This past week, my kids went back to school. Summer vacation has come and gone. And that's gotten me thinking about the very idea of summer vacation because every summer, for the past several years, my wife, her sisters and our families have had this tradition of going to a cabin for a few days to get out of the city. We don't own a cabin. We have to rent one. And this year, the process of finding it, looking at pictures of all the possible cabins on all the possible lakes, made me wonder about this particular, middle-class American ritual of going into the wilderness for vacation, where that ritual came from, and what it says about our relationship to modern life.

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Patrons:

Special thanks this week to new Patreon supporter Matt Holliday.

Links:

Where Was the Birthplace of the American Vacation?

Thoreau Leaves Walden Pond

Why Fire Makes Us Human

Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States

Music:

Gentle Chase by Podington Bear

Arrival by North Hive

Tam by LJ Kruzer