[DOF] Advice and Second Opinions: Holiday

As it is coming to summer soon, I would like to discuss about holidays. When holiday is mentioned the first thing that comes to my mind is summer and travelling. During the holidays, I love travelling to sunny places. Now, I believe there’s a reason for my choice of sunny places and it’s not because I like the beaches or tanning. It’s more of the reason that packing is so much easier because you’re just packing light needless of padded coats and layering on. Despite this, I still seem to have some problems and over pack most of the time/all the time.

As I have already mentioned, or sort of hinted, I am not a beach person nor a resort person. I do enjoy it although I don’t think I would be able to last a week in a hotel or a resort by the beach alone. I tried which I thought would just be a relaxing holiday week but it never lasted until I craved the city. The hustling and bustling city with the shops, countless of restaurants and cafes, and just walk under the sun. There’s just so much to do.

Now I don’t know about you guys but when I go to another country, I love to try out their cuisine. I go travelling not just for the bragging rights of being in that country but also for the food and the culture. I have travelled with a friend before/last year, and I ended up eating in McDonald’s for maybe 3/4 (or more) of the four days of that short getaway. I was money prepared to spend for the trip, which I always am during holidays, but I realised that when you go travelling; your companion has to be in the same boat as you. In the second day when she finally converted money (because she didn’t do so before the trip which meant I had to kind of chip in for her on our first night because we arrived in the evening), she ended up spending 3/4 or maybe more of her money in shopping in a shop that can be found in our country. Now I have nothing against shopping as I do love shopping but having the mind set of just eating fast food/McDonald’s for the whole trip is not really right because your companion has to adapt to that too. I don’t want her just sitting opposite me while I eat and I mean I don’t mind sharing but I feel bad at the same time and paying for the whole meal every time isn’t right either.

Travelling and getting to the place alone can be expensive but it is important to have the funds to treat yourself as well throughout the trip. And this doesn’t mean buying Gucci or some designer item for yourself (no, I haven’t done that I’m still a broke student at heart); what treating yourself means can be just going to maybe eat in some nice restaurant for a meal. Go for some fine dining even if it’s just once in that trip. Make it memorable at least.

As an alternate before I started travelling out of the countries more, I used to spend my holidays road tripping with family and family friends. I think there would be about 5 cars just following each other/convoying as we go to different places within the UK for each getaway trip, which is a short one (probably about 3-4 days). It was a nice family trip and there isn't the need  to worry as much with what to pack as there are no limits in terms of liquids to check in and etc. Nevertheless, as it is a group you’ve got to follow what the other decides for the day and what time you’ve got to wake up then get ready because they like to start the day very early to be as productive as ever. Despite that, it was nice and I do miss it greatly as we don’t do it anymore but I guess the children (which included me) are now too grown up for it, plus most of us can already drive ourselves to places if wanted.

What about you? How do you like to spend your holidays? Do you go travelling out of the country often and if so, do you prefer a beach or a city holiday? How do you like to treat yourself and why do you (or want to) travel? Share your thoughts and experiences (positive or negative ones) by commenting down below!