What does on holiday mean?

Wow here we are on holiday again, three long weekends over March and April, and two weeks of school holidays if you have children. Many of us are just paying off our credit cards from Christmas and back-to-school and there’s more holidays to break the bank!

I’ve already shared my top tips on ‘inexpensive ways to have fun when on holiday’, in my December Blog. But I want to pick up on one point I made in December when I suggested that we: “Change our attitude: instead of “where shall we go today?” perhaps we could ask “what shall we do today?” I want to briefly think about how we spend our time, so many of us are hooked into ‘going out’ and ‘going away’ – even the expression “on holiday” for many of us means “going away on holiday”. I want to focus on how being “on holiday” can mean staying at home – and having a great time. Perhaps I’m thinking about the growing “Slow Movement” where people are increasingly valuing slowing down, being present, being with lovely people and enjoying the moment. It’s really ironic that one of the great challenges of being middle class these days is that we seem to spend a lot of money and ‘do a lot’, in order to relax and be on holiday.

So here is my challenge, to myself and all of our readers, as we think about being on holiday over these long weekends can we change our question from “where shall we go today” to “what shall we do today”, can we spend some of these lovely long weekends being content, being slow, chilling and not consuming.

In my next column I am going to reflect on Simon’s challenge in the Money Tip this week – he asked: “Do you spend more on your car than your kids’ education? See the problem?”

Donna