See Beyond Staff's 10 Best Practical Tips to Get a Truly Restful Vacation

Aït Benhaddou, Morocco Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

As those living and working cross-culturally, we are used to packing bags to transition from one country to another. We’re used to preparing for the work of crossing the transition bridge, and some of us do that more often than we’d like. But what about preparing for a truly restful vacation? How do we do that?  

In addition to the normal burdens of mono-cultural life, we have the extra stresses of living among those with different world views, different rules, and, generally, an altogether different environment. As a result, good rest, be it through naps, good sleep, or a restful vacation, are all the more important. 

We’ve gathered thoughts from our See Beyond staff to give you our best insight on preparing to get a restful vacation. Once you have your mindset and attitudes ready to rest, it’s time for some practical tips. 

Preparing to Rest

1. Consider scheduling a vacation of at least two weeks. Often, the first three days of vacation are spent thinking of what you just left behind, and the last three days are spent thinking of what you have to get back to. If you struggle with this like I used to, you’ll need a longer vacation to get the rest that your body and soul need.  

2. Try to get as much work done ahead of time as you can before leaving on vacation. 

3. Let your friends, family, and regular work contacts know that you’ll be on vacation in advance. Many people will want to give you the space you need to rest if they just know it’s coming.

4. Set up automated “out of office” replies on your email. Extend the time to cover extra days after you return home to give yourself grace to ease back into work. You can certainly end the “unavailable” reply sooner if you are ready to. 

5. If you have business applications on some chat systems like WhatsApp, you can change your status to “out of office.” If I can’t change my status, I simply move the apps to the second or third page past my home screen so I don’t see them unless I intentionally look for them. You can change your status to “unavailable” on some applications. You can also respond, “I’m unavailable till X date,” or, “I’ll get back to you next week on this,” when needed. 

 
 

“A quick ‘I’ll get back to you after vacation’ message to clients who do message me during vacation helps me let it go and be present in rest mode.”

—Tim, See Beyond Counselor

6. Get someone to watch your work emails for you. Ask this person to only contact you if someone dies or there is a critical, “can’t wait” kind of problem. Give them examples of what you mean, and ask them to push you to allow more things to actually wait. Better yet, delegate your work emails to someone you can train/trust to respond on your behalf. 

7. Plan a margin and schedule yourself lightly the week after you return home. You’ll have things to catch up on.

8. Bulk cook. Prepare and freeze some meals to enjoy the night you get back home and for a few days after. If driving to your vacation spot, take some ready-made meals with you to give yourself a break from cooking.

“We recently took a trip where we ate out the whole time instead of trying to prepare some meals and I was shocked at how restful that was.” 

— Lynne, See Beyond Counselor

9. Discuss expectations with your travel companions before you go. Talk about sleeping and eating rhythms, activities, shared time versus solo time, and finances, in advance, so those discussions don’t distract from your desired rest.  

“We set aside money and know what is budgeted each day so that finances are not something that need to be discussed with every decision. Deciding beforehand what ‘big ticket’ items we spend money on, like an excursion or nice dinner out, has helped me get more restful vacations.”

– Nell, See Beyond Trainer 


10. Many people only sleep really well while on vacation, so when possible, learn what you can about the comfort of the location—including the bed—before booking.  Or, take what you need to make it comfortable. 

“Bring your own pillow.”

– Several See Beyond Staff!

 
 


Keeping it Restful

Having mentioned several practical things to consider or do in advance, let's turn to a few ways to keep your vacation restful once it has begun.

1. Create a rhythm of rest—build rest into your schedule. (Don't just “wing it” and hope you rest.) Include plenty of margin in your schedule so you can roll with unexpected events and still get rest. 

2. Choose not to check work emails and texts. 

3. Schedule big blocks of time each day to do something that refreshes and restores you. 

“Be intentional with time so that it’s restful or fun, but don’t just exist or check out mentally. And it feels obvious, but don’t fill every moment of the vacation full, but allow down time.”

– Lynne, See Beyond Counselor

Some refreshing or restorative activities could include:

“Taking time to reflect and appreciate and allow awe/wonder to rise again in my perspective on life is important to me.” 

– Bryan, See Beyond Debriefer

Those are See Beyond staff’s best tips and thoughts. We realize not everything we suggest will fit your specific situation. Just this week, I spoke to a mom with pre-teens at home and aging parents across the ocean. Most of her vacation time has been spent meeting their needs in recent years. She shared that her most restful times away are actually when she needs to take a work trip and can focus on just one thing, instead of the dozens that usually vie for her time. 

However you get rest, we hope one or more of these tips will be helpful to you. 

We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments box below. For now, our hope is that your next vacation will be a little bit more restful than your last. 

 
 
Well BeingKatie ReidVacation, Family, Stress, Rest