Your Vacation Shouldn’t Need a Recovery Period

There is something ridiculous about spending thousands of dollars to escape your busy life, then booking a holiday that requires more stamina than your busy life. Up at six. Suitcase out at seven. Bus at eight. Three attractions, two queues, one sandwich eaten standing up. By Thursday, you’re negotiating with your knees and wondering whether it’s rude to skip a cathedral. You come home with 900 photographs and a desperate need to be left alone.

At our recent travel night, the discussion about where people want to go took an interesting turn. Our speaker pointed to Japan and other parts of Asia, Latin America, and growing interest in forests and cooler destinations. Big cities weren’t where he was seeing the same excitement. That caught my attention. Because underneath a conversation about destinations is a much more useful question: what do we actually want a holiday to do for us?

The weather is part of the holiday

Canadians have spent generations treating warmth as the prize. Get through winter, get on a plane, get somewhere you can remove six layers without a medical team.

Understandable. But warm and wonderful aren’t interchangeable.

There’s a difference between enjoying lunch on a terrace and calculating whether you can reach the next patch of shade without becoming a cautionary tale.

Booking.com’s 2026 research found that 25% of surveyed travellers were seeking cooler destinations and 42% planned to travel outside peak season. These are stated intentions, rather than a count of completed holidays, but they suggest comfort is getting a louder vote in travel decisions.

My interpretation? People still want adventure. They’d just like to be conscious for it.

The useful question isn’t simply, “Is this a good country to visit?” It’s, “What will it be like to be there on the actual dates I’m considering?”

A beautiful place can make a miserable trip if you arrive in weather you can’t tolerate. Before booking, look at typical daytime temperatures, humidity, rainfall and daylight for that month. Then look at the itinerary. Four hours walking outside is a different proposition from a short stroll followed by a long lunch.

Choose for the body you’re bringing. Your imaginary body can climb the mountain. Your actual body gets a vote.

Japan is a country, not a three-city checklist

Japan came up at travel night, and it’s easy to understand the curiosity. It offers the possibility of a trip that feels genuinely different: food, customs, architecture, landscapes and the everyday pleasure of noticing how another place works.

But a destination can be exciting without every day needing to be packed.

For someone considering Japan, I’d ask a question before getting lost in hotel reviews: do you want an energetic city trip, or do you want cities mixed with quieter places, gardens, regional towns and time to wander?

Neither answer is more sophisticated. They produce different holidays.

The same applies to Asia more broadly. “I want to go to Asia” begins the conversation. It doesn’t tell you whether you want markets, mountains, beaches, temples, food or a week with very little on the agenda.

Start with what you’d enjoy doing on an ordinary Tuesday of the trip. If every answer involves rushing somewhere, consider leaving yourself a Tuesday that doesn’t.

Latin America deserves more than one brochure picture

Latin America was another part of the discussion, and it deserves a little more thought than “sunshine somewhere south.”

What interests you? Forests? Wildlife? Food? History? A landscape you’ve never seen before? There is a big difference between wanting a beach holiday and wanting a trip built around nature, even if both appear in the same travel brochure.

And a photograph of a forest tells you remarkably little about what the day requires.

How do you get there? How long are the transfers? Is the walk on a maintained path or uneven ground? Are there stairs? Is there somewhere to sit? What happens if you want to skip an activity?

These aren’t dreary questions. They’re how you protect the fun.

Also, forest doesn’t automatically mean cool. Green scenery, comfortable temperatures and easy walking are three separate things. Check each one rather than letting a gorgeous photograph do all your thinking.

I want people to come home with a story. Preferably one that doesn’t begin, “Well, nobody mentioned the steps.”

A city can be wonderful. The pace can be dreadful.

I wouldn’t take the travel-night discussion as a reason to write off big cities. I’m interested in a Paris trip built around bodies, bones, gothic stories and a little theatrical mischief. Clearly, I haven’t sworn off pavement.

What I do question is the assumption that seeing more means getting more from a trip.

You can spend four days in a city and remember one excellent afternoon: a strange little museum, a conversation over lunch, a shop you wandered into because you had time.

Meanwhile, the seven attractions you raced through can merge into one expensive blur.

My rule would be to choose one main experience for the day, then build around it. Leave room for the meal that runs long. Leave room to get interested. Leave room to sit down without feeling you’re failing tourism.

You are allowed to visit a famous place without personally inspecting every important building.

They’ll cope.

“Free time” needs a little translation

One thing I’d love travellers to examine more closely is that cheerful phrase in itineraries: free time.

Sometimes it means a lovely afternoon with several appealing choices nearby. Sometimes it means you’ve been dropped somewhere unfamiliar and now need to find food, a bathroom and a reason you agreed to this.

Ask where that free time happens. Can you walk from the hotel to dinner? Is there an easy place to get coffee? Can you explore independently, or does every outing require transportation?

And if you’re travelling alone, ask yourself how much solitude you actually want.

There’s a difference between enjoying your own company and spending another evening wishing you had someone to tell about the ridiculous thing you saw that afternoon.

The company matters. So does the freedom to take a break from the company. Before travelling with friends or a group, talk about pace, budgets, early mornings and time apart. “We get along beautifully at dinner” is useful information. It doesn’t tell you how you’ll get along on day eight.

Plan a day you want to live

If you’re wondering what to do with all these travel trends, I’d start here: picture one full day of the holiday you want.

Where do you wake up? What happens after breakfast? How much walking feels good? Who are you eating with? Do you want a busy evening or a book and an early night?

Be honest. This is your money, your time and your holiday. You don’t have to choose a destination that makes somebody else impressed at a dinner party.

Then use that day to judge the itinerary. Count the hotel changes. Look at the travel days. Ask what’s optional. Check whether there’s enough room for the things you say you enjoy.

If you love lingering over meals but the schedule allows forty minutes for lunch, believe the schedule.

If you want nature but most of the trip is spent moving between hotels, ask how much time you’ll actually spend outside.

And if you want to come home rested, don’t book twelve consecutive days that require you to be an unusually cheerful athlete.

What interested me most at travel night wasn’t which destination might be next. It was the possibility of choosing travel more thoughtfully: a different place, a more comfortable season, a pace that lets you notice where you are.

I want the dinner that lasts. The unexpected laugh. The afternoon that goes slightly off plan and becomes the story you keep telling.

Book a holiday you want to be awake for.

Research source: Booking.com, “Research Reveals How Climate Uncertainty is Reshaping Peak Season Travel,” April 20, 2026. https://news.booking.com/bookingcom-research-reveals-how-climate-uncertainty-is-reshaping-peak-season-travel/