8 Lessons from science on how to make the most of your time away from work.
Vaccinations are increasing, COVID is waining, and people are looking forward to getting out and going on vacation again. I’m sure you want to make the most out of your holiday, so let’s look at what science can teach us about how to make the most of your time away.
Plan to your Personality.
My wife and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation on the island of St John’s. We relaxed on empty beaches and snorkeled among brightly colored fish in pristine water. It was wonderful for us, but we discouraged our friends from following in our sandy footsteps. Why? Because these friends like luxury accommodation, fancy meals, and glitzy nightlife. None of which was on offer at this sleepy sanctuary. My wife and I had slept in a tent on the beach and shared cold showers with fellow campers. Our island escape was just the thing my wife and I needed, but it would have been a real disappointment to our friends.
Know your travel personality. If you like the nightlife, a secluded island might not be the best spot for you, no matter how much your friends enjoyed it. If you like quiet and getting away, then a trip to the big city might be more stressful than restful. Take time to think about what you want from your vacation and plan accordingly. Make it fit who you are, rather than chasing after the experiences someone else told you about that might not serve you.
Anticipation
The best part of your vacation may occur before you even leave. A study of nearly 1,000 Dutch travelers found that vacationers experienced a high degree of pre-trip happiness from the anticipation of their holiday. Their anticipatory pleasure proved greater than what they experience during their vacation or after.
Don’t miss out on the best part of your trip, which is the planning and anticipation. I like to read books about our destination as I plan the trip. I share videos of our destination with my children and photos from the hotels where we will stay. Leading up to the trip, we talk about the activities we want to do and places we want to see.
Your vacation does not need to wait until the day it begins to make you happy. Take advantage of the anticipation of your time away to make the most of the experience. One of the best ways to do that is to plan a schedule for your free time.
Schedule your Free Time
Having a schedule for your free time may sound like the opposite free time, but research shows that people who schedule their free time have an improved quality of life. That is because people who organize their time get more done. Planning may sound like exactly what you want to avoid when on vacation, but doing more things makes the time stretch and makes your vacation feel longer.
The trick is to schedule lots of small activities rather than a few big ones. That is because happiness is more strongly associated with the number of positive experiences than with the intensity of any one experience. So plan many smaller things to do with your time to fill your day with pleasant activities. You can even get an added boost of happiness from anticipation while you plan all your free time.
Photo by the author and courtesy of Charles Black Photography
Novelty
We are creatures of habit, and we tend to take those routines with us when we travel. Make a point to break out of those old routines and try new things because time slows down when you engage in novel experiences. Remember when you were a child and the days seemed to go on forever, that is because everything was new. Recapture some of that childlike fascination by deliberately exposing yourself to new sights, activities, foods, and people. Doing so will not only make your trip more enjoyable, it will make it seem to last longer.
So plan to stretch your boundaries and get outside of your old habits and routines. Try some new activities and don’t forget to save one of those most exciting experiences for the end.
Peak and End Rule
Although you will remember your whole trip, two experiences color how you remember it more than any others, the peak and the end. We tend to remember best the most intense experience of our trip and the end experience more than the rest, good or bad. You can’t always control what the peak event may be. It could be the high of meeting Cinderella in her castle with your young daughter, or it could be the low of trying to sleep in Heathrow airport because your flight got canceled.
You have more control over the end. So plan your trip to end on a high note. Schedule your luxury accommodations, Michelin Star meal, or pivotal event for the last day of your trip. And be sure to slow down and appreciate the experience while it is happening.
Savor the Experience
Don’t make it all adventure. People report being most happy when socializing, eating, exercising, relaxing, and enjoying “intimate time.” Around your adventurous outings, make time for great meals, some relaxed reading, quiet contemplation, and connecting with the people you travel with — particularly your romantic attachment.
Trial and error taught my wife and me that we are good travelers for about six days. After that, we need a day off from vacation. Time to lounge in a nice hotel room, eat good food, read and enjoy each other’s company. So I now schedule longer trips to include a “day off” from sights and activities, so we can lounge in bed, sip coffee in a cafe, order takeout, and enjoy being with each other.
The people you travel with are one of the highlights of your vacation. Make time to enjoy them while you are on your trip, and it will pay off when you get home.
Reminisce
If anticipation is the appetizer to your trip, reliving the experience is the dessert. As you get farther away from your travels, your memory for the travel hassles and rude people fade. At the same time, your memory of the good experiences brightens in our memory. And the best way to take advantage of this quirk of memory is to revisit your experiences with your fellow travelers.
It has been a decade since my family visited DisneyWorld, but my children still like to pull out the photo album I made to commemorate that trip. But they don’t want to sit and quietly look through it by themselves. Instead, they want others to look at it with them so we can all share memories of our time in Orlando.
Reliving the experience does make it better. When you return to your life, don’t let the vacation become just a memory. Instead, make it a point to relive the experience as often as possible. If you traveled with friends, invite them to a meal to reminisce about your adventures. Look at photos and tell stories every chance you get. Keep those memories, and those feelings, alive by reliving them as often as possible.
Bonus tips from science
We love to plan the big trip; the multi-week tour of Europe, the month in Australia, or two weeks rafting through the grand canyon. Those are certainly peak experiences and not to be missed, but science says you might be overall happier if you engaged in shorter but more frequent vacations. The happiness benefit from a break tends to fade pretty quickly after the holiday ends, with research suggesting that the benefits fade within a month.
Because the boost in wellbeing from vacation fades quickly, psychologists suggest you get the most benefit from taking shorter and more frequent vacations. Research has determined that the benefits of time away tapper off after eight days, and some suggest 3 to 6 days may be optimal. That is long enough to wind down from the office and get into vacation mode, but not so long that those benefits begin to diminish.
Another advantage to eight-day vacations is that if you take a week off with the attached weekends, that leaves you time to return home early and have a day or two to recover before going back to work. Understandably, you want your vacation to last as long as possible, but science says you will be happier if you come home early. The early return gives you a stress-free day or two at home that creates a buffer between vacation and work. That buffer day eases the stress of your transition back into your routine.
Conclusion
Understandably, you are anxious to get back out in the world. Try doing so with science on your side so you can make the most of your time away. Plan shorter, more frequent trips and intensely plan them. Planning gives you the happiness boost of anticipation and the time stretching power of having days filled with novel and exciting experiences. Just be sure to save some of the best experiences for the last day. Then get home early, so you have an opportunity to recuperate rather than being abruptly thrust back into work. But remember that just because the trip is over does not mean the fun needs to end. Reminisce about your journey as often as possible with the people you share it with. Like a fine wine, vacation memories only get better over time.
