The Importance of Down Time During Your Vacation

Should You Relax and “Waste” Time During Your International Vacation?

If you’re on a tight budget and feel like you only have a few days to explore an international destination, you might feel like you’re wasting time by taking a breather and relaxing for a few minutes. You may feel tempted to load your calendar with activities from dawn until dusk so you don’t waste any precious moments with your eyes closed, but let’s consider the alternative before you start booking every tour in sight.

If you’re traveling across the world, you might be facing some serious days with jet lag, but even if you’re traveling mostly north or south (like traveling from California to Colombia), arranging a little downtime can prove extremely helpful for the overall vacation. If you have thousands of steps ahead of you or some type of adventure tour planned, a few hours spent resting can mean the difference between pure enjoyment and feeling ragged.

Now, if you’re thinking about traveling for a weekend somewhere, you probably don’t need to book any rest into your itinerary, but weekend trips probably aren’t taking you halfway across the world. Major time zone changes, hours spent on a plane, and late nights may wear you down, especially when you’re traveling for a week or more.

As you build your itinerary, I think it’s helpful to consider all the activities you’ve planned, how much sleep you’ll get each night, and whether you’ll have any days where you’ll have to get up at or before 6 AM or plan to return to your hotel after dark. You can divide two busy days of tours with a day that includes a few hours of extra rest. Let me share a few ways you can incorporate rest time into your vacation without it feeling like you’re missing out.

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The Length of Your Vacation and Rest Requirements

One of the first considerations you’ll take when planning your itinerary is how much time you’ll travel. I generally try to arrange at least a half day of relaxation for every five days of travel. If I’m traveling for a week, I might stick an afternoon spent by the pool in the middle of the trip. If I’m traveling for two weeks, I might start off with a half-day to get acquainted with the local time zone and spend another day relaxing around the halfway point.

As long as you’re not facing any personal hurdles with your mobility or your ability to keep up on tours and such, you shouldn’t have any issues packing a weekend trip from top to bottom with activities, but when your trip gets closer to a week, you may want to start exploring options for splitting up your activities and having a few days in there where you’re not gone from dawn until dusk.

These restful hours may be dependent on your own personal level of athleticism. Do you lead a relatively active lifestyle when you’re not traveling? Or, do you have a desk job where you gaze out of the window longingly at your next international vacation? If you feel up to it, you can incorporate half-days of relaxation into your itinerary. If you’re worried about your stamina, you can even arrange all of your days as half days.

Long vacations are exhilarating, but they’re also exhausting because you’re learning new things every day and you’re enjoying new experiences. Your mind and eyes are constantly at work as you see new things and take your tours, and having so many new experiences is amazing but tiring, too, even for the most experienced traveler.

Scheduling Your Rest Into Your Itinerary

Don’t assume that scheduling rest into your vacation itinerary means spending an entire day without doing anything. Sure, you can definitely choose to spend an entire day in your hotel room looking at a nice view and ordering room service, but rest doesn’t necessarily mean shutting yourself away in your room for the entire day and sleeping as late as you can.

One option I use frequently is to book half-day excursions and tours on days when I feel like I might need a few hours of downtime. I might book a morning tour that will conclude around lunch so I can enjoy a leisurely lunch and then relax wherever I’m staying. I can also go for a stroll or just spend my free time doing something relaxing without the stress of a schedule.

As you book your activities and arrange your schedule, you may feel that your activities naturally align with an itinerary that affords you some rest throughout your journey. You might visit a town where the tour you want lasts only a half day and doesn’t begin until noon. You can take the morning to relax and stroll around some tourist shops or get a bite to eat somewhere.

Of course, if you can’t stand the thought of spending any time at rest, consider arranging your tours so that you don’t embark on two crazy days in a row. Try to arrange your activities in a half-day/full-day/half-day configuration. You may also want to avoid booking tours that have you waking up at the crack of dawn every morning unless you’re used to that schedule at home.

Creative Ways to Rest and Relax During Your Vacation

Resting and relaxing on your vacation doesn’t necessarily mean sitting around and not doing anything. One thing to consider is the inherent rest that comes with activities like train rides and bus journeys. If you’re staying in one town and plan on taking a train to your next stop, consider the time it will take to get to your destination.

Will you have three or four hours to sit and gaze out the window or read a book? If you’re spending part of your day letting someone else do the driving for you, like on a bus or van transport, you can consider the hours you spend sitting as part of your restful time. In some cases, you can even book an overnight train to get you to your next town, which is a fun way to combine rest and travel.

The only type of transport that I wouldn’t normally consider restful is travel by airplane. The whole process of getting to the airport hours early, taking off and spending time at altitude, and getting through all the hassles of modern airport travel just don’t add up to a restful experience. Sure, you might rest if you’re traveling for 13 hours straight, but that often won’t be the case when you’re flying within a country.

You may find it helpful to plan your itinerary beat by beat so you can take stock of all the traveling you’ll do and whether any of those inter-country trips will include time for naps, reading, or relaxation. You can even purposefully arrange your travel to accommodate your resting needs. For example, you might choose train travel over a flight because it’s usually simpler to walk onto a train than board a flight.

Booking Relaxing Experiences Throughout Your Itinerary

A final option that can help you relax while traveling is searching for relaxing activities. One of the most obvious activities is a spa appointment where you might get a massage, relax in a heated pool, get a facial, or do something else that feels relaxing and comfortable. If you need ideas, you can do a search for “how to relax in” and add the country you’re visiting.

For example, one of the best ways to relax when you visit Iceland is to visit one of the hot springs. Not only will you find hot springs with lots of manmade features like swim-up bars and cold plunge pools, but you’ll also find them scattered throughout the countryside. You might need to do a little searching for the rural ones, but they can offer a lovely respite after a day spent exploring the waterfalls and other cool features across the country.

If you decide to splurge on a nice hotel in one of the towns you plan to visit, you might have access to a spa, a heated pool, or something else designed to help you relax while you’re on vacation. Sure, some vacations are filled from top to bottom with relaxation and sitting on the beach, but when they’re not, and you’re on a different tour every day, a few hours spent getting a massage can offer the perfect relaxing break within your itinerary.

I’d book at least one fun, relaxing activity for every week that you travel. Treating yourself to something nice along the way while exploring another country is a fantastic way to see how the locals relax when they need a break from their busy lives, and it’s also helpful for helping you feel refreshed and ready for your next adventure.

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