I’m just returning from the 50th San Diego ComicCon.
I know that I have feeling in my lower extremities, because my legs and feet are telling me that I walked several miles over the past few days. Toss in long flights, and a drive back to Toronto and that makes for a long trip.
I’ve attempted to get passes to the comic book version of Mecca for several years, and am still in a bit of shock that I was able to attend the event with my brother and two oldest kids.
In the 3-day vacation, we walked all over downtown San Diego, attended a concert, went to the convention itself, went to the ComicCon Museum for the Batman 80th anniversary event, went to a big outdoor mall, and navigated the airport to and from San Diego.
It was a jam packed trip. I’m physically tired but not mentally tired.
Why?
Did I have a packed agenda that had checkboxes?
No.
Did we list all those things mentioned above, that we had on our schedule? Nope.
On the agenda was the following:
Go to the ComicCon Museum on Thursday.
Go to a concert on Thursday night.
Go to ComicCon on Friday.
That’s it.
Everything else was a go with the flow moment. We wandered around, stopped in a pub (or 6), ate when we were hungry, looked at shops. Went to Petco Park (Padres were out of town, boooooo).
I find when you pack your agenda too full, you create increased stress and contribute to burning out.
We had 3 things planned. 1-2 things per day. Everything else was go with the flow.
Was your last trip like that? Or did you have a printed out agenda with 36 things to do in 2 days?
Vacations are meant to refresh, explore, renew. Too many of us try to pack in too many things in too short of a time, which has us returning to work worn out, instead of refreshed and renewed.
For your next vacation, I suggest only doing 1 activity per day. 2 max. You can always go back to that destination.
Create slack (aka no plans) time so you can sit by the pool, go for a walk, have brunch, have a drink, etc.
Get to and from the airport early. Bypass the long line stress and people watch. Humanity at its finest when they’re stressed about missing a flight.
Happy vacationing!