do loads of different things at the weekends and keep busy with friends. We're going to Costa Rica for 2 weeks on Friday and I've barely had time to think about it because life has been so busy lately, it's sort of snuck up on me!

Absolutely! I'm planning summer 2024 now, this year we have main summer hols and two short breaks already booked.

I like having things to look forward to.

I wouldn't say I live for holidays as I love life here too, but travel is my focus and where we spend our money. I have a spreadsheet and plans for 2025 are in place!

Glad, I am not the only one.

I do live my live too, there is school, work, outings, house to run, friends, etc but I do spend a lot of my free time planning holidays. Everything sorted for this year so looking at 2024; haven’t got as far as 2025 though.

I love travelling and that is where we spend the spare money. Not necessary luxurious travel but experiencing other cultures, seeing other scenery, trying different foods. There is so much to see

No I don't live (or work) for holidays. I love them, and am a holiday planning ninja. It's certainly a motivating factor in trying to succeed and earn more, even one of the reasons we have limited our family as per another thread, but we only go for a few weeks a year, even with planning factored in it would seem a bit sad that my life revolved such a short period of time in the year.

And I take the 2024 and 2025 mentioned on this thread and raise you 2026

It's always been my ambition to enjoy what I do for a living, and I an lucky enough to have an absorbing job

Happy to travel, in the holidays, too but there has to be some point to it for me to really enjoy. Catching up with people I otherwise don't see regularly, attending a workshop or training course around my interests.

Travelling to sit by a beach or look at a something without having really any idea in depth about what it means doesn't feel like much fun to me.

Yes OP, although I love our home life too. During Covid, one of the things I found hardest was not being able to plan holidays and look forward to anything. I love to talk about travel with friends too and often help them to plan their holidays. I find most people IRL aren't like me and either aren't interested in other people's holidays or can be quite envious, whereas I love to hear about where other people are going/have been!

We've got public exams coming up next summer for one of our DC, so our travels are going to be rather curtailed for the next 12 months, but we've got three trips planned, two of which are booked, the other is just a Word doc at present

No, not really, l find it a lot of stress and hard work, l have a beautiful garden and much happier and relaxed here. I work part time and have a good life balance.

Travel is a huge passion of mine so I feel as you do.

I love the thrill of researching a holiday, planning it. reading all the reviews and joining the Facebook groups.

I love being on holiday. I love the family time, the relaxing, not cooking/cleaning and generally being in a new place.

My son is 2 and has visited 27 countries. I think I've visited about 65 (I count his countries more now).

I'm fortunate to be able to afford to travel. I see it as my hobby. Other people can have expensive hobbies such as motorbikes so I have no issues with spending money on travel.

This is how I feel; but I still live my life and do things with family and friends. I do feel travelling is my passion.

It is not just sitting by the beach or wandering around without knowing what you are looking at; you read about places you want to visit, you try different foos, attend cultural festivals, try a bit año language, see different scenery, learn a bit about the places you are visiting, do different activities. We don’t like sitting in the same hotel and beach; we go out and explore every day.

But I get that some people are just as happy with the same routine all the time and don’t like or enjoy the excitement of something knew. They prefer things they know. I know people who do the same holiday to the same place every single year.

I used to - from my late teens to my late 30s - I travelled, holidayed, weekends away, went to visit friends, found new day trips - I was never at home. And fairly broke - but loved it. Asia, South America on long trips - America, Europe. Hiking, cycling - just naffing about too.

Then I met my husband, who had a proper job and 3 kids. Holidays became a little more structured! Still looked forward and planned them - and he had a higher comfort scale than me.

I'm in my 50s now and after Covid - it's taken me till now to really get my mojo back and think about proper holidays again. Japan for 3 weeks!

No I don't live for the holidays, don't get me wrong I love planning them, the build up and enjoying them. But I really really enjoy the everyday. I love the routine, the pace and just enjoying life.

I think it's great. Do you have children? I often go away with my little one without my husband as he has other commitments which doesn't allow him as much flexibility as I do.

I do understand that you can be active, interested and engaged on a holiday: that isn't really the point I am trying to make.

Having lived in a number of different countries (and continents), I have discovered over and over again how easy it is to form a superficial impression about 'how we do things around here' as well as my experience that suggests people are petty much the same in the same circumstances no matter where ever you go.

For example, when 'abroad' it's very easy to find oneself saying 'In England, we ...' in reply to a question. The same question asked amongst a group people in England, would most likely find each of them having a slightly different opinion.

That is not to suggest that there is no point in seeing other countries and cultures. It can be a bit of an illusion to think that a couple of weeks holiday is really going to develop anything beyond really quite a superficial understanding.
When you then consider the Heisenberg principle, that the act of observing something will itself cause a change, it all gets even more complicated.

No reason to not go and have a lovely holiday ....

I think we do. We love travelling and we’re always thinking about our next trip.

Bizarrely, the day before I go on a holiday I’ve longed for, I start to think ‘I want to stay at home’ 🤷‍♀️ and when we’re on holiday, we spend loads of time discussing things we’ll do to our house, places we’ll go at home…

As a teacher-definitely! Have something to do every holiday. Sometimes 3 or 4 things in the summer.
It is one of the reasons why I'm a teacher!

Yes, it’s my favourite thing to plan and go on trips! I get 7 weeks off a year (27 days annual leave and 8 bank holidays) and not one day is wasted not going anywhere.

Yes we love holidays. DH will go anywhere and try anything so I have absolute free reign with my bucket list. We're going away at least every month since we retired early at Easter. Home life is great too lots of days out and social life planned for in between holidays.
So far had a week in Spain, a spa break, two festivals, got three weeks in our campervan coming up, Cruise and campervan in September, City breaks in UK and abroad and another festival in August. Also got another cruise, center parcs and city break abroad booked for next year already.
It's the main reason we retired early.

We have 2 teens so travel with them a lot during school holidays; but also try to do some short breaks just for DH and myself.

I like to go away every school holidays but not so much in December and February; not a great fan of skiing but have done it a few times for the family.

I have 26 days, purchase 10 days extra plus bank holidays; may have to take some unpaid leave this year. We are both from 2 different continents, no Europe so also include travel to see family and friends long haul,

The more I travel the more I want to see. Can’t wait for the next holiday. There is a wonderful world to discover

Not exactly but I always make sure I have at least 1 booked to look forward to

Oh yes definitely I could have written that myself. I get super excited even booking a £30 premier inn, getting in the door, checking out the bathroom, sockets and so on.

I also love just going to the coast and looking at the sea.

I'm 57 now and although I have a good job which previously I've found very fulfilling, now I find that everyone and everything gets on my nerves and I feel cynical about everything and I'm daydreaming about my next trip.

All the time. I am Judith Chalmers. Me and 2 friends go away regularly to a European city - eg Berlin or Dubrovnik. I book everything, flights, hotels, restaurants, activities, Reichstag, everything. I love it.