Wednesday Wellness: To Travel or Not to Travel

Image via Wikipedia

We all know that it's important to take time away from work. And many people love to travel. I usde to love to travel. But with small kids and a tight budget, we don't travel much. And I find that the less I travel the less I miss it.

The New York Times article How Vacations Affect Your Happiness may explain why. According to the article, a Dutch study about happiness and vacations showed that most of the happiness comes from the anticipation of the trip. And after the trip happiness levels drop quickly.

In the comments for the article many people mentioned they just like some time off to putter around the house. I'm pretty much that way too. In our family we also try to take short trips. We've lived quite a few places, so it's always nice to see the stuff that's close by. A lot of people never do the cool things in their own city or state. And you don't have to get on a plane, which I think is probably the worst thing about traveling.

I haven't completely given up on vacations. Especially not spa trips if I ever get a chance! We're planning a long weekend trip to Chicago (hence the photo) soon. And we hope to get to Disney World in the fall (the things I do for my children). But I'm not going to get too hung up on the fact that I don't get to travel much these days. I will just plan some pretend trips if I'm feeling down!

Daily Randomness: Sticking with the New York Times, check out this interesting article about salt. Is it good or bad? Turns out, they don't really know.