I have said for years that you pay for taking a vacation before you leave and when you get back.
There is the rush of getting everything ready to leave, and the exhaustion of putting everything back in its place when you come home .
A couple of months ago, our family went to Kentucky to visit family. While we had a great time, by the end of our stay, I missed my bed, our normal routine, and traveling by car rather than plane. (I’ll save the story about cleaning up a blowout in an airplane bathroom for another day.)
There were a few things that we did to make our “re-entry” into normal life after vacation much smoother.
5 Tips to Recover Quickly After Vacation
1. Do laundry the night before you leave.
Whether you are staying at a hotel, with family, or at an Airbnb, you likely have access to laundry facilities. Your return home will be so much easier if you take the time to do a couple loads of laundry the day before you leave. That way you’ll arrive home knowing you don’t have laundry to catch up on.
2. Make sure the kids get a bath before you leave.
I have two little girls, and I do not give them baths every day. They are girls; they don’t get that dirty. And washing, drying, and curling my oldest’s hair is such an ordeal that I don’t want to bathe her often. It is worth the time to bathe them the night before we leave instead of having to do it when we arrive home.
3. Create a meal plan on the way home.
Modern technology is awesome. Take a few minutes to plan a couple of meals on your way home, and order groceries online. We always grab carryout the day we arrive home, and the next day I do online grocery pickup. Meal planning and grocery ordering takes me at least 1 hour, so that’s a lot of time saved when I get home.
4. Make a list of to-dos as soon as you get home.
Coming home after several days away can be overwhelming. There is always so much to do to get caught up and back in the swing of things. But instead of getting stressed out, I make a list of everything that needs to be done and number it in the order of most to least important. Once I get everything out of my head, I can relax and focus on checking things off the list.
5. Unpack immediately.
It drives me crazy to continue to live out of a suitcase after I am home. After we unload, I immediately put everything back in its place, including the suitcases. Unpacking immediately is my way of settling back in to my home and my routine. Try it and see if it doesn’t give you momentum to tackle other tasks too.
Any travel, especially holiday travel, can be exhausting and stressful. I would love to hear your best tip for making travel and vacations smoother and more enjoyable.
BONUS: Here’s an extra tip for you. The day after you come back from vacation, jump right back into your morning routine. And, if you don’t have a morning routine, sign up for my FREE 5-day audio course Design Your Own Morning Routine.
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