You’ve got limited vacation time, limited free weekends and
limited funds, but you really want to travel a lot during the year. Maybe it’s
time for a microcation.
Popular with millennials, a microcation is a small break,
usually a few days long, where you pack those days full of things to do. It is
not a long leisurely weekend, but a way to get the most bang for your buck (and
schedule).
Young workers sometimes can’t take weeks of vacation at once
or don’t want to limit themselves to one or two vacations a year, so they’re
breaking up their trips into small action-packed chunks. These vacation bites
are more intense, like speed sightseeing.
There are lots of pluses to taking a short vacation. One, the
less time you stay at a location, the cheaper it is because you’re not paying
for a lot of lodging or food. You also don’t need so much luggage because you
need less stuff. Instead of one vacation, you can sprinkle them throughout the
year and really maximize your time off.
Of course, there are downsides to a microcation, too. For one, if you like to
travel at a snail’s pace, you won’t enjoy the fast life of a microcation. Since
you’re not staying in one place long, you also don’t get the immersive feel
that comes with living somewhere for a week or two. And, because you don’t want
to waste lots of time in airports and on planes, you can’t go too far. If you
know how to structure your trip, though, and like to be on the move, it can be really fun.
The most important tip for a microcation is to have a plan.
A well-organized itinerary from sun up to sundown will maximize your time exploring. Because you don’t have a lot of travel time, explore the world immediately around you, just
a few hours drive or a short plane ride away. Plan your microcation for a long
weekend so you don’t even need to take a lot of time off of work.
Instead of picking one big destination next year, see what it
would be like to plan several and just do the highlights of each location. You
might just be surprised how rich of an experience you can have with such intentional,
thoughtful travel.