Would you take a trip? Visit family? Sleep all day? Go to the mountains? Head to the ocean? Visit a foreing country? Or is your whole life one big vacation?

I find that I can only stand to travel if I don't really need a vacation in the first place. When I'm stressed and feeling like I'm behind in everything, all I really want is time to catch up.

How about you?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

Answers

I adore traveling. My list of places I want to go is about as big as the world itself. However, as my husband will attest, I'm a terrible traveller. I get stressed if everything isn't planned out in advance. I was reduced to tears from culture shock in the London train station (it's London, they speak the same language as me, this shouldn't have been so hard). I'm paranoid about missing planes and trains. My most relaxing vacation ever was the ten days in 1996 when my future-husband first came to visit me in Illinois. We didn't go anywhere except for occasional walks downtown and a picnic in the park. We forgot what day it was and didn't care. That was a good v

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

I didn't get much of a vacation this year. First my brother was sick, and then he died, and then I moved, so almost all the time I spent out of the office was stressful as hell.

My ideal vacation -- a small cabin on a lake in Maine and a huge pile of books. I would just sit on my butt on the dock, dangle my feet in the water, and read all day. Come evening, I'd write in my journal until it got too dark to see, and then I'd go to bed. I like the idea of letting the rising and setting of the sun dictate my day.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

As of yet, the most perfect flawless vacation ever was eleven years ago and I spent it at my beach. I had spent the previous summer living and working in Boston and not swimming at all, since I couldn't afford to go to Nantucket with everyone and if you've ever seen Revere Beach north of Boston accessible from the T, which I could afford, you'd understand why I didn't swim there. The following summer, the summer in question, I worked full-time for the first time (I was 21) and overtime (at least 50 hours a week, often 58 or 66), and there was all this emotional strife, so the last full week of vacation before I went back to school and strife, I took wholly off. No job, no class, I barely saw my parents (with whom I lived), and had no communication with the outside world. I spent every day, all day, of perfect late August weather (a rarity) on my beach or at my lake, swimming and reading and running and swimming and reading and enjoying being extremely tan (achieved somehow despite working) and having effortlessly lost 15 pounds over the past three months. Bliss. I was so perfectly relaxed that week, I was almost dead. It was great.

This past summer, we went to the Pacific Northwest, and as far as traveling that's where I'd most like to go back to, ideally in late summer again so the rain'd be at a minimum. I want to go back to Lake Crescent at the corner of the Olympic Peninsula and rent a cabin so I can nudey-dip all day long instead of the few minutes we could spare on the way to the ferries which would bring us to the San Juan Islands, where I'd like to build a treehouse and live.

The place I'd most like to go for the first time is Europe and my bf in Le Mans, right in the thick of castle country in Frainchyland; and Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals in France, Germany, and Italy; and the museums of London and Paris; and Cornwall and Bath and Angelsey and western Ireland.

Or Sacramento. Whatever.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

I'm with you Laura ... except that my cabin is on a lake on Cape Cod:) We vacationed there every summer for ten years -- no TV, no computer and no radio during the early years. But even later on there was still no TV. Lots of books, water sports and card games though. That was the best. Just getting up in the morning, going for a walk, then eating breakfast with everyone around the table, then spending the day down at the lake's edge building sand castles, collecting rocks, swimming, sailing and lazing in the hammock.

My favorite vacations are ones where you go and park somewhere relaxing for ten or more days and just chill out with small day trips from time to time.

I like to travel too -- but that's often not very relaxing. Very interesting but not relaxing, this is why, if I'm going to travel on a vacation I like to pad the travel portion heavily on both ends, with a few days to get ready to go on one end and a few days to get everything in order at home after I get back.

I alternate what kinds of vacations I take - I'll do one traveling and then one stay-at-home, so that I'm taking care of both my itchy feet and curiosity about the world as well as the sanity and serenity of my spirit.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

I hate traveling very far away. I am a big baby about not being able to keep to my routine, and I get panic attacks and become totally impossible.

The best trips for me are ones we can take by car, like the one where we drove up to Washington and stayed with friends on Bainbridge Island. I'd kind of like to go to Scotland and England, but I'm scared that I'll be so stressed out that I won't enjoy it. And, spending lots of money on vacations is very hard for me.

Nearly every year I actually take my ideal vacation. I go to Harbin Hot Springs and stay there for a week. It's a new agey hot springs place, clothing optional. All there is to do is sit around, go swimming, sit in the hot tubs, go in the cold plunge, get massaged, read books, and take naps. No phone, no TV. It's warm and sunny every single day and I always end up talking to interesting people. Some peopl hate the place for its New Ageyness, but I can filter out the parts I don't like.

Last year I didn't go because of buying the house and all. Even though I have my own back yard where I can relax and read books and so on, I missed it a lot.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

Hey Jenn - Londoners are often reduced to tears at London train stations, you probably looked like a local - heh..

Anyway - ideal vacation..? Just about anywhere. I love travelling, and as long as I have my walkman, backpack and a good book I am happy.

Zaire is off my list though. That's the worst country I have ever been to. Avoid it like the plague..

But spending time at home, and just catching up on everything is great too - although I tend to spend all my days reading and then the last day (oh, okay afternoon then) frantically tidying the house..

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

In my ideal vacation, the entire world comes to a halt around me -- nothing moves, no phone rings, no fax arrives. I walk through silent streets in bright sunlight and browse among stacks of forgotten histories. In a used bookstore that smells of candle flame, I find a volume about a culture's ending in some faraway country. The author has infused its pages with the spirit of insightful irony which realizes that all books are essentially about the reader and that therefore no story is altogether strange, and no hope entirely lost.

I sit at a table on a coastal cliff, and hints of lilac drift in the brine. The history reads itself as my consciousness fades into the surf, and when sleep comes it is in a hammock, in that same air. I wake to full alertness, freshly showered and with a cup of strong tea at hand. The world does not intrude. Sunrise follows sunset. The third day.

Hey, look, I can't afford a cottage in Maine. But you always have your dreams, right?

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

...any kind of vacation suits me fine --- i just want it to be permanent...

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

My best vacations are always the ones spent at home doing catch up projects, cleaning, and reading. I go on a few jaunts to places close by that I have never been before (i.e. a quirky hole-in-the-wall used bookstore, a mom and pop bakery, a great natural foods store) but mostly I stay at home. The beauty of this vacation is the restorative calm that you take back to work with you...don't let anyone tell you you'll regret it! For me, the key is being just disciplined enough to get a few big projects completed. Otherwise I try to accomplish too much and get hugely frustrated. There are certain things I would just never do if I didn't use the time off from work to get them done. I love to travel, but, nothing beats the feeling of being (temporarily) caught up and well rested...

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

The most wonderful vacation would consist of me, my boyfriend and his dog (Yes folks, his dog) a cold dark stormy day, a warm comforter and a few movies from blockbuster. Now you can take those items and use your imagination. Have fun.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999

My perfect vacation would begin with catching up on my sleep.

It would then continue with me getting some more sleep, followed by intermittent napping and yet more sleep.

Well, okay, I'd probably read a couple dozen books in between meetings with the Sandman, but I'd be doing that even without the vacation.

-- Anonymous, December 21, 1999

No vacations at home for me as I do not find it relaxing with all that work staring me in the face. I used to say I needed to take a year off of work to catch up with my house, but now it's up to two years needed. Garden tour of England still tops the list. A cabin in the woods with lots of books would be nice. A honeymoon trip around the world with a physically fit 60 year old, kind, funny, intelligent man would be good too! :-)

-- Anonymous, December 21, 1999

No children. No husband (for at least half the trip has to be solitary.) Down by the shore in the early summer. Or in Marshburg (the mountains) in dead summer. With lots of time for reading and sleeping in and just walking in the woods or on the beach. After about a week of this, bring on the family.

-- Anonymous, December 21, 1999

Tom's fantasy sounds good to me. :)

I haven't had a real vacation in almost 5 years now. Sigh.

-- Anonymous, December 22, 1999