Holidays are meant to be a time of rest and recuperation, but, as any regular traveller knows, it takes a whole lot of work to get relaxation right. Pre-travel we lose hours squinting at screens, comparing room rates and trying to read between the lines of TripAdvisor reviews. And the angst doesn’t dissipate after we’ve booked. Will everything run smoothly? Will the hotel live up to the pictures? There’s a lot of uncertainty – and a lot at stake.
“One of the great things about a holiday is that you get to look forward to it before you go, as well as enjoy it and then enjoy the memories – so there are three aspects to the pleasure,” says clinical psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd.
The thrill of anticipation should be part of the pleasure of travel; it’s how we extract maximum bang-for-buck from a holiday. But, increasingly, the planning is a stress in itself. We lead screen-heavy lives as is – adding hours scrolling through hotel reviews and Instagram snaps is a sure-fire way to internet overdrive and decision fatigue.
“Perfection is a subjective concept,” says therapist Jessica Boston. “Chasing it often leads to complete shutdown, because anything less than perfection is a failure, which only leads to procrastination and self-sabotage.” In the worst case, we end up abandoning our travel plans, as the task of planning that perfect (not to mention stress-reducing) trip seems too, well, stressful.
Because modern travellers really, really care about getting travel right. We used to be happy with a relatively run-of-the-mill fly-and-flop trip somewhere sunny. Now we have a long list of demands from our time away. We want to return from holiday not just rested and suntanned, but mentally and physically transformed. We want to immerse ourselves in a new culture, challenge ourselves physically, and return emotionally sated. It’s no bad thing that we’re demanding more, but the downside of this new age of individualised, experiential travel is that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get it right – and leave ourselves horribly stressed in the build up.
This pre-trip angst is exacerbated by the volume of information available online.
“It is the sheer number of options that winds people up,” says Flight Centre’s Nikki Metcalfe. “Twenty years ago, nobody planned their own holiday. The internet has opened up so many avenues for us now, but how can you really know which hotel or holiday will work best for you? Without first-hand knowledge it’s impossible.”
Faced with so much information – not least the social media stream of other people’s travel pics – knowing which reviews to trust, or which pictures are reliable, can be a minefield.
“Comparison is an important evolutionary tool, but nowadays it gets in the way of people’s lives,” says Boston. “Before social media, we would spend more energy comparing how we live in our environment to how people in other cultures live: the food, the lifestyle. Now we use the same evolutionary tool to compare how a friend’s trip holds up against ours, or whether what we wear is on a par with some celebrity.”
So how can we sidestep organisational stress and ensure that the run-up to a holiday feels like an extension of our trip, rather than a slog to get through before we can relax and enjoy ourselves?
Boston advises: “Ask yourself this: what are you looking to get out of your experience? Do you crave adventure? A chance to switch off? To see the sights or go off the beaten track? If you feel you must chase perfection when you travel, at least define what it means to you, rather than holding yourself to someone else’s standards.”
It’s a modern-day irony that holidays are meant to be a chance for us to escape from responsibilities, work pressures and social obligations, yet we heap expectations on ourselves from the moment we start planning.
“Travel is about challenging perspectives and opening up our world view,” says Boston. “It’s a chance to take ourselves out of our everyday lives, and rewire our brains for new habits.”
If we’re getting it right, that should begin at home – by breaking that habit of getting het up about holidaying before we’ve even begun.
