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I spend a big chunk of my summers in nowhere cow-ville France (la Creuse). No Michelin star restaurants, no art galleries, no shopping worth note. Just landscap

I spend a big chunk of my summers in nowhere cow-ville France (la Creuse). No Michelin star restaurants, no art galleries, no shopping worth note. Just landscapes, hiking, lakes and slower life. BUT what surprises me most is how often I describe this to people, even the French, and they’re like “why / pourquoi ?!” Is it not obvious? There’s a reason people say they need a vacation after their vacation. I think it’s that people are expecting too much of their vacations.

orwin 9d ago
I quit paris to work on the coast to sail at least every two weekends (and took up foiling for the evenings), I'd say I now need way, way less vacations than I used to.
Cthulhu_ 9d ago
Sounds like there's two kinds of vacations, the one to relax, decompress, slow down and go offline for a bit, and the one where you explore the world and experience new things. Both are valid, and combining the two is great. I'm now thinking of USAmericans taking a eurotrip and visiting a different city every day. I hope some of them mix it up and stay in cowville, France for a few days.
- cpursley 9d ago
  Was lucky enough to spend a week in Rome this summer, and even that was not enough time (and I've been before, still not enough combined time). It's wild when I hear about people hitting 4 different EU cities in the same time period, sounds exhausting.
- nickjj 9d ago
  > Both are valid, and combining the two is great. I'm a big fan of combining the two. When I spent 3 weeks in Türkiye solo traveling (from the US) I tried to have a few home bases. For example 5 full days of hiking 15-20 km in Cappadocia, 3 days near Selçuk and the rest in Istanbul. You wouldn't think a massive city like Istanbul would be relaxing but it is when you're out of your hotel for 15 hours a day on foot with nothing but a list of bullet points that don't depend on planning anything ahead of time other than to make sure the thing you want to see is open when you're near the area. Everyone is different but for me, I like not needing to be at X location at Y time a bunch of times in a row. A few of those are fine, but it can't be a majority of the trip. I try to treat road trips the same, 3-4 nights per stop (maybe 2 nights if it's a smaller place). Time to decompress and explore is important IMO. Walking around while seeing new things is the ultimate form of decompression for me.
mystifyingpoi 9d ago
> vacation after their vacation Having a family, the best rest for me is the 2-3 days when I'm back at work after vacation. No kids running around, no need to plan anything, just slowly going through hundreds of already irrelevant emails, pretending to do something productive, sipping coffee while telling everyone that I'm "catching up, sorry, can't help ya".

orwin 9d ago

I quit paris to work on the coast to sail at least every two weekends (and took up foiling for the evenings), I'd say I now need way, way less vacations than I used to.

Cthulhu_ 9d ago

Sounds like there's two kinds of vacations, the one to relax, decompress, slow down and go offline for a bit, and the one where you explore the world and experience new things. Both are valid, and combining the two is great. I'm now thinking of USAmericans taking a eurotrip and visiting a different city every day. I hope some of them mix it up and stay in cowville, France for a few days.

cpursley 9d ago
Was lucky enough to spend a week in Rome this summer, and even that was not enough time (and I've been before, still not enough combined time). It's wild when I hear about people hitting 4 different EU cities in the same time period, sounds exhausting.
nickjj 9d ago
> Both are valid, and combining the two is great. I'm a big fan of combining the two. When I spent 3 weeks in Türkiye solo traveling (from the US) I tried to have a few home bases. For example 5 full days of hiking 15-20 km in Cappadocia, 3 days near Selçuk and the rest in Istanbul. You wouldn't think a massive city like Istanbul would be relaxing but it is when you're out of your hotel for 15 hours a day on foot with nothing but a list of bullet points that don't depend on planning anything ahead of time other than to make sure the thing you want to see is open when you're near the area. Everyone is different but for me, I like not needing to be at X location at Y time a bunch of times in a row. A few of those are fine, but it can't be a majority of the trip. I try to treat road trips the same, 3-4 nights per stop (maybe 2 nights if it's a smaller place). Time to decompress and explore is important IMO. Walking around while seeing new things is the ultimate form of decompression for me.

mystifyingpoi 9d ago

> vacation after their vacation Having a family, the best rest for me is the 2-3 days when I'm back at work after vacation. No kids running around, no need to plan anything, just slowly going through hundreds of already irrelevant emails, pretending to do something productive, sipping coffee while telling everyone that I'm "catching up, sorry, can't help ya".