We all have an idea of what our vacations should be and to be honest, for the most part, it can be fairly similar. A holiday to relax, one to conquer mountains, one to see sights, another to eat your weight in delicious foods… the list goes on and on.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with any of that. Travel should always be about what makes you happy anyway so wherever or whatever that destination is for you – definitely go for it.
If however, you’re starting to get a bit bored with whatever your version of normal is and want to play around with different ideas of travel destinations and holidays, here are a few ideas worth considering.
1.) The Out-Of-Season One
Almost no one likes to visit a place out of seasons. The Maldives during rainy season, the Alps in summer (instead of during ski season),
the South of France in winter, Iceland after it’s too bright to see the Northern Lights (but perhaps not early enough to fully appreciate the midnight sun yet)… I could carry on but you get my drift here. These destinations don’t seem to have quite the same appeal to them when you think of visiting out of season but there’s a lot of reasons why you definitely should.
For starters, you’re bound to find the prices are so much cheaper, there’s less crowding as it’s less popular out of seasons and for the most part, the scenery can change quite a fair bit, leading to a rather unique experience!
For instance, we visited the Italian Alps a week ago (we were in Trentino) and it was absolutely beautiful! All that snow had disappeared and had been replaced with gorgeous lush green scenery that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Canadian Rockies. In fact, for the most part, you’d struggle to even believe you were in Europe.
Same goes for the Maldives – rainy season isn’t half as rainy as you’d think, it’s still very hot and the prices can sometimes end up being almost half of what you’d usually pay during peak season. London is busiest in summer and prices sky-rocket in the city but winter in London is as beautiful (if not even more so sometimes) and you can still do pretty much everything you would have in summer with half the queues and at half the prices!
2.) The Random One
This is the one you choose due to other factors besides the fact that it’s a place you want to visit (in fact, sometimes, it’s a place you’ve never even considered visiting). This is like when you book a trip to Gothenburg because you found £8 return tickets (true story – this happened to us in London). Or you book a holiday to Carcassonne – not because you’ve heard of it but because it was the best deal you could find on bank holiday weekend (and there was also the promise of sunshine) – again, true story from our end – check out our Instagram for proof 😁.
A lot of these places can actually end up being real gems if you’re open minded and flexible enough! I’m not saying book a trip to anywhere scary or dangerous (neither of the examples above is) but open your mind to booking a trip to somewhere you’ve never even considered before.
Price is what I’ve used as an example above but another one could be letting someone else (e.g. a friend or family) decide on the destination for you or perhaps even some place that produces a product you like or even a TV show you’ve been watching lately (the price one makes more sense though – don’t you think?).
Price is what I’ve used as an example above but another one could be letting someone else (e.g. a friend or family) decide on the destination for you or perhaps even some place that produces a product you like or even a TV show you’ve been watching lately (the price one makes more sense though – don’t you think?).
Long story short – be more open to the destinations you’ll consider travelling to and you could be in for a real treat on your holidays!
3.) The Cliche One
This is the obvious one. It could be the one everyone loves to hate. Or perhaps even just a popular destination. Point is, if going to obvious places isn’t really your thing and you’re more of an off-the-beaten track kinda person – perhaps it’s time to shake it up a bit and find out why the beaten track is so popular.
It obviously goes without saying that if you’re someone that already embraces your love for these popular places and generally don’t limit yourself when it comes to travel, you can give this idea a miss. 😁
Personally, much as I’m open to visiting and seeing new places and constantly expanding my horizon, I’m also a sucker for the obvious destinations – Tokyo, Bali, New York, Cape Town, Barcelona… I enjoy these places far too much and so, because I generally don’t have any limits when it comes to travel destinations this is more than likely the only idea on this list that I’d definitely skip. 🙂
4.) The One Too-Close-To-Home
Almost all of us are all guilty of this though – we see places that are close to home as being too familiar, too easy to get to and hence not really worth considering as a holiday destination. Manchester is a great city but you’d struggle to find someone from London (just 2 hours away by train) who would want to spend a week of their summer holidays in Manchester.
You’d think this is an obvious one but again, beautiful as the Cotswolds are, a trip to the Cotswolds for a week would struggle to compete with a trip to the South of France for quite a lot of people who live in the U.K. (again, I’m not saying that everyone in the U.K. would choose the South of France option but you’d find that for a week in summer, most people probably would choose that over staying at home in the Cotswolds).
Now, I’m not saying you have to spend a lot of time in places closer to you but perhaps even if just for a long weekend, it’s worth exploring a lot more places nearer to your doorstep. When we lived in Singapore, Malaysia was so close that we kept telling ourselves we would visit and somehow never managed to the entire time we were there (we did manage to go as far as Hong Kong and Australia during that though which seems so absurd because visiting Malaysia would have been so much easier and so much cheaper for us).
We made an effort to see more of the U.K. last year and plan on doing even more this year and it’s been such a treat and a delight to do so -there are so many beautiful places to see here and it’s trips like this at home that have truly highlighted how important it is to consider places closer to home!
5.) The Utterly Indulgent One
Indulgence is very relative of course but we all know, deep down, the kind of holiday we are all craving. For some people, it could just be a spa weekend without having to worry about the kids (let family and friends take care of them while you treat yo’self), for others it could just be the idea of staycation – booking the most amazing hotel in the city and basically camping out (and pigging out) there all weekend.
It could be a 10 day trip to Maldives (flying in Business or First class) and completely letting someone else worry about you every need. It could just be drinking expensive wine in a chalet all weekend… I could go on and on but I’m pretty sure you’re far too equipped to know what your version of indulgence is!
The thing about indulgent stuff though is that it comes with a price tag and it’s all well and good if you have the money to back up the indulgence (even if it means beans on toast for the next month when you get back home) but if you don’t, perhaps a way to sneak some indulgence into your life is by doing mini-versions of whatever you find indulgent.
Swap the expensive trip to Tahiti for one in Bali where your money will take you much further. Book a Saturday night stay in a beautiful manor home and stay there from Saturday afternoon (as soon as check in is available) right through till late on Sunday (request late check outs if you must – this is your darn indulgent holiday! 😉 😁).
The point of this holiday is effectively to give yourself the treat you deserve. Stop putting it off, stop ignoring your needs and stop over-thinking it. If you keep looking for excuses not to do it, you’ll always find one – throw some caution to the wind and ‘treat yo’self’! There’s so much to be said for investing in your happiness and if this indulgence is done right, memories like this can stay with you for years and years to come.
6.) The Reversely-Planned One
Sounds odd but this is more of a role-reversal during holidays. Typically, unless you’re a solo traveller, you tend to find that you either fall into the category of the planner or the go-alonger (effectively the person who just shows up or deals with things as they arise). Usually, you find that the best couple or groups have one person that falls into one of these groups – you need someone to plans the trip but too many cooks spoilt the broth so you don’t need EVERYONE chipping in.
Once you sit down and think of what your typical role is, make an active decision to switch it up. Make sure that the planner has no hand in planning any of the holiday. The go-alonger (not a real word but I’m just gonna carry on using it), should be placed in charge of all the planning.
The best part about switching things up like this is that even if you went to exactly the same destination, you would have such a dramatically different kind of holiday as each person adopts a different role. This change in dynamic has the ability to change that holiday from its norm and hence mean you end up with a more exciting time away on your vacation!
Sidebar: This does take a concerted effort from each person to actively commit to a role of course, otherwise you’ll probably end up finding yourself sliding back to your default role as the holiday (or indeed, the holiday planning) commences. 😀
7.) The One You Need Another Holiday To Recover From
Okay, this one is a little bit of a controversial one for me because this is one I used to enjoy quite a fair bit in the past (it’s essentially the kind of holiday where you’ve got plans pretty much round the clock) but in recent times, as some of our travels are pretty much back to back, it can get exhausting always being busy.
The reason I am including it is because most people’s travel schedules aren’t as crazy as ours is at the moment so this is a perfectly brilliant way to travel.
For starters, I think of the best parts about being that busy on holidays is that it really makes you appreciate being back home – your bed feels so much better after this kind of holiday! It’s also a great way to pack in as many sights as possible in such a small space of time and you leave having experienced so much more of the destination than people who have spent thrice as long as you have there.
This style of holidaying is perfect for busy cities and weekend getaways (anything more might prove a tad too much – can you imagine two weeks of a crazy travel schedule? Pretty sure there would come a point within those two weeks where you’d probably stop having fun on your holiday and wonder why you’re stressing yourself out).
Anyhooo, long story short – rather than go on the same relaxed holiday over and over again, give yourself something of a challenge to experiences as much of the destination as you possibly can in a very short space of time!
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