The 3 stages of every vacation

Watching the cousins play together at the beach during our recent Maine vacation.

It's vacation season! It's an exciting time for families to mix it up, to try new things, and get out of their daily ruts. But if you've vacationed as a family before, you know it's not all fun and games. 

In my experience, there are three stages of every vacation, and they create a bit of an emotional roller coaster. The three stages are:

1) Anticipation

This is often the best stage of vacation. You’ve booked and paid for your trip and now you get to think about how awesome it will be. And every time you envision being at that beach, mountain, or lake, you get a nice little hit of dopamine.

2) Vacation

Vacation is pretty great itself but it’s also where expectations can begin to fall short of reality. For example, when you envisioned your vacation, were your kids throwing tantrums or refusing to play mini golf even after they begged to do so? I’m guessing not. Still, it’s important to do your best to take a deep breath and stay present so you enjoy your actual vacation.

3) Post vacation

When your vacation is over, you’re often happy to be home — but part of you wishes you could go back. And over time, your memories of vacation become mostly positive, while the kids’ tantrums and the mini golf debacle fade away. 

Now that we’re aware of the different stages, you might be asking, “That’s great, Brian. But why does this matter?”

Here are two reasons:

1) Being aware of the lifecycle of a vacation allows you to enjoy each stage more. 

2) The life cycle of a vacation can also be applied to your financial decisions.

Think about it. We anticipate buying that house, car, or boat. Then it happens and the reality of our decision – both good and bad – sets in. And further down the road, we romanticize the positives and tend to forget about the negatives.

So what should we do with this knowledge?

When we’re aware of this cycle, we can use it to improve our decision making.

Awareness allows us to base our decisions not only on the joy of anticipation, but also in the likely reality of the actual experience. 

This awareness also reminds us that we'll remember more of the good than the bad over time so maybe we shouldn’t sweat it as much if/when everything doesn’t go according to plan.

So the next time you have a big decision to make, be sure to consider all the stages of that decision before making it. Doing so will help you enjoy that decision more – no matter what stage you find yourself in right now.