An Argument Against the Summer Vacation

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  08.15.11 | 8:55 AM ET

At Front Porch Republic, Jason Peters goes there:

There’s no paucity of smiling children, or of aching muscles after you’ve rough-housed the kids and cousins in the lake or pool, but then you can almost see the seeds of greater expectations germinating in the soils of their little brains. The danger is that they’ll grow up to live for their two weeks’ worth of vacation each year and hate the other fifty. And that is no way to live a life.

In fine, there is the sense that you have fully arrived: at long last you are all consumer, endlessly provided for and endlessly entertained. But if, deep down, you have reconciled yourself to your condition, which is not to play but to work, you know that without work you cannot fully inhabit your humanity. Or: all play and no work makes daddy a dull boy.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

Tags: Family Travel, Travel Philosophy, Vacation, News and Briefs

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


1 Comment for An Argument Against the Summer Vacation

Davis 08.18.11 | 11:45 AM ET

I don’t think I have ever taken a summer vacation, though I have had many summer’s opportunity.  I don’t particularly care for hot weather recreation and I particularly don’t like crowds.  Particularly not sweaty crowds.  I am an off-season traveler, if I can at all manage it.  The things that are closed are usually things I’m not interested in anyway.  Better to go when you’re the only one there and you can visit with folks.  They’ll appreciate you more.  And you’ll miss high-season rates. 

At Yellowstone, the bears can give you their undivided attention, if they haven’t gone to bed yet.

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