When I was younger, the word “vacation” from the mouths of grown-ups implied a certain amount of luxury and privilege. It called to mind images of manicured women packing their prim families into Prada bags to jet off to the Bahamas. But I have come to appreciate the variety and depth of meaning that can be found when you unpack this word, travel with friends, and expand your understanding of vacationing from the everyday.
Vacations can be forged on a shoestring budget or a bottomless purse, faced with an itemized itinerary or with nothing more than a plane ticket in your hand and bravery in your heart. The meaning of vacation has swelled to contain the collection of stay-cationers, day trippers, backpackers, and beachgoers who gather under its title. I'm glad to include myself in these ranks.
This summer, I was invited on a four-day trip to Glacier National Park. I begged my supervisor for the time off, agreed to work until one hour before I had to leave for the airport, and promised to come to an 8:30 AM shift the morning after I would fly back into LAX at midnight. When the time came to leave, I felt stretched thin and discouraged, thinking I would be back before I could even appreciate the time gone. Back to the same life, the same job, the same problems. I didn’t have a sense of the appreciation my vacation would give me for the life I have built to house my summer self.
After being pulled into a half-adult life of budgeting, balancing schedules, and maintaining responsibilities, I finally understand the necessity of vacations. While routine is snubbed by our generation in favor of wanderlust and an untethering from the traditional, I’ve found that the experience of vacation quells my need for soul-searching, making me grateful for the safety of home and the comfort of the repetitive. Time away reveals the beauty that can be found in the oft-overlooked details of daily life.
Our trip was the perfect amount of time away, filled with activities I always promise to make time for but rarely do. We managed to fit in hiking, boating, and briefly, swimming, when we went white water rafting and my boyfriend and his mother both fell into the glacial rapids. He maintains that she pulled him in, but the jury’s still out.
On the drive in, we talked about getting back to nature, promised not to disturb the wildlife, and planned to stay calm if we had a bear sighting. As it turns out, the closest encounter we had was driving on the highway, when a small black bear ran across the road in front of our car. Our fellow vacationers were just as starved for close encounters of the natural kind. An elderly couple standing in the parking lot of one of the campgrounds spotted a bear high up on a mountain ridge in the distance. A riot nearly broke out as everyone around us frantically whipped out binoculars and cameras and clambered over one another for a better look. I’m still pretty sure they were all staring at a particularly brown rock.
If the proximity to wildlife was a disappointment, the rest of my experience in the park flooded in to fill and surpass my wildest dreams. We spent full days hiking around lakes and over waterfalls, wandering deep into tree-blanketed gorges before cresting the rise above a spectacular horizon. One nine-mile hike led us up a twisting ridge path that overlooked the valley. At the end of the trail, we found ourselves facing a piercing blue lake cradled by the mountain walls. The icebergs floating across its surface were a stunning sight under the late-July sun.
We learned how the glaciers had carved through the valleys and mountains, leaving a sloping landscape filled with cascading rivers and towering trees. We watched families paddle out onto the lakes, the children waving at the line of ducklings that swam by their side. The guides, rangers, and students we met working across the park were full of jokes and tidbits of information, all adding to the mosaic we constructed in our minds that came to immortalize the trip.
On the afternoon of our last day, we sat together on the edge of McDonald Creek with our feet dangling above the cool waters. I realized that the worries that had been gnawing at me before I left seemed faraway and manageable. This comfort came from being a thousand miles away from my normal life, with the bonus that my iPhone functioned only as a camera inside the No Service boundaries of the park. Without the usual notifications, calendar updates, and texts, I was free to be still, watch, and listen to the movement of the natural world around me. It was a freeing experience to recognize the validity of usually stressful thoughts without letting them take root. I could hold each worry as it came and then let it drift down the river out of sight.
Even as I write this, tucked in the corner of a quiet cabin flying high above the dark earth, the winking lights of home are calling my name. The everyday worries and questions are looming closer, but they don't seem as insurmountable. This effect makes vacations a necessity, in whatever form this means for you. It could be as adventurous as a trek into the wild or as restorative as a hotel on the beach.
It could also be a simple break in the midst of your day. A minute in the morning to appreciate the color of your coffee, an afternoon spent with your phone on silent. As we construct our busy lives, piled precariously with duties and habits, we forget to leave room for ourselves. Even college students– whose lives are in continual motion with shifting schedules, living arrangements, and travels between home and school– need to cultivate small moments of peace.
Make room for your quiet, if only for a moment. You've earned it.
