Engineer a Vacation-Free Life
June 11, 2009 – 11:44 am
The idea of going on vacation bugs me a bit. I understand the desire to have a break from work, and perhaps to visit out of town family, but as a general rule I prefer to stay at home in order to relax.
I’m also surprised by how many of my coworkers and friends go on exotic vacations. Going to the Bahamas, Cancun, Hawaii, etc sounds exotic to me. I realize you can go to Cancun and spend a few hundred dollars or several thousand, but I’m still not sure why everyone needs to “get away.”
I’ve decided to take a different approach. I spent a lot of time and effort finding a state, city, and home that I enjoy and I prefer to spend my free time here. I don’t need to travel or go to new places to be happy. I’m happy right here at home. And there are still hundreds of things I haven’t done yet where I live, so if I really must go outside my wife and I can cruise around town and do a few things without having to spend ourselves into the poor house.
And this plan of mine to create a life I enjoy daily isn’t just driven by financial reasoning. I’d be more willing to pay to fly our families in to visit us than I would travel to go see them. My wife, however, isn’t completely on-board with this idea, although I think that once in a while this might be o.k. with her. The simple fact is I enjoy being at home, and my wife will get more time with our family and I can still work during the day (and therefore not “waste” all of my whopping 2 weeks of vacation time a year).
The only thing I haven’t been able to get around, yet, is having to travel to see family. Both my parents and my in-laws live in other states, and my wife and I have agreed to visit one set of parents a year (in general). This year we were lucky enough to see both sets of parents on a single “vacation” (road trip), but I didn’t really consider it a “vacation” because I wasn’t doing much in the way of relaxing (besides spending time with my wife, which I enjoy).
Hopefully we can skip the “traveling” for the next year or two. My wife and I are hoping to expand our family in the near future with a kiddo, and that means family will probably need to visit us.
Image Credit: tata_aka_T
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2 Responses to “Engineer a Vacation-Free Life”
I don’t agree with you. The pace of everyday life in my hometown (it’s really far too big to call a town) is ridiculously fast and once in a while my wife and I *need* to slow down. For us, it’s not always possible to do that at home so sometimes we take exotic vacations and other times we just take weekend trips. For this reason, our budget includes money for vacations.
Someday we’ll move away from here and be on a permanent vacation.
By Chris on Jun 13, 2009
That is completely fair and is the choice most people make. My choice is different, but that doesn’t make it better or worse. Thanks for the comment!
By todd on Jun 20, 2009