This is the last post of my 3-part series on Travel. In my first post, I revealed we’re no longer in the honeymoon phase in our love affair with Thailand. Last week, I shared some thoughts on Slow Travel. This week, I want to pitch a new idea – the Unconventional Staycation.

Do Vacations Make Us Happier?

Cartoon from liebers.com

Do vacations make us happier?  Shockingly, the answer for most people is no! According to a study performed by researchers in the Netherlands, vacationers were the happiest before their vacations. The researchers found that people derive the most pleasure from the planning, anticipating, and looking forward to their travels. The study found that vacation anticipation boosted happiness levels for eight weeks, but that happiness dropped back to the baseline level for most people as soon as they returned home! The only people who reportedly had higher levels of happiness after returning from vacation described their trips as “very relaxing”.

I don’t know about you, but in a world full of flight delays, lost luggage, car trouble, hurricanes, and broken air conditioners, you just about have to win the lottery to be able to describe your getaway as “very relaxing”. Enter a new hair-brained idea…

The Unconventional Staycation

Cartoon by Chuck Ingwersen of wordsandtoons.com

I’d like to pitch a fun idea to you that Kevin’s genius friend Michael came up with. We’ve all probably heard of the concept of the staycation, where you take paid time off of work but opt to stay home rather than travel. It actually sounds like a pretty relaxing idea. You get to sleep in your own bed, don’t have to pay for hotel rooms, no one is going to try to nickel and dime you, and you get to avoid spending 18+ hours on an airplane.

Here’s the new twist – add a cultural bend to your next Staycation. Instead of just spending your week bumming around the house relaxing, use your week off to immerse yourself in a new culture without even leaving your hometown. The US is full of people who have moved here from all over the world, so it’s easier than ever to experience foreign traditions and foods in most cities and towns across America. Rent foreign films, read books about foreign cultures, go out for foreign food, listen to foreign music, throw a themed party (Cinco de Mayo, Oktoberfest, Carnivale, etc…), you get the idea!

She Faked a Trip to SE Asia

Beautiful, right? This is the Sakya Temple in Seattle!

One girl in the Netherlands took this idea to the next level. For 42 days, she faked a trip to Southeast Asia, fooling all of her friends and family with her Facebook posts showing her awesome trip. She ate exotic Asian foods at restaurants in her hometown of Amsterdam, visited a temple to talk to Buddhist monks, and even posted pictures of her snorkeling! (Turns out the photo was taken in a pool, and fish were photoshopped in later, but I don’t judge.)

The whole fake trip was a college project to show that posts on Facebook don’t necessarily paint an accurate picture of peoples lives. I have to give her credit for her commitment – she even decorated her room to look like a Southeast Asia hotel, and skyped with her family at odd hours of the night. I don’t think it’s necessary to take things that far, but you get the point.

Some Staycation Ideas

I came up with a few staycation ideas, but I think this would be easier to brainstorm if I was in Seattle. The wine aisle at Trader Joes would be fabulous for inspiration – their wines are divided up BY COUNTRY. I don’t know about you, but I really like to let booze help me make creative decisions. Here are some of my ideas:

Bust out your Beret!

France: Make crepes for breakfast, or have French Toast (I realize that’s probably not actually French, but cut me some slack). Rent the movie Amelie. Pack some baguette sandwiches and go on a lunch picnic. Take up smoking. Buy a beret and wear it around town. Attempt to make croissants (good luck on that one). And, of course, be sure you have a bottle of wine every day. Sounds like a good vacation to me.

Mexico: This one is easy, because almost every town in America has lots of Mexican Food Restaurants where you can eat ALL WEEK LONG. Also, this one means a siesta every afternoon – win! This staycation should end with a bang – grab a piñata from your local party store, put on some mariachi music, throw a fiesta for your friends, and go to town on the margaritas.

Thai Staycation Bonus: You won’t get pooped on in the water by an elephant.

Thailand: This week, you should have noodle or rice soup for breakfast! But no cereal. Splurge a little bit and get a bunch of mangos from Costco this week. Learn to make the heavenly dish that is som tam. If you really want to go all out, hide your hand soap and downgrade to scratchy toilet paper (I still haven’t found anything like Charmin over here). Go to the zoo and look at elephants. Find and visit a Buddhist temple in your area, and try to meet some monks. Go out for as much Thai food as you can handle (spoiler alert: Thai food never, ever gets old).

Put on your Leiderhosen!

Germany: Guten tag! The wine of the week is Riesling! Meals this week should be heavy on the meat, potatoes and cheese, and raw vegetables should be scarce. Eat softboiled eggs, prosciutto, brie, and bread rolls for breakfast. BE SURE TO BUY SOME NUTELLA. Bake some homemade pretzels and gingerbread, play lots of Oompah music like you’d hear at Oktoberfest. I will not judge you if you buy a leiderhosen or dirndl and wear it all week long. You should also get your own liter beer mug. Order an imported keg of German beer, and throw your own Oktoberfest party!

England: I don’t care what you do for this one, as long as you talk in a British accent all week.

We Want to Hear from You!

These are just a few of my thoughts – what are your ideas? I get more and more excited about this type of a staycation the more I think about it – how fun would something like this be for kids?!

This post is Part 2 of a 3-part series on Travel.  I made a shameful admission last week that Kevin and I have recently discovered we might not like to travel.  (GASP!)  But there’s hope!  A new travel movement called “Slow Travel” is sweeping through the backpacker and digital nomad communities.

What is Slow Travel?

This is how to pack for an extended period of Slow Travel.

The Slow Travel movement is something that is quietly becoming a “thang” in our generation.  (I may have made that word up, but I use it all the time, so therefore it is real.  I define a “thang” as a popular trend.  Used in a sentence: “Skinny jeans are a thang now.”)  Slow Travel sprung out of the Slow Food movement, which began in the 1980’s in Italy as a protest against the opening of a McDonalds in Rome.  Instead of a manic 2-week vacation schedule, packed to the brim with tourist stop after tourist stop, slow travelers try to base their travels in one location and spend their vacation at a much slower pace.  Think about how relaxing it could be to rent a small home in Tuscany and spend your morning at the local farmer’s market, your afternoon reading at your favorite coffee shop, and evenings cooking dinner and enjoying a bottle of wine on your terrace.  In the US, slow travel is manifesting itself as a renewed interest in historic two-lane roads, like Route 66.

Traveling Slowly means you get to make fun trips to immigration. YAY.

Slow Travel is all about getting to know local people and learning about the culture in a new place instead of checking as many destinations as possible off of a list.  The biggest perk of all?  Slow Travel can be a lot easier on your wallet.  When you rent a place by the week or month, the nightly rates tend to drop dramatically.  Also, traveling slowly tends to mean you get off the tourist trail a little bit.  This can save money in restaurants and shops.  We’ve noticed that in Chiang Mai, a food and groceries tend to cost almost twice as much in the tourist areas compared to the neighborhood where we live.

How Do We Slow Down?

Cartoon from http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au/

Did you know that the United States is the only developed country in the whole world that doesn’t require a single legally required paid vacation day or holiday?  According to a USA Today article published in 2013, workers in the US have an average of 16 paid days off per year, while the average in Austria is a whopping 35 days!  I was shocked to read that one in four Americans doesn’t receive a single paid day off.  Here’s a peek at some paid time off statistics from around the world.  Warning, the data in this table may make you feel angry/sad/jaded:

I don’t want to hate on our American culture too much here.  I mean, America is the home of so many things I truly love:  Chicago style deep dish pizza, wheel of fortune, Bluegrass music, the Super Bowl, incredibly beautiful National Parks, apple pie, walkable cities, lemonade stands, Thanksgiving, fantastic comedy (Louis C.K., Jon Stewart, Parks & Rec, Saturday Night Live, I could go on and on…), Hamburgers and Hot Dogs, craft beer, and good BBQ.   I just think it’s sort of ironic that having an American passport enables you to travel nearly anywhere in the world, but being American means you probably don’t have the time to do it.

Is There a Solution?

Here we are at Seatac Airport in April, leaving for our big adventure.

Vacation limitations are a huge part of why Kevin and I quit our jobs and moved abroad.  As my infamous vacation usage spreadsheet grew and grew, we realized that we’d have to wait until our mid-forties to have kids if we wanted to get through our travel list first. We feel so lucky we were able to save up to do this, and even luckier that there are places like Chiang Mai where we can stretch our dollars many times further than we did back home.

Slow Travel Pro Trip: Learn to work from a hammock!

So is there a solution to the never-having-enough-vacation problem?  Unfortunately, it feels like a cultural shift needs to occur in America for anything to change.  I think there’s hope, though!  More and more companies are shifting towards an “unlimited” vacation model, allowing employees to take as many vacation days as they want as long as they get their work done.  It’s becoming increasingly common at newer companies.  Evernote, a tech company, took things a step further, according to a Forbes article from 2012.  Recognizing that taking time off actually makes employees more productive, Evernote began offering employees $1,000 per year to spend on their vacations!  FullContact, another tech company, calls this new trend “paid paid vacation”, and offers its employees a generous $7,500 per year!  They also stipulate that you must truly unplug, and don’t allow their employees to work remotely while they’re away.  I like it.

We Want to Hear from You!

What do you think about the current vacation policies in America?  Do you think we’re moving in the right direction?  Where do you think things will be in a few decades?

Turns Out We Don’t Like To Travel. Oops.

This may surprise you, but Kevin and I have recently realized that we don’t like to travel.

I know I know, what the heck are we doing living over here in Southeast Asia if we don’t like travel? We’ve been asking ourselves the same question, and we are more than a little surprised by this realization.

When we were living and working in Seattle, we would plan these fantastic, action-packed vacations, designed to squeeze every hour out of our accrued vacation we possibly could. I had a ridiculously elaborate spreadsheet that laid out our vacation hours well into the year 2017. Shame on you if you surprised us with a destination wedding, causing me to re-jigger my schedule (now how will we see Machu Picchu in 2016?!)

We looked forward to these vacations all year long, cherished every day of our trip, but were usually exhausted when we got home. We felt trapped by our limited vacation hours, but we were also disappointed at the way vacations wore us out. This is one of the biggest reasons we cooked up this move-to-Southeast-Asia scheme. Don’t get us wrong, we definitely feel lucky to be here. We just want to be honest about the disappointments and share some of our thoughts.

Three Types of Travel

Kevin and I have been having a lot of philosophical conversations lately about travel, and have decided that there three types of travel:

• First, and most common among working Americans, is the frenetic fast-paced see-it-all-do-it-all trip where you hop from destination to destination in an effort to maximize every last minute of your 2-weeks of vacation. It’s common at the end of these trips to feel like you need a vacation from your vacation, but usually it’s just time to go back to work.
• Second is the “Slow Travel” movement. More on this next week, but this type of travel tends to be the type where you stay in one place for a month or so, and get acquainted with the local culture. Spoiler alert: I think this style of travel is the most appealing.
• Third is the “Living Abroad” or “Extreme Slow” style of travel. This is what we’re doing right now, living for 6+ months here in Thailand. The problem with this type of travel is that you’re in one place long enough to get through the “This is awesome” and “I could stay here forever” phases, and run into the jaded “Why can’t they do things like in Amurrrrica” phase.

The Pitfalls of Fast Travel

Fast Travel in Germany. WE MUST SEE ALL THE CASTLES!

When is the last time you’ve returned from two weeks of vacation feeling rested? Many of us have experienced a vacation where you try to pack too much sightseeing into a limited amount of time. My parents might remember our family vacation in Southern California when I was 12 years old and wrote out an itinerary designed to maximize our trip by scheduling everything down to the half-hour. I wanted to ensure we got to hit both Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Cafe for meals. This has apparently been a lifelong problem for me.

Let’s face it, fast travel is not super fun. With a tightly packed schedule, a problem like lost luggage blows up into an all-consuming catastrophe. You might end up missing out on an entire beach day because you had to go shopping for a new bikini and sunblock. There’s just hardly any margin for anything to go wrong. Fast travel also usually leaves me with a sense of homelessness from packing up and moving so often, and you can end up spending more time getting to new destinations than actually getting to see them.

This is Kevin’s I’ve-seen-enough-castles-and-churches-to-last-a-lifetime Face.

Even though we’re now unemployed, Kevin and I somehow STILL fall into the fast travel trap when we go on little mini-trips here in Southeast Asia. When we were recently in Koh Tao and Koh Phangan, we couldn’t wait to get back “home” to Chiang Mai. When we finally did get back, Kevin had an ear infection, I was having headaches because my sinuses got so dry, we were cut, scratched, bumped and bruised, and we both pulled muscles getting back into our gym routine! Fast travel literally takes a physical toll on us, but we still can’t seem to help ourselves.

Fast Traveling means never recovering from a hangover. Oktoberfest 2012.

The Fast Travel habit is such a hard one to break, and I think a lot of it stems from America’s fast-paced style of living and the fact that most of us only get two weeks of vacation per year. Naturally, we want to make the most of those precious two weeks. But how do you satisfy the I-want-to-see-the-whole-world mentality without traveling so fast that you miss out on some of the best things a culture has to offer? If you’re planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe, how do you see all the major cities without feeling like you only scratched the surface of each one? How do you “see enough” without “seeing too little”? I don’t know the right answers to those questions. I have a feeling that winning the lottery might help, though.

The Pitfalls of Living Abroad

Kevin and I fall into the Extreme Slow Travel category right now, and some of the cultural differences we used to find “cute” are now just exasperating. For example, I am beyond annoyed at the fact that pedestrians in Chiang Mai never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER have the right of way. Ever! Even if you’re at a cross walk stoplight, and the light is red for the cars, they’re very likely to run through the light. I’m currently working towards perfecting my New Yorker accent on the phrase “heeeeey, I’m walkin’ heeeere!”  Also, we just spent a ridiculous amount of time lost in the Thai medical system and only have 10 sleeping pills to show for it (see last week’s post).

Living abroad means you might pay over $4 for a single can of Budweiser. You’ll be sad about the price, and even sadder when you realize it tastes good compared to what you’ve gotten used to drinking.

I also had an absurd realization today. Kevin and I regularly shout “POOP!” at each other when we’re out and about in Chiang Mai. This is sort of to be expected in a city with so many stray dogs – there is dog poop everywhere, and (understandably) no one cleans it up. I get that – if it’s not my dog, I’m not scooping it. I just think it’s funny that we probably say “POOP!” to each other probably more often than we say “Hello”.

I do want to defend our cultural insensitivity a little bit here by saying that this is not something that only Kevin and I are experiencing. It’s also something that’s not isolated to just Americans or people from Western cultures. We had quite the discussion with a nice Thai woman who has spent a lot of time in England because that’s where her husband is from. As it turns out, she’s super irritated with a lot of things about the British culture (speed limits, the cold weather, the food) and she doesn’t like to visit!

It seems like no matter what country you’re from, it’s tough to adjust to a new culture that differs from the one you’re used to. So that’s a relief – I’m not just an asshole traveler. Phew!

Traveling is like Eating Cake

We saw this “crepe” cake in a coffee shop in Chiang Mai

I love a good cake metaphor. So here’s my thought. Traveling is like eating chocolate cake. If you travel too fast, and only get a taste of a location, it’s like having a tiny slice of cake. You’re left with regret and a desire for more. However, if you move to a new country and stay long enough to get a little bit jaded, it’s kind of like sitting down and eating the whole damn cake. You might never want to have a piece of that cake ever again.  (Unless it’s my Grandma’s Angel Food cake with the heavenly frosting.  I could sit and eat five of those cakes without a drop of remorse.)

We Want to Hear from You!

This is part 1 in a 3-part series I’m planning on the topic of traveling. I’d love to hear your thoughts on travel. Do you like to travel? Which category appeals most to you? Have you regretted any too-short or too-long vacations?