You can easily turn your two week vacation into an eight week one.  It’s all about the pre-work and the afterglow. 🙂

I’m currently planning a two week trip to Croatia and will have a lot more to share once I’ve actually been there.  But this whole month is a big part of our upcoming trip.  I’m talking about the antici…

…

…PATION

You Cannes do it! Sunbathing on the beach in France is like a national pastime.

 

Pre-Work Vacationing in 3 Easy Steps

1. Read books

Sure, you can thumb through guidebooks, but you’ll get more from your trip if you pick up some non-fiction about the locale and some fiction that’s set in the same place you’re planning to go.  On the fiction front for Croatia, I’m currently reading Girl at War by Sara Nović and have Zagreb Noir (a collection of short stories) ready to read next.  I’m undecided on a non-fiction book yet – any recommendations would be great!

2. Read Blogs and Forums

There’s a plethora of info on the internet about even the most obscure places.  Dive into forums and let their suggestions inform your next search term.  It can often be difficult to get a deeper understanding for a place beyond the normal tourist suggestions. Blogs and forums can help you uncover things you didn’t know to ask about. After all, you don’t know what you don’t know!

Exploring the streets of Nice, France

3. Go Shopping

Check out the weather, plan your wardrobe, figure out what you’re missing and then…shop for it. As if you needed another excuse to shop, right? There’s a special place in our memory bank that connects “things” with “experiences”. So those otherwise ordinary pair of boots now become, every time you put them on, “the boots I bought to wear hiking at the Plitvice Lakes.” If they’re on sale, even better. Hopefully they won’t be a constant reminder of the blisters you made.

TIP: Never bring brand new shoes on a walk-heavy vacation.  Allow several weeks to break them in!

 

Master the Post-Vacation Afterglow

Take an extra day

Try to leave at least one day in between coming back home and going back to work.  Don’t tell your work that you’ll be back.  Enjoy a day of decompressing in stealth mode. With a full day to relax upon returning, you’ll be able to enjoy your vacation up until the last minute knowing that there’s time to rest before getting back to the daily grind.

Do something with your photos

You know how it is at takeoff when they’ve made you put your phone on airplane mode but you can’t use other electronic devices? I like to use this time to go through my photos and weed out the bad ones and duplicates. It’s a brainless task perfect for taking your mind off the metal bird magically lifting off the ground. It also makes for a less daunting upload when I put them on my computer.  Don’t forget about your photos.  I recommend hooking up a folder to your apple TV or google play so they automatically load when you turn your TV on.  We play music at dinner and have cool trip photos loop in the background.

You definitely want to remember that time you took a cool photo walking up stairs in Fes, Morocco but forgot to hide the incongruous water bottle behind your back.

 

Send yourself a postcard

Step 1: Pick up a postcard when you’re traveling.  Write it out. Address it to yourself.  Drop it in the mail. Did you know that you can buy stamps almost anywhere you can buy a postcard? Just ask at the counter when you’re checking out. (Sorry if that was obvious, I actually just learned about it. D’oh!)

Step 2: Get a postcard in the mail from your past self when you’re back at home.  Put it on the fridge.  Remember what an amazing adventure you had.  Feel great every time you open the fridge, even if it is to have one more piece of leftover pizza.