Do you need an Adventure, an Experience, or a Vacation?

I just returned from a short family vacation with G’s family. Not all of them, just eight of us in a big house on a lake in Virginia.

The house had kayaks, but we brought a SUP and some blow-up floating things. G rented a pontoon boat so she could whip the kids around the lake on tubes, and her brother and nephew could fish off it.

It was swell, except for a spaghetti sauce jar that crashed all over the kitchen floor, but we won’t speak of that. 

On the drive down, G and I discussed the difference between a vacation, an experience, and an adventure. 

G said every vacation with her family is an adventure, but I disagreed. 

My definition of an adventure is when there is some danger, risk, anxiety, or fear. Neither of us has any of those emotions with her family. 

My trip to Paris in February was definitely an adventure, however.

 I traveled to a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language and was unfamiliar with the culture. I had a lot of pre-trip anxiety and a little fear but also lots of excitement. I rode high on adrenaline for weeks leading up to the trip, and once home again, I could still feel my body humming from the experience for days. 

People who take long backpacking trips know what I’m talking about. Or people who jump out of planes and launch themselves down ski slopes. Or those souls who hike the Appalachian Trail or go skydiving. Those are adventures. 

An experience is something new that happens within the scope of your ordinary life. You try a new restaurant or see a new band.  

An experience is when you do something you’ve never done before, but there’s very little risk or fear. It’s just new to you. You try scuba diving or go kayaking for the first time. That kind of thing. It’s novel and exciting but not terribly risky.

Experiences can be bad, too. You get a flat tire on a dark road at night in the rain, or you get food poisoning eating shellfish and vomit all night. That’s an experience of the not-so-good kind. 

But a vacation is when you get away from home. You vacate your premises to break your routine and, ideally, create emptiness in your crowded-with-obligations life.  

There’s not a lot of anxiety or fear around taking a vacation, even if it’s to a place you’ve never been before. You know you’ll be safe there. There are more knowns than unknowns. You book an AirBnB and scope out the food and activities beforehand. You schedule fun experiences.

Vacations are meant to be relaxing, and rejuvenating.

If you come home from your vacation exhausted and stressed out and feel you need a vacation from your vacation, something went wrong.

Tomorrow is the first day of summer. It’s the perfect time to think about what you want for yourself in the next few months. 

Are you craving an adventure? Something a little risky and scary that will give you great stories to tell for a long time?

Or do you want to have a bunch of new experiences closer to home, such as exploring trails or eateries, taking golf lessons, or learning pickleball?

Or do you need to get away, vacate your town? Do you need a plane trip or a car trip to somewhere different enough from your ordinary life so you can refresh and renew your spirits? The beach? The mountains? The lake? Your happy place?

What do you need? I hope you make it happen because summer is the time for adventures, experiences, and vacations.

 Happy Summer! Happy Solstice!

Here are some pictures from the family vacation at the lake:

G floats

Kirsten and Kath relax

G, Kath and Charlotte out on the kayaks

Brooke, Derek, Kirsten and G floating