The Completely Unnecessary Guide to Doing Absolutely Nothing on Vacation

There comes a point during every vacation when somebody needs to say it:

We don't have to do anything today.

No excursion. No reservation. No carefully planned walking tour that begins at 7:15 in the morning because somebody on the internet said that's the best time to avoid the crowds. No rushing through breakfast because a bus is leaving in twenty minutes.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

And maybe after what it took to get here, we've earned it.

Our vacation started at 3:00 in the morning, which seems like an unnecessarily hostile hour to begin anything involving palm trees and frozen drinks. By the time Sue and I reached the airport, we had already fought for a parking spot, dragged our luggage to the terminal and begun the first caffeine negotiations of the day.

We were prepared. Passports in hand. Travel documents ready.

The couple in front of us was not.

Twenty minutes later, we're still standing there while the woman explains to the ticketing agent that she has a copy of her passport. The agent explains that she needs the actual passport. The woman can't believe this. There is further discussion. Eventually they step aside and begin digging through their luggage looking for the real thing.

Holy shit.

It's barely morning and I'm already exhausted by humanity.

Eventually we make it onto the airplane. It's a little after six, and just before I turn off my phone, one last automated alert appears from work.

Switch Communication Failure.

Thirty years in IT taught me exactly what those three words usually mean.

Sue sees the look on my face.

"Anything wrong?"

I shut off the phone.

"Not anymore."

And that may be the most important travel advice I can offer.

Sometimes you need to become unavailable.

You Are Allowed to Check Out

We spend months planning vacations.

We research hotels, restaurants, beaches and excursions. We watch YouTube videos. We read reviews written by strangers whose opinions we somehow trust even though we wouldn't ask these people to watch our dog.

Then we finally arrive and immediately start worrying about whether we're doing enough.

Did we see everything?

Did we eat at the right restaurant?

Did we visit the beach everybody says we absolutely have to visit?

Did we get our money's worth?

Jesus Christ.

I didn't spend thousands of dollars to come home needing a vacation from my vacation.

I spent six hours getting here. I survived airport security, commercial air travel and a taxi driver I'll affectionately call Omar the Assassin, whose interpretation of traffic laws seemed considerably more philosophical than mine.

I've done enough.

Today I want to wear my shittiest pair of flip-flops, find someplace comfortable and shirk responsibility for a while.

The world will survive.

Probably.

The Fine Art of Accomplishing Jack Shit

Eventually Sue and I find our spot on the beach.

The water is beautiful. There are hardly any people around. Nobody expects us anywhere, and a waiter is walking in our direction.

This is more like it.

I look at Sue.

"Is it wrong to order a beer at ten in the morning?"

She barely hesitates.

"Hell, on a Saturday at home you'll have one at eleven. An hour isn't going to make any difference."

That's my girl.

I'll have a beer.

And right there is the essence of vacation.

Not the beer specifically. Although I'm certainly not arguing against it.

It's the absence of obligation.

For the next few hours, my biggest decision doesn't need to be any more consequential than beer or margarita. Frozen or classic. Pool or beach. Lunch now or lunch later.

Those are problems I can handle.

I don't want to optimize my day. I don't want to maximize my vacation dollar. I don't need to experience the destination "like a local."

The locals are probably at work.

I don't want to be at work.

That's why I'm here.

Apparently Even Doing Nothing Has Rules

Of course, sitting on a nearly empty beach introduces one of travel's great unexplained mysteries.

Why, when Sue and I find a quiet spot with practically nobody around, does somebody inevitably come along and sit directly beside us?

The whole damn beach is empty.

Look around.

Hundreds of feet of sand. Empty chairs everywhere. You could establish your own independent nation fifty yards away.

But no.

Right next to us.

Why?

Sue usually notices the look on my face before I say anything.

"Joe."

"What?"

"Leave them alone."

"I haven't said anything."

"Yet."

Marriage is beautiful.

It could be worse, I suppose. It could be a family with six screaming children.

So I take another sip of my beer and return to doing nothing.

I'm getting pretty good at this.

Stop Turning Vacation Into Work

Somewhere along the way, we even managed to make relaxing something we're supposed to accomplish correctly.

There are articles telling us how to unplug. Videos explaining how to relax. Wellness retreats teaching people how to disconnect. I'm sure somebody has already published Seven Mistakes You're Making While Sitting on the Beach.

I'm not reading it.

I'm busy.

Doing nothing.

And doing nothing doesn't necessarily mean lying motionless in a beach chair all day.

Maybe you wander somewhere for lunch because you're hungry. Maybe you find a little bar and end up talking to somebody for two hours. Maybe you take a walk without knowing where you're going.

Maybe you do absolutely nothing until Sue discovers there are shops nearby.

Then apparently we're doing something.

"Just going to look" is a phrase I've heard many times during our marriage.

I have learned not to take it literally.

But even that can be part of an unplanned day. There's a difference between doing something because you feel like it and doing something because an itinerary says you're supposed to.

That's the freedom I'm talking about.

Lunch Can Wait

We're not looking for anything fancy.

Give me a little neighborhood place with cold drinks, something good coming out of the kitchen and a bartender who knows everybody walking through the door.

Those are usually the places we remember.

Sue and I have eaten in beautiful restaurants with expensive menus that I've almost completely forgotten. Meanwhile, there are little bars and roadside places we still talk about years later.

Sometimes we intended to stay twenty minutes and stayed two hours.

Sometimes lunch happened at noon.

Sometimes lunch happened at three.

Nobody died.

Travel is funny that way. The moments that stick with you aren't necessarily the ones you spent six months planning. Sometimes they're the ones that happened because you finally stopped looking at the clock.

You Are Not Wasting Your Vacation

This may be the hardest part.

You paid good money for this trip.

Maybe a lot of money.

So sitting around doing nothing can feel like you're wasting it.

You're not.

If sitting beside the ocean for three hours makes you happy, sit there.

If you want to sleep until ten, sleep.

If you want to spend half the afternoon reading a book and the other half staring at absolutely nothing, congratulations.

You've successfully vacationed.

Leave the camera in the room once in a while. You don't need to photograph every meal. You don't need video of every beach. You don't need proof that you watched the sunset.

Sometimes it's okay to simply watch the damn thing.

The memory still counts.

And maybe that's something I've had to learn.

For most of my adult life, something has always required attention. Phones ring. Emails arrive. Work breaks. Things need fixing.

That little Switch Communication Failure alert would normally have meant something needed my attention.

But not that morning.

Not for the next week.

Whatever was broken would get fixed.

Or it wouldn't.

Either way, the sun was going to come up, airplanes were going to fly and somewhere a network switch was going to continue having whatever existential crisis network switches have when I'm not around.

The world didn't need me for a week.

There's something incredibly freeing about realizing that.

This Guide Is Completely Unnecessary

Of course, you don't actually need instructions for doing nothing.

That's why this guide is completely unnecessary.

There are no steps. No packing list. No reservations. No admission price.

You simply give yourself permission to stop.

That doesn't mean Sue and I spend every vacation sitting around. Far from it. We explore. We eat. We wander. We take pictures. We make videos. Sue shops. I complain about how much Sue shops. It's a functioning ecosystem.

But every once in a while, there should be a day with nothing written on it.

No alarm.

No schedule.

No place you're supposed to be.

Tomorrow can be busy.

Today, I'm sitting here.

The water is warm. The beer is cold. My phone is off. Sue is beside me, and nobody needs anything from us.

Eventually we may get hungry.

Eventually Sue may decide we're "just going to look" at something.

Eventually I may have to make the biggest decision of the day:

Frozen margarita or classic?

But that can wait.

I'm on vacation.