What do you consider a Vacation?

On my main blog, I talked about my brief StayCation. A week or so ago, on #sentisabado on Twitter, the topic was about childhood/memorable vacations.

All of a sudden, I realized that we’ve never really been on vacation, all we’ve gone on as a family are really just swimming trips. When I was a lot younger, we would go to resorts for the weekend, or the beach with the extended family. Are those vacations? I don’t think so.

I think that a real vacation is one where you can go check out sites, expose (or hopefully immerse) yourself in the place’s food and culture. Or maybe going somewhere known for something. If you just go there, swim, shack up in the hotel, then leave a few hours or a day later, then that doesn’t really sound like a vacation.

But then again, many people also look at relaxing and having some “me” time as vacation too. In that case, then the swimming trips would probably qualify.

Then again, definitions are probably not that important. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter what the proper definition for vacation is. The place shouldn’t matter much either. It doesn’t have to be something fancy like a trip to El Nido in Palawan, or something expensive like a European tour for the summer. It could be a weekend at home. But it must be something that allows you some time to yourself, or time for your family. A vacation could be your experiences from those Branson vacation packages your family used to have and enjoy together.