This is how my family did vacations after we were all adults. I recall one afternoon six of us were gathered in a big living room with a fireplace and a view of the ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, and each of us with a pile of books by our chair, and basically no conversation until it was time for a meal and that day's cook got up and walked away and then 30 minutes later called us to the table to eat. Which we did, then we all helped clean up, then we went back to our silence and our books while the bald eagles flew by the window and the waves washed up and down the beach. I am the only one of those six people still alive, and I'd give anything to be back in that room, with those people and the silence and the books.
If I may ask, do you ever get a chance to do this solo, or do you feel the absence of the others so strongly that a solo version does not feel like a pleasure?
I took my first absorption vacation this summer. A friend loaned me their home for two weeks, on an island off the west coast, while they were not there. I read constantly. I knitted a whole lot. I dabbled with watercolors. I sat in the garden and just looked at the ocean. I spent a lot of time watching birds. It was such a gift - not only to spend time doing these things but to know I could. I have been places alone before, but my PTSD has gotten in the way of feeling the freedom to rest in those places. (My hyper-vigilance was stoked to get a new place to scope out constantly, and so I felt restless and ill at ease.) But these two weeks? Bliss. Quiet. Absolutely nowhere I had to be or anything I *had* to do. A friend joined me for the last few days at the house and we carried on as I had - reading, painting, knitting, embroidering. And we went a few places, and ate great mussels, but mostly we were resting. I carry that sense of quiet and peace inside me now, an accessible memory of what rest *is*.
There's something so helpful, too, about it being a friend's home (and not having to pay for it) — it helps ease that feeling of making anything "worth" it.
The last insight you provide here is so key: "an accessible memory of what rest *is*." I think this is the thing that can be hard to find until you let yourself have it--there's a kind of intuitive sense of what rest might be, but it's hard to make that full descent into real rest if you've been charging on for years. But once you do... you have an example of what that can mean, forever!
Yes, that's a beautiful way of putting it. I suppose it's like anything that you have to learn - you can appreciate the theory of it, but until you actually do it, you don't know what it will be like.
Oooh, thank you for framing (re-framing) this for me. I'm an active vacationer. But my mom, well, I often joke I'm going to start an Instagram account called "Leesa reading in beautiful places." She bribes us to vacation with her by paying for lux accommodations in amazing places that we otherwise couldn't afford. My husband and I will be out riding camels and jamming with Bedouins in the Moroccan desert, and she'll be back at camp reading. We'll be out doing a Safari walk looking at elephants, and she'll be in the lodge cafe with a book, with a view of the watering hole. It used to flummox me. But then I realized that everyone wins. She just wants a new place, other than her living room, to read a book! If that's how she wants to spend her money, and she's taking us along for the ride, awesome. Next vacation is at a mountain retreat in Costa Rica. She'll probably stay on the balcony reading and looking for sloths (her spirit animal, according to her bff) while we head out to go on hikes and visit local markets. Everyone has their own heaven.
Your mom and I are on the same wavelength. When my kids were very small, I daydreamed about what it would be like for our vacations to consist of renting a house with a pool so that I could sit on a lounge chair nearby and read while they swim and play all day. They’re finally old enough that we’ve done this a few times, and it is as amazing as I hoped it would be.
This Christmas is my first without my parents who died earlier this year. Christmas was always full of beautiful traditions with my family. My husband and I decided that the least worst thing we could do this year would be a complete departure from holiday traditions. We are going to the Outer Banks. I have never been to the beach in the winter and I look forward to the harsh desolate beauty that I imagine. Thank you for reminding me to order a stack of books to bring along. I hope to spend a lot of time reading quietly. Wishing everyone a peaceful holiday season.
I took my first vacation to the outer Banks last summer. 7 days in a pretty house with a pool and our extended family and all our dogs. Our cousins did all the planning last year. I booked a house for next summer the instant I got home. I didn't read books, but instead floated in the pool with a baby asleep on my lap. Restorative, joyful, and fun.
As an update, quiet holiday was a success. We walked on the beach and hiked on trails. We read. We ate a lot of seafood. It was very restful. Hope everyone had a peaceful holiday.
This is one of the reasons I do my very best reading on a plane. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no role to play - I can't exactly fly the thing. I never quite thought of it is an absorptive experience, but for me it definitely is!
There are four acceptable activities* during plane travel: reading, eating snacks, napping, listening to something while staring at the clouds and contemplating existence. It’s the best! 😁
*Maybe (but only maybe!) five, where the fifth is talking to your travel companion, if you have one, but that’s a privilege that has to be earned by said companion.
I've discovered flying is the only place I can listen to podcasts. I really enjoy it! I get to sink into something in depth and it makes the time (pardon the pun) fly.
I was thinking that, too. The first and last day of a trip are always when I read an entire book in a day. Once I'm stuck at the airport or in my seat, I might have hours until there's a single thing that I can do or control, so it's totally guilt-free time to put on headphones, open my kindle, and let the story absorb me. Being on a plane is almost like being a baby in the best way. I have next to no control over my environment, but I can read a few pages, fall asleep, read a few more, nap, really wake up to eat and get absorbed right back into the story until the plane sounds, amniotic, pull me back under.
We do this annually, at home, after Christmas and before New Year. It has its own name (Days Between) and traditions (only pajamas or robes, 24/7! no visitors! simplest possible meals, like tinned fish on crackers!)
I think some of its power comes from being the exact intentional opposite immediately after all the bustle of holiday prep and parties. There is nothing to set the alarm for. Family is lovely, but this is my true break. I have a brand-new book and a relaxing documentary saved up for this year’s and I’m so excited!
So excited to read about this! For two years now, a group of us have done what we call "Reading Retreats"! We rent a place (so far in the woods but we're open to new places) with ample seating options, pack easy dinners/take-out options, and bring copious amounts of books. The only rule is you can't interrupt someone else who is reading. It's been so fun and I get so many people who want to join!
Wende Whitus has just published her book on how to take a Personal Retreat Day (PRD). I have been following her workshops for years and I take one PRD per quarter. You dedicate (ideally) one full day, though of course a half-day may work better for many people, to reflect on how different aspects of your life are going (relationships, health, growth, career, etc.) She gives lots of recommendations for how to prepare for that day, similar to an absorption vacation (like making sure you don't have to cook or clean, especially if you are staying at home), and what elements you should try to include, such as reading, gentle movement/exercise, time in nature, and nourishment that meets your needs. I think this is a big overlap with the idea of an absorption vacation - and both also fight back against the idea that you have to "earn" that time off.
Oh this is amazing! My office is closing for two weeks (the most luxurious benefit I can imagine) and am trying to figure out how to use the time. Part will be with family for Christmas, but for about half of the time I don’t know anyone else who will be off work! I want to do some kind of life planning/evaluating and have been searching for a structured way to do that.
I don’t know why but I’m seeing absorption as Victorian consumption, but in reverse! Whatever the opposite of wasting away is...taking up space with pleasure?
I described this to my husband and he was like "so, a vacation" .... the not dealing with logistics and travel mechanics is a huge part of a vacation. It also validates my "recharge time" which is precisely what you've mentioned but on a smaller scale. (Side note: my professors look at me like I'm wasting time by saying I'm going to knit tomorrow to recharge, I find it amusing in a sad "too-many-dues-were-paid" way)
I love "absorption vacations," just never recognized them as such. In 2024, I'll have this kind of getaway—a retreat—with a weeklong writer's workshop and also a weeklong ultramarathon that combines off-the-grid running with camping.
I'm wondering about your first paragraph, however. Why not put your work on hiatus; why do twice as much ahead of time to keep the work flow going in your absence? You could take a week off from your newsletter, and readers like me would understand.
A little over a decade ago, my husband and I pulled the plug on our normal lives for an academic year and traveled nomadically and cheaply around the world with our two kids, then 8 and 11, teaching them the equivalent of 3rd and 6th grades on the road. It was kind of radical marriage/family therapy to reassess and change our direction in life. We did it because for several years prior to that, we dreamed about a whole summer off, but then we realized it felt stressful because three months' worth of work would face us upon return, and the prospect of catch-up felt too daunting. Our answer was to stop work, live off savings and live cheaply, and do nothing except get from Point A to Point B and teach our kids (and ourselves) along the way, and then start over and start fresh when we returned. It was a year-long absorption getaway, a DIY sabbatical. Best year ever, no regrets.
I had the same thought -- It made me sad to read AHP has to work twice as hard in the weeks before taking a vacation. I as a reader would totally understand, no expect even, that she pauses the newsletter when shes on vacation.
I love this. I have a podcast on motherhood stories and I’d love to hear about your year off. We interviewed a family that moved to Spain and I’d love to hear your experience being nomads together for a year! Would you be open to it?
thank you ... sure, of course, although now I'm an old empty-nester mom and my kids are young adults, but if you think that perspective might appeal to your listeners, hit me up. You can DM me on instagram @sarahrunning or connect through my newsletter.
hi, thank you. I blogged about it but now that blog is mothballed. The second half of this post on my newsletter https://sarahrunning.substack.com/p/mid-race-music-and-midlife-itchy skims the surface of the experience, but I'm not really proud of how this post turned out (it's not a very good representation of my newsletter, oh well). If you read anything in it, skip to the very end where I reprint the letters we wrote to ourselves and each other midway through the RTW journey, to capture our perspectives and feelings at that point.
When my husband and I were first dating we would go out to eat and see couples sitting at a table and reading books individually (it was before smart phones) and we always thought this was so sad...that they didn't have anything to talk about. But the longer we were together, we realized it can actually be a lovely indication of intimacy. The desire to be together even when we are absorbed in our own interests, and without the constant need for talking and filling silence. He loved video games and they are of absolutely no interest to me, but I would sit with him and read for hours while he played. After he died, I've had the hardest time getting absorbed in a book because he isn't there and the silence isn't the same. I am slowly working my way back to this and I know when I do it will be a comforting memory of those times we had together.
I've been thinking about this so much since having a child. This post gave me the idea to ask my friend who travels a lot if we can use her house for this type vacation when she's out of town. Less guilt because it's free and nearby, but far enough away from the laundry to immerse ourselves in something restorative.
This is so important and I find so hard (still) to explain to people. They'll ask, "What did you do on your vacation?" And I say, "Nothing." By which I mean, I laid on the beach and read. Sometimes I interrupted my reading with a walk along the beach, not for exercise, but to look at things and maybe put my body in a slightly different position for a while. But everything else I did was a short interruption in what is otherwise, just reading. And it's glorious. And necessary. And it is not at all 'traveling.'
My husband and I took a vacation to Palm Springs together this spring, and we spent three days alternating between floating in the motel pool and reading under an umbrella next to it. He's never been a "vacation" person (money, planning, travel, nervous stomach) but a week after we got home I caught him looking up tickets to Palm Springs again, he said it was the best vacation he'd ever had. I want to do nothing in beautiful new places.
I do love to read and can get absorbed pretty easily in regular life, so when I go on an absorption vacation I actually prefer not to read because I want to give my brain a break from processing incoming information. We use beach vacations and camping for this purpose. The ocean and a fire are the only things I've ever found that truly turn my brain to neutral. I can watch them for hours without many thoughts or any worries entering my brain. My husband and I sit, stare, crack an occasional beer and just let the world flow by. It's truly glorious.
One of the best absorption vacations I’ve ever taken was an Alaskan cruise. I knew I’d love the landscape, but what I didn’t anticipate was how much idle time I’d have to *read.* I’ll tell you what: having someone else worry about prepping meals and snacks while I sat in a lounger with a book and a blanket draped on my lap, coffee by my side, and watching the occasional whale surface? That was pretty nice.
Whenever I think of that trip, that’s what I remember: the peace of diving into page after page, and having long dinners with my people every night after *they* experienced their own absorption activities during the day. Bliss!
Yes! I absolutely never considered myself the "cruise type," but what can I say? My parents have invited me on one twice and this is exactly how I defend it: I'm such a Type A+ planner and doer, that just getting on a big boat that takes me beautiful places forces me to just eat, get in a nice mid-AM workout, read, and REST. And my family functions like yours: we all do our own thing with zero pressures, and then enjoy meals together at the end of the day. I need to do a cruise in a northern locale --I bet I'd love it even more!
Oh my gosh, are you ME?! 😂 You described the experience perfectly! I wouldn’t consider myself a “cruise type” either, but man, it’s nice to just leave those details to someone else, isn’t it? Plus, I feel like everybody is on board for the chill vibes on a ship going north.
Might I recommend Samantha Brown's (yes, millennials. THAT Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel) recent episode about an Alaskan Cruise to those that are interested: https://www.pbs.org/video/cruising-the-inside-passage-of-alaska-XR7GNb/ Between your endorsement and her show, I'm inclined to book a family trip for an upcoming milestone birthday.
This is how my family did vacations after we were all adults. I recall one afternoon six of us were gathered in a big living room with a fireplace and a view of the ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, and each of us with a pile of books by our chair, and basically no conversation until it was time for a meal and that day's cook got up and walked away and then 30 minutes later called us to the table to eat. Which we did, then we all helped clean up, then we went back to our silence and our books while the bald eagles flew by the window and the waves washed up and down the beach. I am the only one of those six people still alive, and I'd give anything to be back in that room, with those people and the silence and the books.
If there's a heaven, I think this is exactly what it's like.
This is one of the loveliest things I’ve ever heard. Thank you for sharing, it made me smile.
Ditto to the commenter who thanked you for sharing this---such a wonderful vision. I feel peaceful just reading it.
wow
If I may ask, do you ever get a chance to do this solo, or do you feel the absence of the others so strongly that a solo version does not feel like a pleasure?
This is so dreamy. I love it!
I love everything about that.
This is beautiful.
I took my first absorption vacation this summer. A friend loaned me their home for two weeks, on an island off the west coast, while they were not there. I read constantly. I knitted a whole lot. I dabbled with watercolors. I sat in the garden and just looked at the ocean. I spent a lot of time watching birds. It was such a gift - not only to spend time doing these things but to know I could. I have been places alone before, but my PTSD has gotten in the way of feeling the freedom to rest in those places. (My hyper-vigilance was stoked to get a new place to scope out constantly, and so I felt restless and ill at ease.) But these two weeks? Bliss. Quiet. Absolutely nowhere I had to be or anything I *had* to do. A friend joined me for the last few days at the house and we carried on as I had - reading, painting, knitting, embroidering. And we went a few places, and ate great mussels, but mostly we were resting. I carry that sense of quiet and peace inside me now, an accessible memory of what rest *is*.
There's something so helpful, too, about it being a friend's home (and not having to pay for it) — it helps ease that feeling of making anything "worth" it.
That's so true!
The last insight you provide here is so key: "an accessible memory of what rest *is*." I think this is the thing that can be hard to find until you let yourself have it--there's a kind of intuitive sense of what rest might be, but it's hard to make that full descent into real rest if you've been charging on for years. But once you do... you have an example of what that can mean, forever!
Yes, that's a beautiful way of putting it. I suppose it's like anything that you have to learn - you can appreciate the theory of it, but until you actually do it, you don't know what it will be like.
That’s when you know it’s good, you’re reaping the benefits well after the vacation!
So true!
Oooh, thank you for framing (re-framing) this for me. I'm an active vacationer. But my mom, well, I often joke I'm going to start an Instagram account called "Leesa reading in beautiful places." She bribes us to vacation with her by paying for lux accommodations in amazing places that we otherwise couldn't afford. My husband and I will be out riding camels and jamming with Bedouins in the Moroccan desert, and she'll be back at camp reading. We'll be out doing a Safari walk looking at elephants, and she'll be in the lodge cafe with a book, with a view of the watering hole. It used to flummox me. But then I realized that everyone wins. She just wants a new place, other than her living room, to read a book! If that's how she wants to spend her money, and she's taking us along for the ride, awesome. Next vacation is at a mountain retreat in Costa Rica. She'll probably stay on the balcony reading and looking for sloths (her spirit animal, according to her bff) while we head out to go on hikes and visit local markets. Everyone has their own heaven.
Can we we borrow your mom???
Sure, who wants to plan a "Let's read in beautiful places" retreat? I'm sure she would love the company!
Your mom has now given me a new goal in life! What a great way to give her family joy while enjoying all that glorious reading.
Your mom and I are on the same wavelength. When my kids were very small, I daydreamed about what it would be like for our vacations to consist of renting a house with a pool so that I could sit on a lounge chair nearby and read while they swim and play all day. They’re finally old enough that we’ve done this a few times, and it is as amazing as I hoped it would be.
This Christmas is my first without my parents who died earlier this year. Christmas was always full of beautiful traditions with my family. My husband and I decided that the least worst thing we could do this year would be a complete departure from holiday traditions. We are going to the Outer Banks. I have never been to the beach in the winter and I look forward to the harsh desolate beauty that I imagine. Thank you for reminding me to order a stack of books to bring along. I hope to spend a lot of time reading quietly. Wishing everyone a peaceful holiday season.
I took my first vacation to the outer Banks last summer. 7 days in a pretty house with a pool and our extended family and all our dogs. Our cousins did all the planning last year. I booked a house for next summer the instant I got home. I didn't read books, but instead floated in the pool with a baby asleep on my lap. Restorative, joyful, and fun.
I hope the ocean settles your grieving heart this season and you find moments of peace.
I love winter beaches. I hope there is peace there for you.
The beach is lovely in winter. Wishing you a peaceful time.
As an update, quiet holiday was a success. We walked on the beach and hiked on trails. We read. We ate a lot of seafood. It was very restful. Hope everyone had a peaceful holiday.
This is one of the reasons I do my very best reading on a plane. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no role to play - I can't exactly fly the thing. I never quite thought of it is an absorptive experience, but for me it definitely is!
There are four acceptable activities* during plane travel: reading, eating snacks, napping, listening to something while staring at the clouds and contemplating existence. It’s the best! 😁
*Maybe (but only maybe!) five, where the fifth is talking to your travel companion, if you have one, but that’s a privilege that has to be earned by said companion.
These are excellent rules to live and fly by!
I've discovered flying is the only place I can listen to podcasts. I really enjoy it! I get to sink into something in depth and it makes the time (pardon the pun) fly.
Totally agree!
I was thinking that, too. The first and last day of a trip are always when I read an entire book in a day. Once I'm stuck at the airport or in my seat, I might have hours until there's a single thing that I can do or control, so it's totally guilt-free time to put on headphones, open my kindle, and let the story absorb me. Being on a plane is almost like being a baby in the best way. I have next to no control over my environment, but I can read a few pages, fall asleep, read a few more, nap, really wake up to eat and get absorbed right back into the story until the plane sounds, amniotic, pull me back under.
This is a perfect description. Amniotic!!!
Reading on a plane is truly next level experience for me also!
Sometimes I book a longer layover just so I'll have enough time to finish my book!
We do this annually, at home, after Christmas and before New Year. It has its own name (Days Between) and traditions (only pajamas or robes, 24/7! no visitors! simplest possible meals, like tinned fish on crackers!)
I think some of its power comes from being the exact intentional opposite immediately after all the bustle of holiday prep and parties. There is nothing to set the alarm for. Family is lovely, but this is my true break. I have a brand-new book and a relaxing documentary saved up for this year’s and I’m so excited!
So excited to read about this! For two years now, a group of us have done what we call "Reading Retreats"! We rent a place (so far in the woods but we're open to new places) with ample seating options, pack easy dinners/take-out options, and bring copious amounts of books. The only rule is you can't interrupt someone else who is reading. It's been so fun and I get so many people who want to join!
Wende Whitus has just published her book on how to take a Personal Retreat Day (PRD). I have been following her workshops for years and I take one PRD per quarter. You dedicate (ideally) one full day, though of course a half-day may work better for many people, to reflect on how different aspects of your life are going (relationships, health, growth, career, etc.) She gives lots of recommendations for how to prepare for that day, similar to an absorption vacation (like making sure you don't have to cook or clean, especially if you are staying at home), and what elements you should try to include, such as reading, gentle movement/exercise, time in nature, and nourishment that meets your needs. I think this is a big overlap with the idea of an absorption vacation - and both also fight back against the idea that you have to "earn" that time off.
thanks for the referral! It can be so hard for some of us to know where to start with unscheduled free time.
Oh this is amazing! My office is closing for two weeks (the most luxurious benefit I can imagine) and am trying to figure out how to use the time. Part will be with family for Christmas, but for about half of the time I don’t know anyone else who will be off work! I want to do some kind of life planning/evaluating and have been searching for a structured way to do that.
I don’t know why but I’m seeing absorption as Victorian consumption, but in reverse! Whatever the opposite of wasting away is...taking up space with pleasure?
I LOVE THIS
I described this to my husband and he was like "so, a vacation" .... the not dealing with logistics and travel mechanics is a huge part of a vacation. It also validates my "recharge time" which is precisely what you've mentioned but on a smaller scale. (Side note: my professors look at me like I'm wasting time by saying I'm going to knit tomorrow to recharge, I find it amusing in a sad "too-many-dues-were-paid" way)
As a professor, I not only endorse what you’re doing but do it myself — with quilting. Keep on doing what works for you!
Fellow quilting prof adding my support!
I love "absorption vacations," just never recognized them as such. In 2024, I'll have this kind of getaway—a retreat—with a weeklong writer's workshop and also a weeklong ultramarathon that combines off-the-grid running with camping.
I'm wondering about your first paragraph, however. Why not put your work on hiatus; why do twice as much ahead of time to keep the work flow going in your absence? You could take a week off from your newsletter, and readers like me would understand.
A little over a decade ago, my husband and I pulled the plug on our normal lives for an academic year and traveled nomadically and cheaply around the world with our two kids, then 8 and 11, teaching them the equivalent of 3rd and 6th grades on the road. It was kind of radical marriage/family therapy to reassess and change our direction in life. We did it because for several years prior to that, we dreamed about a whole summer off, but then we realized it felt stressful because three months' worth of work would face us upon return, and the prospect of catch-up felt too daunting. Our answer was to stop work, live off savings and live cheaply, and do nothing except get from Point A to Point B and teach our kids (and ourselves) along the way, and then start over and start fresh when we returned. It was a year-long absorption getaway, a DIY sabbatical. Best year ever, no regrets.
I had the same thought -- It made me sad to read AHP has to work twice as hard in the weeks before taking a vacation. I as a reader would totally understand, no expect even, that she pauses the newsletter when shes on vacation.
I love this. I have a podcast on motherhood stories and I’d love to hear about your year off. We interviewed a family that moved to Spain and I’d love to hear your experience being nomads together for a year! Would you be open to it?
thank you ... sure, of course, although now I'm an old empty-nester mom and my kids are young adults, but if you think that perspective might appeal to your listeners, hit me up. You can DM me on instagram @sarahrunning or connect through my newsletter.
Wow, this sounds like it required so much bravery! I'd be so curious to hear more, if you ever did some writing about this or something!
hi, thank you. I blogged about it but now that blog is mothballed. The second half of this post on my newsletter https://sarahrunning.substack.com/p/mid-race-music-and-midlife-itchy skims the surface of the experience, but I'm not really proud of how this post turned out (it's not a very good representation of my newsletter, oh well). If you read anything in it, skip to the very end where I reprint the letters we wrote to ourselves and each other midway through the RTW journey, to capture our perspectives and feelings at that point.
When my husband and I were first dating we would go out to eat and see couples sitting at a table and reading books individually (it was before smart phones) and we always thought this was so sad...that they didn't have anything to talk about. But the longer we were together, we realized it can actually be a lovely indication of intimacy. The desire to be together even when we are absorbed in our own interests, and without the constant need for talking and filling silence. He loved video games and they are of absolutely no interest to me, but I would sit with him and read for hours while he played. After he died, I've had the hardest time getting absorbed in a book because he isn't there and the silence isn't the same. I am slowly working my way back to this and I know when I do it will be a comforting memory of those times we had together.
I hope with time you will get lost in a good book again!
I've been thinking about this so much since having a child. This post gave me the idea to ask my friend who travels a lot if we can use her house for this type vacation when she's out of town. Less guilt because it's free and nearby, but far enough away from the laundry to immerse ourselves in something restorative.
This is a lovely idea and I bet you one hundred dollars she would love to have you use her house!
This is so important and I find so hard (still) to explain to people. They'll ask, "What did you do on your vacation?" And I say, "Nothing." By which I mean, I laid on the beach and read. Sometimes I interrupted my reading with a walk along the beach, not for exercise, but to look at things and maybe put my body in a slightly different position for a while. But everything else I did was a short interruption in what is otherwise, just reading. And it's glorious. And necessary. And it is not at all 'traveling.'
My husband and I took a vacation to Palm Springs together this spring, and we spent three days alternating between floating in the motel pool and reading under an umbrella next to it. He's never been a "vacation" person (money, planning, travel, nervous stomach) but a week after we got home I caught him looking up tickets to Palm Springs again, he said it was the best vacation he'd ever had. I want to do nothing in beautiful new places.
That's my new motto and should be a bumper sticker--"I want to do nothing in beautiful new places."
I do love to read and can get absorbed pretty easily in regular life, so when I go on an absorption vacation I actually prefer not to read because I want to give my brain a break from processing incoming information. We use beach vacations and camping for this purpose. The ocean and a fire are the only things I've ever found that truly turn my brain to neutral. I can watch them for hours without many thoughts or any worries entering my brain. My husband and I sit, stare, crack an occasional beer and just let the world flow by. It's truly glorious.
Fire watching as an alternative absorption activity--right there with you!
One of the best absorption vacations I’ve ever taken was an Alaskan cruise. I knew I’d love the landscape, but what I didn’t anticipate was how much idle time I’d have to *read.* I’ll tell you what: having someone else worry about prepping meals and snacks while I sat in a lounger with a book and a blanket draped on my lap, coffee by my side, and watching the occasional whale surface? That was pretty nice.
Whenever I think of that trip, that’s what I remember: the peace of diving into page after page, and having long dinners with my people every night after *they* experienced their own absorption activities during the day. Bliss!
I can ABSOLUTELY see this!
well this was the most effective advertisement for me to take a cruise that I've ever seen.
Yes! I absolutely never considered myself the "cruise type," but what can I say? My parents have invited me on one twice and this is exactly how I defend it: I'm such a Type A+ planner and doer, that just getting on a big boat that takes me beautiful places forces me to just eat, get in a nice mid-AM workout, read, and REST. And my family functions like yours: we all do our own thing with zero pressures, and then enjoy meals together at the end of the day. I need to do a cruise in a northern locale --I bet I'd love it even more!
Oh my gosh, are you ME?! 😂 You described the experience perfectly! I wouldn’t consider myself a “cruise type” either, but man, it’s nice to just leave those details to someone else, isn’t it? Plus, I feel like everybody is on board for the chill vibes on a ship going north.
Glad you guys have enjoyed these trips together!
Might I recommend Samantha Brown's (yes, millennials. THAT Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel) recent episode about an Alaskan Cruise to those that are interested: https://www.pbs.org/video/cruising-the-inside-passage-of-alaska-XR7GNb/ Between your endorsement and her show, I'm inclined to book a family trip for an upcoming milestone birthday.
Do it. What a fantastic way to mark a milestone birthday!
(also +1 for Samantha Brown content, I miss seeing her around)