Nine Rules for a Happy Vacation – Arthur C. Brooks

“The roots of plants … cause them to be mortally attached to the earth”, wrote the philosopher George Santayana in 1964 in his The philosophy of travel (The philosophy of travel). “Like leeches, they are doomed to suck anything from the ground that gets to that particular spot where they are accidentally stuck.” I don’t know why Santayana was so angry with plants, but I understand what she meant: traveling really means being human.

It is clear that millions of Americans agree with this statement: about a quarter of them say that travel is what they miss most than before the pandemic. Now that the number of covid-19 cases remains low and more than half of US adults have been vaccinated, the country is once again looking at travel in the summer season with particular enthusiasm. From data collected in a Motel 6 survey among two thousand Americans, it appears that 60 percent this year have a much greater desire to travel than in previous years. Almost everyone I meet asks me if I have any vacation plans, a question that just a couple of years ago would have seemed bizarre, very European.

After so many months of restrictions and limitations of mobility there is a strong desire to have a vacation that is not just a nice vacation, we feel the need to live the first post-forty-year stay as a wonderful experience. Precisely for this reason I propose a quick guide to planning the best possible trip for this summer. Each of us wants different things from our vacations, but research offers us universally valid clues about the type of vacation that will help us detach ourselves from the plant that lives in us.

Work first
The end of the period of lockdown and general closure of businesses is stimulating people to travel far more than they did before and this could bring back to the situation in the late 1990s, when US adults, according to data from the US Travel Association, took an average of 20.3 days of holidays per year. In 2018, the annual average had fallen by 14 percent to 17.4 days. While this may be thought to stem from the horrendous new rules of the world of work, Americans voluntarily left 768 million unused vacation days in 2018; some of these days of unused leave derive from the type of work and company, especially in cases where there is a bonus for workers who do not take all the holidays, but personally I believe that much of this situation is due to culture national team that puts work first.

Postponing holidays may be common, but it is detrimental to our well-being. In 2012, a study published in the Annals of Tourism Research showed that for most people, holidays improve the perceived quality of life much more than health or economic status, family and work, coming second only to spiritual life. . It is clear that to go on vacation you need health and money and that being with people we love is the key to a good break, so these factors cannot be completely disconnected from each other. This beneficial effect may also have a short duration, as we will see later; but, temporary or not, the fact is that for most people, holidays make them happier.

To make sure that a trip brings happiness, and to prevent the vacation from becoming a nightmare, it is necessary to be clear about the characteristics of a vacation that generally bring the greatest degree of satisfaction, joy, and a sense of purpose. Here are 9 rules to follow to have a wonderful vacation this year.

Different people prefer different places to go, which depend on their tastes, the memories they associate with you and also their philosophy of life. One study shows, for example, how introverted people tend to prefer the mountains, while extroverts prefer the beach… which seems pretty obvious considering which of these categories of people find it more pleasant to find themselves almost naked in front of strangers.

One way to find your ideal place, based on a field research carried out in 2015 on Danish tourists, is to start by understanding what the purpose that drives us to leave is: exploration, escape, visiting family or friends. , going to a prestigious place, immersing yourself in nature or visiting the historical and cultural heritage (and here pay attention to a warning based on rule number 6 that we will see later: if the reason for the holiday is prestige then perhaps it is worthwhile think back). Whatever the purpose of the holiday, it will give much more if it is shared with loved ones.

One of the best parts of the vacation is the time we plan it. According to some research carried out both in the Netherlands and in China, already in the weeks preceding the trip those who go on vacation experience a period of joy and good humor compared to those who will not go there. There is a lot of evidence that one of the greatest sources of happiness compared to an enjoyable activity is waiting to do it. Some research in the field of neuroscience suggests that planning and waiting stimulate one of the regions of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which is responsible for the sensation of satisfaction and reward. This personal advantage should be exploited by establishing the vacation plan in advance and studying the destination. But beware: overdoing the programming can be counterproductive if you imagine a holiday spent in a total and perennial state of bliss.

Going away for a while can increase perceived well-being, but that positive feeling doesn’t usually last long. The truth is that the satisfaction we get from leaving tends to wear off pretty quickly once we get back. A 2010 study of Dutch holidaymakers revealed that while on vacation people feel healthier, less stressed, more energetic, more satisfied and in a better mood. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these positive effects disappear within the first week of work once they return. Some studies find a longer lasting effect, but annual vacations are clearly not a long-term remedy for what ails us in daily life.

One way to deal with the short-lived feeling of satisfaction from a trip is to take shorter but more frequent vacations. In this way, pleasant wellness breaks can spread their effect, while tending to fade over time. Some research shows that this strategy can cause vacationers to have a greater sense of satisfaction and generally a better mood. This could mean opting for more long weekends on the shores of New Jersey instead of taking one epic Borneo vacation. Maybe this will not sound very tempting, it may even seem boring, especially if you have already been there several times on the shores of New Jersey. If so, it could be that your mind is playing a joke on you, placing too much weight on novelty in calculating what can make you happy.

Experimental research from 2019 showed that when people were involved in very enjoyable activities they usually enjoyed the moment more when they didn’t take any photos. According to a theory of the authors of this research, by trying to document their experience, participants inevitably ended up diverting attention from the experience itself. Taking a million vacation photos to look back on in the future is a perfect way to lose yourself in the present.

If you do not want to give up photographing the various moments of the journey, however, you need to make sure you do so in order to enjoy the photos to savor the experience and not to share it immediately on social media. Research from 2018 in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that taking photos to share them on social media leads people to enjoy the experience less, because this increases concern about how you look. In other words, you are distracted from the beauty of the beach and from having fun with the family to worry about how you will look to others instead. You have to take a vacation from thinking about what others think.

Holidays can be difficult for workaholics. One solution that people sometimes take to deal with vacation stress is to carry around some work with an excuse like, “So my emails won’t pile up.” Don’t do it. This strategy will not only make you enjoy the trip less, but you will also have more post-vacation fatigue when you get back to work. In a study published in the journal Stress and Health, researchers argue that conducting work-related activities decreases the measurable positive effects of vacation one, three and ten days after returning to work. Taking a mental break from work is one of the cornerstones of going on vacation; when we fail to achieve this it means that we ourselves do not want to break away from it.

To prolong the happiness of the beneficial effects obtained on vacation, researchers argue that slowly resuming the work routine is better than staying out until the very last moment. A study involving Austrian tourists has shown that spending days at home without stress allows a recovery of strength and mind even greater than the days spent away from home: this suggests that we should go home before the weekend instead. than on Sunday to immediately immerse yourself in a full working week. As Leo Tolstoy once said “happiness consists in living each day as if it were the first of your honeymoon and the last of your vacation”. By this statement he probably did not mean that one should feel scared and stressed, but rather hopeful and rejuvenated. You will be much more likely to do this without spending the last few hours of your vacation worrying about what to expect once you get off the plane.

If everything has gone smoothly and you have had a great vacation, you will also have improved your ability to enjoy and be satisfied with your life. And that’s the good news. The bad news is that returning to the same old life could be surprisingly disappointing, like eating a strawberry after a candy. A study conducted in 2013 by Purdue University illustrated how those who go on vacation can feel less satisfied with their friendships, their home, their interpersonal relationships, their neighbors and even themselves when they return.

The best way to prepare for the risk of this disappointment is to understand that such a reaction may be natural, but that it does not necessarily mean that there is really something wrong with life as usual. Personally, I follow a policy that consists of not making any kind of significant change in my life for at least two weeks after the holidays, to allow time and time for my yardstick to readjust to normal levels of contentment. Maybe you might like to give yourself similar rules too. After all, the goal is not just to enjoy a great post-quarantine vacation, but to find a post-pandemic routine that makes us happier.

(Translation by Maria Chiara Benini)