How to Vacation Every Day
By Dylan Smith
Thumbnail photo by Dino Reichmuth on Unsplash
Not to brag, but I recently went on a brief trip to London, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After finishing up my coursework, I was feeling restless just sitting around at home and figured I could use a change of scenery. While I was across the pond, though, it struck me that what I really enjoyed about my vacation had almost nothing to do with its destination, and almost everything to do with the feeling of being on vacation.
The stoics often say that travelling can do you no real good, because anything that can improve your life ultimately comes from within you. Speaking on this, Lucius Seneca said: “You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate [...] your faults will follow you withersoever you travel.” Changing your environment is a temporary solution to a permanent problem; if you don’t feel good at home, you won’t feel any better abroad. In the world of addiction recovery, this is sometimes called “pulling a geographic,” in which the sufferer of an addiction will relocate in order to escape the places and things that remind them of their addiction. Opinions on this practice are mixed, but the general consensus is that it does not reliably help in treating addiction because “wherever you go, there you are.”
You are your own inescapable travelling companion. Ultimately, your attitude has a greater impact on your experience than your surroundings do. In saying this, I am by no means suggesting that vacation and adventure are pointless. In fact, I would suggest that the opposite is true. Adventuring is one of the most enriching things we can do for ourselves, but we don’t have to go far to find the spirit of adventure. Originally, I intended to write a guide for myself on how to maintain the feeling of being on vacation now that I’m back home, but I figured others may also benefit from it, so I’ve expanded it into a full-length article.
Be Who You Want to Be
Who are you, really? What are you really like? For a more comprehensive answer to this question, check out [this] article. For now, just know that the way we act is often performative, even if we’re performing for no one in particular. Behaviour and perception are reciprocal; how we see ourselves influence what we do, and vice-versa. For any given environment or context (at work, buying groceries, driving on the highway), we observe our own behaviour and create a “script” for how we ought to act in similar situations. Over time, we form habits for specific settings. People sometimes joke about having different personalities for different friend groups, and this isn’t far from the truth. We often feel pressured to conform to a certain image we have built for a given setting.
Travelling solo is an unusual experience in this regard. Even a few miles from your hometown, you are likely to find people, places, and things with which you have no history. You are largely free from the pressure of every previous interaction you’ve ever had and from the scripts you have made for yourself in all your familiar settings. It’s very liberating. But you don’t have to go to a different city to have this experience. You’re really only limited by your own mental constructions – your expectations for how you should act. Fortunately, you can release yourself from those expectations. Try approaching those familiar settings as if it were your first and last time in each of them. How does your behaviour change? What have you been holding back? This brings me to my next point...
Talk to Strangers
To be perfectly candid, I don’t really like people. That’s not to say I find anything objectionable about them; I just tend to have a negative reaction to being around new people. It’s a personal problem. While I was across the pond, I tried to work against this pattern by talking to as many people as possible. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that most people actually like it when you talk to them.
The caveat to this is that you have to engage with them in a constructive way. When talking to a new person, don’t immediately start gushing about your least favourite political figure, or about the finer points of Alexander’s conquest of Persia. Starting a conversation is as easy as asking someone a question. Chances are, you already start hundreds of conversations in your head every day, but your “internal filter” stops them from leaving your head. You probably comment internally on people you see in public all the time. “What’s that logo on your shirt?” “Why are your socks mismatched?” Not all of your internal comments are nice. That’s okay; those ones can stay in your head. But if you think of something to ask someone, you can just ask them. The easiest way to talk to someone is actually to get them to talk to you, and there’s nothing people like talking about more than themselves. Ask people questions about themselves: “Where are you headed?” “Do you work around here?” “Do you like your job?”
In my experience, the key to talking to people is to be sincere. Don’t say anything you don’t mean, don’t hold back what you do mean, and don’t bother asking any questions you don’t actually want answered. You won’t like everyone you meet. That’s also okay. You don’t have to. But you will like many of the people you meet, and I think that’s reason enough to try.
Explore
When I spoke with other travellers in London, the conversation almost always came back to our home countries. I was a little surprised that so many people told me that they wanted to visit Canada. Canada’s a nice place – we have some of the most beautiful wildernesses in the world – but I suppose that tends to slip my mind. I had an inverse experience when I was talking to a friend who lives in upstate New York. He expressed an interest in spending more time appreciating art, to which I responded that the finest galleries in North America were hardly a day’s drive away in New York City. I suppose that had slipped his mind, too.
It’s easy to forget about local attractions when we spend so much of our time between the same few places: home, work, school, et cetera. Even when we are reminded of them, we often are not in the mindset to fully appreciate them. My own workplace, a local tourist attraction, seems to me very dull indeed after spending my weekends there for the past year, and yet I often encounter visitors who have come all the way from the United States or Europe to see it.
Take the scenic route whenever you can. The scenic route doesn’t actually have to be particularly scenic. When you make the effort to be entirely present wherever you are, and to appreciate whatever scenery is right there, then every route can be the scenic route. Your own town probably has plenty of interesting or hidden spots you’ve never seen or never appreciated. Those parks, backroads, and high streets you pass by every day may prove exciting and enriching when you adopt an adventurous attitude.
Take it Slow
Exploring is only possible if we allow ourselves to slow down. We often find ourselves rushing in our daily lives. Rushing isn’t just an action, it’s an attitude. Often, the feeling that we are short on time is entirely in our heads. Think about your commute to work or school. You may feel very tense during this time. You tell yourself that if it doesn’t go “right” then you will be late, and something bad will happen, and this makes you anxious. This may be true, but the anxiety doesn’t have to follow from that. Being angry won’t make traffic move any faster. Even when you really are pressed for time, you should try to approach things with the attitude that you have time. In reality, you do have time. You always have exactly enough time to reach your next location at the time that you will reach it. If you’re late for work, you have exactly enough time to show up to work late. If you’re late coming home, you have exactly enough time to come home late.
Taking things slow isn’t a matter of inaction, but rather a matter of reclaiming time. Often, we let the past and the future encroach on the present; we focus on what we have done or what we will do rather than on what we are doing right now. Personally, I have a habit of convincing myself I have no time. I procrastinate and put things off because I feel that my adult responsibilities leave me without the time to do anything else. I have tried rectifying this problem by adopting the mindset that I always have time. When I am without something to do, I simply do the first thing that comes to mind, even if it’s just taking a nap or sitting on my porch. I aim to focus on it completely, without worrying about whether or not I will finish it before I am called away by my other responsibilities. By doing this, I have discovered that I actually have lots of time to do all kinds of things. Letting go of the fear of running out of time may allow you to realize just how much time you actually have, and to better enjoy it.
Travel Light
What do you bring with you when you travel? What will you actually need in the next week or so? Sometimes we keep things around just because we’re anxious about getting rid of them. When I went down south last summer, I spent about 3 weeks living out of a van with everything I had packed into an old rucksack. I was by no means living an ascetic lifestyle on that trip; I certainly wasn’t about to leave my headphones or my beard trimmer at home. Travelling light doesn’t have to mean jettisoning everything but the clothes on your back. You don’t need less stuff, you just need the right stuff. What’s really worth carrying around? What’s just dead weight? Some people like their stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that. I have a collection of footwear (my own footwear, to be clear) that some people find absurd. But every pair of shoes in my closet serves a specific purpose, and they all get time out on the field. What I don’t use, I let go of.
This doesn’t mean everything you have needs to be purely utilitarian. There’s a reason we pick up souvenirs when we’re abroad; sentimental value is as real to us as practical value – sometimes moreso. I have a certain attitude towards acquiring souvenirs while travelling. To me, souvenirs are like trophies – proof of a successful adventure. When I’m looking for souvenirs, I’m looking for something in particular. In my mind, a good souvenir is something unique, something with a story attached to it, and something with both sentimental and practical value. I think this is a good attitude to take towards all the various things we acquire in our lives. For anything you pick up, will you actually use it, and when you do use it, will you be happy to do so?
Now Get Out There
I’ll reiterate at this point that I do not intend to deny the value of travel. There are plenty of wonderful things about travel that can’t be found at home, and personally, I love travelling. What I do mean to say is that many of the great things about travelling and adventure can be found at home, and that learning how to find them at home will likely enrich your experiences when you are abroad.
If you do take my advice and begin to vacation at home, you should feel free to take it one step at a time. There’s no need to upend your lifestyle all at once. You can start with just one thing. Try talking to one stranger, or spending one lunch break in a park. If you’re looking for ideas, check out this excellent article by our editor Annastatia. Perhaps most importantly, whatever you do, do it with no intention. Do it simply for the sake of doing it. That, I think, is the real essence of adventure.