How to Plan and Guarantee a Perfect Vacation

By: George Wallace

In one word: plan. In a phrase: know yourself and plan. By failing to plan, you plan to fail (to have a perfect vacation). The first step is an honest personal assessment. You have to seriously consider and firmly decide what it is that your mind and body needs from a vacation. Then you have to do it.

I absolutely believe that you do not have to leave home to have a perfect vacation. People do it all the time. They just don’t think of it as being on a vacation. If you are able to do what you do when you are so sick for six days that you do not answer the phone, call anyone outside of your home, answer e-mails, or the front door, go shopping, or go anywhere even for food, then you are also perfectly capable of doing these things while you are healthy and simply need a bit of quality personal mental and physical time to yourself. The realistic way to look at a vacation trip (until the advent of cell phones and internet connectivity) was as a method of easy avoidance of those things.

However, I suspect that most people today cannot consider a vacation as a vacation unless they remove themselves from their homes by a distance of at least 100 miles. This is far enough away from home to make it most commonly more of an effort than it is likely to be worth to return home to “fix” some supposed emergency. Different strokes for different folks. Some need a thousand miles, or even a large chunk of ocean between home and their vacation spot. Hawaii tourism survives on the needs of these souls.

OK. We’ll assume that you have a destination in mind that meets your psychological needs. If all you want is a place in January that has warm sun, good beaches, and warm salt water swimming, then you have a lot of choices. In that case I encourage you to carefully consider Hawaii. We have very few insurgencies, or terrorists here. Resort staff members may like a larger tip, but on the other hand they do speak English, if that is something you are likely to need. The food is good, the Aloha spirit is amiable, and most local people smile easily.

How much you spend to achieve this level of a vacation is strictly up to you and carries an amazing array of possible expenditures. I do suggest that you avoid severe sunburn, get plenty of sleep, and don’t pig out too much at restaurants or at the luau. Hundreds of folks come here to Hawaii, go directly to the resort of their choice, never leave the resort environs, and leave the hotel grounds only to return to the airport and then to home. If that is you, and you are happy. Enjoy. You have achieved perfection.

If you would like something more from a vacation than iguana time (basking in the sun) , then my operative word activates: plan.

Unless you have a plan, and work that plan, you will never be satisfied with the results of your vacation. One idea of vacationing is to get to know a different place in the world. Perhaps it is unique, has historical significance, or has some family connection. The why is not as important as the simple existence of a desire to learn.

Unless you have a plan, and work that plan, you will never ever really get to know a place really well.

A recent experience reinforced this whole idea for me. I created the idea of making a DVD as a touring guide for my district here on the Big Island of Hawaii.

DVD means pictures, lots of pictures, digital pictures. Lots and lots of digital pictures, with several of each thing, or place at different timers of the day. The quality of light when a picture is taken greatly affects how well it presents itself on the screen. The plan eventually decided upon was for a twenty minute DVD, suitable for public presentation on cable TV, or by private cable at local resorts. At last count and 350 pictures, and still clicking away, there are still many unexplored sites of interest in the district left to be added, if possible, possibly in a Revision, or in a Part II.

My wife and I have lived in this district for nine years. Despite this we have not visited many important local places: a short list includes several beaches, one of the world’s largest network of lava tubes, several famous springs, unique geological formations, prehistorical and historical archeological sites, a secluded Tibetan Buddhist temple, a whole desert, and many walking trails.

Why not? Simple. There’s not enough time to see everything. And to be truthful, I’m not as young and agile as I used to be. No, that cannot be all of it. Nine years is a lot of time. A much more accurate truth is that we have never had a plan.

Since we didn’t have a plan, we could not have worked that plan. We could have had a plan by simply having a check list on the bulletin board, and checking off the places of interest as we visited them over the ensuing years. We haven’t bothered. We have simply visited places willy nilly, by accident, or as whim dictated, or social contacts allowed.

Beyond this, any area, any place encompasses immense complexity and depth that cries out to be studied. There is always an extravaganza of places and things to see and do, walks and day trips to take, to explore independently and to be guided upon to expand learning and by extension, enjoyment.

An example: In the U.S. Southwest is one of Earth’s great geological creations - the Grand Canyon. Tourists from all over the world seek it out, to see its wonders, and explore its unique features.

I have been to the Grand Canyon one time. It was 1957. My father and I were traveling West toward Los Angeles. We diverted North from Williams, Arizona after having traveled all night, and made our way to the South Rim. We stayed there for about thirty minutes. I was sleepy, tired, and much more interested in a few hours of sleep. To me, at that time and place, the Grand canyon was nothing more than a very large hole in the ground, perfectly suitable as a large scale landfill.

Obviously, my thirty minutes at the Grand Canyon did not include a wonderful tourist experience. I didn’t learn anything. I did not experience any of the myriad of activities and adventures that would truly have made the canyon important to me. I didn’t come anywhere close to a comprehensive knowledge of the national park. I didn’t take a mule back ride to the bottom. I didn’t take a river boat, or rafting trip, on the Colorado River. No swimming at the falls. No walks. No lectures. Not even a fly over.

So what did I gain by my thirty minute Grand Canyon exposure in 1957? A mental mark on a mental check list. I had been to the Grand Canyon. I could say with some truthfulness that I’d been to see the sight. I also had a vague mental picture that was reinforced each time I saw a photo, or viewed a TV program, or even just looked at a jigsaw puzzle depicting part of the park.

Too many “tourists” have only had vacation experiences similar to my Grand Canyon visit. Maybe you are one of that legion.

A vacation can be ever so much better than that. The upper limit is that you can spend an entire lifetime in any one place and never completely exhaust everything there is to know and learn about that place. Most of us only make the financial and time efforts to visit any one place one time, and for only a maximum of a week at best.

That is our parameter: a week’s time in one place. If you have a real plan, that is enough to give most folks a realistically good vacation and make it a useful learning experience, as well.

Learning is not the same as being attacked by fleas. It does not come to you. You have to go after it. You have to seek it out. You have to be alert, and pay attention. This is true if you are six or sixty-six.

You can’t be rushed, or tired, sleepy or hungry. You also cannot be glazed over with so many experiences so closely packed together that you must inquire as to the date to know what country you are now traveling through. In this state, everything becomes nothing but an incomprehensible blur, easily forgotten, and valueless except for that mental check list, enabling you to say, “Yes, I’ve been there.”

Some folks never learn this. They rush around in a frenzy, go home exhausted, and nearly all the memories are faded within weeks.

So, how to ensure the Perfect Vacation? Simple. Slow down. Relax. If all you have is a week, deliberately plan to spend one day asleep in your hotel room , and the next on the beach dozing and swimming, getting good meals, and stay close to your air conditioned room and quarts of high powered sun screen. That is the plan for two days.

On day three you plan and execute one short excursion to one nearby place, and return to your favorite beach and bar before sunset. Go out to a relaxing dinner. Do not get drunk.

Day four and five can be as hectic as you wish. Go for it. Do everything you possibly can. Burn yourself out. Collect brochures, gifts, and curios.

Day six and seven is strictly for iguana time. Do be careful about sunburn. That is no fun, it hurts, and it and has serious long term consequences. You need this basking time. You deserve it. You need it. Do it for yourself.

If you are careful and use lots of sunscreen, you’ll have a perfect tan and have had a Perfect Vacation.

Article Source: http://www.retirementlivingarticledirectory.com

(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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