← The Rachel Hollis Podcast
The Rachel Hollis Podcast
944 | How to Go on Vacation (if no one ever taught you how)
00:55:43
In this episode, Rachel argues that vacations should be intentional experiences that leave people feeling rested, inspired, and fulfilled rather than exhausted. Reflecting on her own upbringing and current lifestyle, she emphasizes the importance of prioritizing travel, and choosing the type of travel deliberately based on personal needs. Rach highlights common mistakes such as traveling with incompatible companions, over-scheduling, and focusing too much on social media instead of being present. She also encourages planning ahead, setting clear priorities with a budget, and saving for desired experiences rather than going into debt. Ultimately, she frames vacations as a reflection of self-worth and an opportunity to create lasting memories and personal growth.
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And just so we're clear, I mean real vacations, not like you drove to your grandma's house on Thanksgiving or you stayed at a Motel 6 off the highway kind of vacation. Or if you were like my family, you couldn't afford the Motel 6, so you just drove through like 616 hours because Daddy was making good time. Not those kind of trips. I'm talking about a real vacation. A grown woman vacation. The kind where you actually go somewhere new, where you explore, where you rest. That's a great question. When is the last time you went on a vacation and you came back with your cup more full than when you left? You come home feeling like a better version of yourself. I'm talking about that kind of vacation. And if you didn't grow up taking that kind of vacation, which I definitely didn't, nobody actually teaches you how. Nobody teaches you how to dream up the kind of vacation that you wanna take, or how to plan one, or how to budget for them within the rest of your life. But I really feel like a vacation is one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself and certainly one of the greatest gifts you can give your. And so I want to talk about it today. I want to tell you all the things that I have learned over years of traveling. I'm going to tell you my philosophy for a vacation and why I absolutely think that you need to start dreaming of your next one right now, today. I hope that this podcast is a change in your perspective, in the way that you pursue travel and how it can expand your worldview, how it can grow Your heart, how it can make you believe that there is more possibility out there in the world for you. Especially if that is not something that you learned in your family growing up. Hey guys. I'm Rachel Hollis and this is the show where we talk about life, real life around here. We cover everything from habits and motivation to relationships, parenting, and what it looks like to build a life that you love. If you're trying to grow, heal, or just feel a little bit more like yourself, you're in the right place. To properly guide you through today's conversation, I think that I need to establish my philosophy on vacations as I am right now, 43 year old mother of four and, and what it looks like for me to take a vacation today versus what I grew up understanding. I think that my family took their version of a vacation, but what I would really call a trip. And I think the difference between a trip and a vacation is the way that you feel when you come back from that experience. So my parents didn't have a lot of money, our family didn't have a lot of money, but we did occasionally get to go places. Most commonly we would go all pile up in the van or we'd pile up in the station wagon when we were younger and we would drive somewhere. So we would drive like two hours and go look at a creek. I'm not exaggerating. My dad would take us up into like a mountain place that he liked and we weren't staying there. You didn't stay the night. We didn't have that kind of money. But you would just sort of go up river or you would go to a lake, you kind of walk around, you, you'd take a road trip. To be totally honest, that was the kind of vac that I grew up in. As a kid I found that really fun. But looking back, I know what that must have felt like for my parents because I now have four kids and I've been on many road trips with all four of them in the car. And my instinct is that my parents, while they had great intentions for our family and they were trying to do something that allowed us to like be together and explore and do something cool. I'm willing to bet that my parents came back from those trips feeling more exhausted and depleted than they did before they went. And honestly, that was what they could afford to do. But I think that if they had shifted their perspective a bit, probably not something that was gonna go down well in the 80s or the early 90s, but I think if they had shifted their perspective A bit. They could have planned for something that would have felt better to them. While that is what I grew up with, I now have travel as a huge part of my life. It is a cornerstone in my life to trav not just for myself, but for my children. And I actually budget that into my annual budget, all of the travel that we do, because it is so important to me. And if I'm being really honest with y', all, the reason it's important to me is because I like to ask myself, what kind of life would I be living if I didn't have children? I know that's kind of a crazy question and not something that we're often told to consider, but I think it's really helpful. Not from the place of, like, oh, you know, though be so much better if, like, I didn't have to wake up and, you know, breastfeed in the middle of the night or whatever, but more from the perspective of, who would you be if you weren't theirs? Who would you be if you didn't have all of these pressures on you and these responsibilities, like, would you do things differently? I think asking yourself that question is really powerful because then it guides you to some things that you may not be considering because you see your family as this roadblock between you and that thing. There are so many people who think that they can't travel because they have kids. And then simultaneously, there are lots of people who are like, screw it, I love to travel. And so I'm putting this baby in a Bjorn, and we're gonna go explore the world. There are both types of people, but you're never really gonna understand what type of person you are if you don't give yourself the freedom to imagine. So all of that to say. I ask myself that question fairly often of like, would I be doing my life differently if I didn't have kids? And if the answer is yes, then I want to ask myself how I could incorporate some of those things that I desire with my children. Because that's so much cooler, right? Like, we're going to see life in a totally different way. And also they're going to know a mama who is more fulfilled, who is more inspired, whose cup is running over, and we're gonna get to do all these cool things together that are not entirely wrapped around them. Because if we're being honest, if I'm being honest, my life has been wrapped around my children for 19 years. And I'm not mad at that. I think that's a beautiful part of being a family. But every once in a while you have to step back and ask your what you're doing for you. So for me personally, travel is really important. And like I said, I budget it into my year. I know exactly how much it's gonna cost. And be totally honest, I'm a bougie traveler. So it means that I do have to budget for things because I want to travel in a way that feels really good. And that means in order to travel the way I want to, I do have to set aside money and I do have to, you know, make sure that I have a plan for what we're gonna do. But beyond the travel being important for me, I love a vacation because it is the only time when I feel like I get really good perspective on my creative life, on my business, on the way that I am living. I don't experience these flashes of insight any other time except when I'm completely removed from my day to day environment. Something really interesting happens when you step outside of your environment. I do this work, right? I write books and I have this podcast and I do coaching. We have premium like, we offer all of these things for people to experience real shifts in perspective and real change in their life. And I am telling you, there is nothing on this planet that allows the members of this community to experience more change than being in a different environment. It's why Rise conferences, it's why Rise events. And I'm not selling you, I don't have any on the books for you right now, so I'm not trying to sell you something. But it really is. I don't have a greater tool in my toolkit to help women experience real shifts in perspective than getting outside their life. You can daydream and journal and create the vision board and do all the stuff all day long while you are in your life. And it is nothing compared to a couple of hours completely removed thinking about things in a bigger way. And I love a vacation for that because I feel like when we go on vacation, at least if you travel like I do, you go on vacation and you get to be inside of environments that are nicer than your home, right? Like if you get to go to a hotel and someone else is going to very kindly like pick up the hotel room for you later, it is such a treat. As a parent, you're constantly picking up after other people. But if you go to a hotel and like housekeeping comes in and they give you fresh towels and maybe like they even do turn down service, they leave a chocolate on your pillow like it's just such a nice thing to have someone else take care of you. When you step outside of your normal perspective, your problems start to look different. Things that felt really overwhelming suddenly start to feel a bit more manageable. You can kind of see how you would break them into pieces. And sometimes when you get outside the life you've built, you appreciate it so much more. Other times, you might realize that something needs to change. But either way, the distance creates clarity for you beyond a vacation's ability to, like, change your perspective. They are the most sacred core memories in my family's life. If you ask any of my kids to tell you their favorite moments of their life with their family, they are going to tell you times where we are on vacation, period. If you, in fact, if you ask them times that were their favorites when they weren't with their family, I bet they would still tell you summer camp or when they got to go on the baseball trip. Vacations are a big deal. When you think back on your life years from now, you are not going to remember today. And unless something like crazy happens to you today, you're not going to remember today. You're not going to remember listening to this podcast with me. You will not remember this random Monday, right? Or this random Thursday. You're not going to remember it. But you will remember that sunset that you watched with your son in Hawaii, right? You will remember that amazing meal that you had with your girlfriend off the coast of Spain. You will remember the morning that you sat in the mountains on that ski trip and you drank coffee and you looked over at the snowy mountain. Like, you will remember those moments. They're etched into your memory. And they remind you, by the way, why you are working so freaking hard. Like, why are you working so hard? I do this all the time. I work so hard to take care of my family. I have been the breadwinner for my family for a very long time. I am proud of that. And I'm proud that my kids know that. And I'm proud that they've grown up, you know, for over a decade seeing their mom crush it in business. But this is hard work. It requires a lot. It's a lot of energy. It's a lot of drive. You know, I see all these videos of all these, like, younger in their 20s and 30s. Like, I'm using air quotes like this girl boss energy of these women who are running these brands. And it's so aesthetically pleasing. It's like a day in my life as a founder and that. And it's so beautiful. And look, I watch them too. I love a romanticized version of someone's life. But I'm like, what? I have never one time looked like that while I was working. Like I feel like I put a cute outfit on. Today I still am no match for these like yoga girls with their matcha and their like million dollar athleisure brand. Like they are crushing. I've never looked like that. I work so hard. I have to work as hard on self care and working out and taking care of myself so that I can work this hard at work. It's like a whole thing. And as much as I appreciate the work that we do and the success that we experience, I have been doing this for a really long time. I have been doing this for so many years. So if you don't step away from it on occasion and really experience and celebrate how hard you're working, I think that you lose sight of the why. And every single time that I am able to take my family on a beautiful vacation, in my heart I'm like, oh, this is why. 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So my husband's dream vacation is skiing in the mountains, and my dream vacation is laying by a pool. So we went skiing in Big sky, and then we went down to Cabo to one of my favorite resorts ever. Cabo's one of my favorite places to vacation ever. It's where I took my first real vacation probably, gosh, 20 years ago. And so it's, like, very close to my heart. But I was there in Cabo and I was watching the kids, like, play in the pool and laugh with each other, and we were playing games. We were doing all. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. This is why I work so hard. And I want to, of course, acknowledge, like, lots of people work their butts off and don't get to take vacations. Lots of people have created beautiful lives for themselves and don't have any intention of traveling. Like, that's not their jam. But my instinct is that if that's you, you probably wouldn't have clicked on this podcast title. I assume that you're here because you do like the idea of experiencing environments outside of your home and maybe taking yourself for the people that you love somewhere special. If that's you, if you're like me, if you're like a little bougie traveler or you want to be, or you want to aspire to, you know, go camping. That's not my vibe, but I love that for you. But you want to aspire to getting outside of your regular environment. I've got some ideas for the pieces I didn't know about when I was younger because no one taught them to me. That I think, will really help you as you navigate how to go on vacation. All right, so we've established why you need to so many great things about it, but I want to talk you through how and some of the biggest mistakes that I think people make when they try and go on vacation if they haven't done it very often. So the first thing that you are going to do is you are going to ask yourself what kind of vacation you actually want. There are three types that I came up with, and I have gone on every single one of them. And I have some that are my favorites, and then I have some that show up every once in a while. But here are the three kinds. The first kind of vacation is completely for rest. You just need a freaking break. Okay? This could be you're a single mom and you're working your butt off, and you have the budget and you get yourself a hotel room in your town for two nights. And you know, the kids go to your sisters or your mama's or their daddy's, or they go somewhere, someone who keeps them alive. And all you do at the hotel is take naps, order room service. Maybe you go on walks if you're lucky, and the hotel has a spa, you get a massage. You. You have them spend some extra time on your feet. I mean, you really just. You go all in. But the goal of that is rest. Okay? That's one option. The next type of vacation is adventure. Adventure vacation. So my husband and I are notorious for our adventure vacation. We take one every single summer. While the kids go to summer camp, we have hiked the Camino. That's where we, like, go to Spain. And we walk like 20 miles a day across the mountains. It's ridiculous. We've gone on climbs, we've gone on runs. We've done things where we are going to have an. An adventure. We took our oldest son last summer to Iceland, and that was all adventure. We went on super long hikes. We went to the beach, we went swimming, we did crazy road trips around Iceland. We saw volcanoes. Like, it was all adventure. The adventure fills up your spirit. It's super creatively inspiring. You're seeing all these different things. But on an adventure vacation, I do often come back tired. And tired in a really good way, but tired. And I mention these two to start because a lot of people think that they're going on a rest vacation and accidentally plan an adventure vacation. Like, you're like, oh, I've always wanted to go to Italy. My husband and I have always wanted to go to Italy. We're going to Italy this summer and you have this, like, under the Tuscan sun vision of what you're going to do in Italy. Or you have this, like, eat, pray, love. I'm gonna go eat a bunch of pasta in Italy. And Then you plan this trip, and you're so excited to be there that you book out every single second. You want to see it all. And you walk. You know, you're. You're averaging 25,000 steps a day. Like you're an ER nurse. You're seeing all of it, and you're exhausted. So you have to know, which one. Am I going to rest? Am I going for adventure? They're two completely different things. Now, because your girl's bougie, and I get three weeks every summer where all the kids are at summer camp. I will say that Kez and I plan an adventure vacation that ends with a rest vacation. It's so obnoxious. But again, this is why we plan pretty far in advance. So when we went to Spain and we did the Camino, we would end that trip going to Menorca and staying at, like, an insane resort and laying by a pool and resting after having walked all of these miles. Not for everybody, but definitely for me. The last type of vacation is an exception. Experience an experiential trip. So this would be like going on a yoga retreat. Maybe you're really adventurous. You're going to go down to the jungle and you're going to do some plant medicine, and you're going to, you know, talk to the spirit guides. Maybe you're going on a therapy retreat. I'm going on a therapy retreat here pretty soon that I've been planning for a while. That is not. It won't be restful. It probably will be more of an adventure. I do imagine that on the other side of it, I will feel really exhausted. But it is a gift that I'm giving living to myself. I've literally been planning it for a year where I'm gonna go do some pretty intense childhood trauma therapy, and it takes a full week. So I had to plan it pretty far in advance, and I had to, you know, make sure my husband's schedule aligned so he'll be here so he can be with the kids. But, like, that is just as powerful to us as people who rarely get to spend real time focusing on ourselves and caring for ourselves. That is just as powerful. But need to know what your soul is craving. And yes, that sounds so dramatic and over the top, but that really is how I look at it. One of the ways that I figure this out, for me, if I'm in a season where I'm like, I really love, you know, I feel like I would love to go somewhere, I, I, I will sort of separate myself and I will ask If I could do anything in the world today, I always tell myself, like, if you were Oprah and you had all the money in the world and you could do literally anything, how would you spend this day? Asking myself that question often gives me a clue to what I am craving. What my. What my spirit is craving, what my body is craving, what I feel like I need. So this is actually how we ended up adding a second half to our spring break. We planned the spring break ages ago to go skiing with the kids, but we planned that before we moved to New York. We live in the Hudson Valley in New York, and it was the most beautiful winter, but it was snow every day. It was negative 10 degrees on the regular. It was so freaking cold. And we had planned the ski trip. And so all of a sudden, I found myself having come off the back end of, like, remodeling a house last year into moving to a different state, into a really intense winter. And now the one vacation that we have, we're about to spend it skiing, which is so much fun and our family loves it so much. But for me personally, I was like, I don't want to ski. I want to lay in the sun. I am more pale than when I came out of my mother's womb. I look like a ghost. I need some vitamin D. I need to. I just. I would love it. I was like, oh, my gosh. I would just love it. I asked myself that question. I'm like, I just want to lay by a pool. And then we started planning this sort of second half thing. So if you can ask yourself what it is that you are craving most, I want to be really clear. What you are craving might be at Oprah's level, that you get on a private jet and you fly to Bali and you do blah, blah, blah, and you're like, girl, I do not have that in my budget. PS Same. But if you can just start with what it is, what it would be if you could wave a magic wand and have anything. If you just start there, then it will tell you. Are you looking for rest and relaxation? Are you looking for adventure? Or is this an experiential trip that you want to have? And that is a fantastic place to start. It's time for some spring cleaning, guys. And even better, spring is the perfect time to reset your space. Good news. 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H-E-L-P.com Rach. Let's say you've established what kind of vacation that you want to go on. I would love to just talk you through the biggest mistakes that I see people make when it comes to going on a vacation. And this is just my own outside judgment because honestly, I don't think a lot of people will be honest and say that they did a vacation wrong because they're just so grateful that they got to go on one. But let's be super real. I assume that most of us don't have some massive like billion dollar disposable income. I assume that if you're going to plan a vacation for yourself or your friends or your family, that it's going to be a big deal for you. You're going to Save up money, you're going to get the time off work, you're going to plan it for months, you're going to do all of these things. And if you're going to invest that much time and energy, let it be great, Let it be great. Why would you spend all of this effort and have it suck? So here are some things that people do that I think really negatively affect the trip, the vacation, the experience they are trying to have. Okay? So the first mistake that people make beyond not knowing what kind of vacation they actually want is who you vacation with, who you vacation with, who you decide to vacation with is going to affect your experience in every possible way. And what I have learned in decades of travel is that you can be best friends with someone and not realize that you are actually terrible vacation companions. Opinions. So I have a best friend that I grew up with. Literally met her in second grade. Best friends, our whole lives, moved from my hometown to Los Angeles with her roommates forever. I mean, have done everything with this girl. Like everything with this girl except go on vacation. Now, ironically, in all our years of friendship, we had never gone on a real vacation because we both grew up without money. Like, we did not come from families with money. So while we have gone on like a band trip with a syphonic band to Disneyland, neither of us had ever traveled for real. And then when we were in our early 20s, I was like 23, 24, we decided to go to Paris together. So hilarious. We were like, we're gonna go to Paris. It was something we had always talked about. And I did not know her vacation style, cuz remember, we'd never done this together. Her vacation style was like, like up at dawn, planned an itinerary for every tourist attraction, wanted to see every single thing, wanted to walk everywhere, didn't want to spend a lot of money. So it was like, no, we have to walk everywhere. We got to save money. We're gonna go, you know, it was so intense. Her itinerary and every single day it was like, you gotta be up at dawn and you gotta go until, you know, and then it's like 10 o' clock at night and we're. What are we doing? My style of visiting is I want to experience a city like Paris as if I'm a local. Okay? So I want to wander, I want to find a little cafe, I want to sit and maybe have two cappuccinos, not just one. I might want to sit there for two hours. I might want to journal, I might want to read a book. I'm going to go walk around. I certainly have places that I want to experience in a city. Like, the first time I went, I absolutely wanted to see the Louisiana Louvre. Like, I had the stuff. Of course we gotta walk by the Eiffel Tower. But I am. I'm not a tourist attraction girl. In fact, like, when I get around all the tourists taking pictures, I'm instantly less interested. I wanted to walk along and look at the windows of, like, Givenchy and just, like, experience the fashion. That's what I wanted out of Paris. I wanted to see people's outfits. I wanted to eat endless pastry. I did not want to be a tourist girl. But she was a tourist girl. Nothing wrong with that. But if we both invested into this trip together and we're like besties, right? And obviously we're in a country and this is like so long. This is 20 years ago, you guys. So it's not like today where we could look at social media and get ideas. We didn't have cell phones. We didn't have, like, if you got lost in Paris, you were lost, right? You were in trouble. It is not like today. So obviously I'm not going to leave my best girlfriend by herself to wander around a city. Hashtag. Also, I'm a people pleaser. So I end up basically doing her vacation with her instead of the vacation I wanted to go on. And I had paid the same amount of money, so it was so frustrating that I didn't get to, like, have the vacation I wanted because I was traveling with the wrong person. So I say, if you do not know the type of traveler your potential travel partner is, it's better to go alone. And I know that freaks so many of you out. I know you. I know you. You're having a hard time going to dinner alone. You don't want to go to the movies alone. The idea of traveling by yourself feels unbelievable to you. To which I would say, okay, then start locally. Start with stuff in your town. Start with stuff that's not too far. Start building up that muscle and also allowing yourself to figure out what kind of traveler you are. Maybe you are an itinerary girl. Maybe you are interested in going and seeing all but you don't know yet. And you will inadvertently go on a trip, allow someone else's energy to affect you, and then think that you don't like trips or think that you don't like vacations, or think that you don't like to travel, and it's actually just because of who you're with. I was part Of a family for a really long time who loved to travel, but only in a very specific way. I married into a family that loved an experience, Loves to go on vacation, but also loves a budget. Really loves a budget. They map out an entire vacation where they go and then they'll find, like a Costco or they'll find a grocery store and they do all their shopping and they get all this food and they always stay in a place where there's a full kitchen. And their whole idea is, we're going to be in the space, we'll be in the environment, we'll be in the pool, we'll be in Mexico, we'll do the thing. But we will eat all of our meals here, and we will have sandwiches and we will have snacks. And by the way, lots of people are into there. And it's a way that you can be on a budget and be in that nicer environment. And I have no shade. Except that when we would go on vacation, it was so taboo to do anything but what the family was doing. So I remember the first time that I started to, like, stand up for myself. This is so hilarious. But I was just thinking about, because I was in Mexico, that I was by the pool and I was hungry and I wanted a salad. And I was like, I'm gonna order a salad. And like, the in laws freaked out. No, why would you order a salad? We have sandwich stuff back in the room, which was like, by the way, like a trek and climb over a mountain and go to the other side of the resort to get to a place to make a sandwich. And I was like, oh, thank you. I don't want a sandwich. I want a salad. And for clarity, I am a working human and I make my own money. And I don't want you to buy my salad. I'm gonna buy my salad. And it was such controversy. I don't know if you've ever been with someone on vacation or like, maybe family dynamics where there are certain people who feel like they're in charge of what the family does or what the group does. And if you take a step in the different direction, it's drama for no reason. But it was so such intense drama to be on a trip with them because they wanted it done in a certain way. And if they were going to eat out, it could only be at this place. And it was just so that I never wanted to go on a trip again. I was like, I would rather stay home because this isn't the way that I want to do things. So all of that to say one of the biggest mistakes that you can make is who you travel with. And if you can't find someone who has your similar style of travel, travel alone. Okay? The second mistake that people make is, in my opinion, the same thing that my girlfriend was doing, you know, 23 years ago, which was trying to see every single thing caring more about the tourist moment and taking the picture on Instagram and doing the thing than you do about the actual experience. I'm going to say something controversial. Controversial to the world we live in today, but it shouldn't be. If you would not want to do that thing, if you would not want to have that experience, if you couldn't show it on social media, then you don't actually want to have that experience. Let me say it again. If you're imagining Paris or the therapy yoga trip or running a marathon, but you wouldn't do that without social media proof that you did it, you don't actually want that experience. You want people to see you having that experience. And that is a warped way to go through your life. It's actually everything that is cycling downward in our society. I will not get on a soapbox about this. But when is the last time you checked yourself to make sure this is the life you actually want to have, not the life you want social media to think that you have have. You actually might find that the kind of vacation you want to take is way simpler. You actually might find that you don't even want to go on vacation at all. You want to plant a garden, you want to get a cat, you want to stay in your room and read Romantasy novels, you actually might find something that makes you way happier because it's rooted in who you are authentically, not who you want the world to think that you are. So if you imagine going on a vacation and then you get there and you just want to show everybody the pictures and you want to plan the entire day intensely because you're like, well, we got to get in front of the Eiffel Tower and we've got to get at the Champs Elysees, and we've got to do this, and we've got to do the Louvre, and we've got to do the Pyramid, and we've got. You're not actually on that trip. You're not actually present. You're just trying to make a photo album to prove that you were there. And I promise you, you will come back less fulfilled, more depleted, more exhausted than when you went. Be there, be present, where your Feet are. Stop trying to plan every second of every moment of every day. Leave some space for magic Leave some space for whimsy Leave some space for the universe to surprise you. Years ago, I was in Barcelona with some friends. I remember we were walking back from dinner and we came across this square, this, like, piazza, like, imagine, just like a big square with fountains and whatever. And it was like 9 o' clock at night. And for no reason that I know of, there were. I. I have chills thinking about it. There were 20 older couples doing the tango. I don't know if it was like a weekly dance clap. I don't know. It was just like all of these older couples, someone was playing music and they were all doing tango. And they were at varying levels. Some were phenomenal, some were clearly newbies. It is etched into my heart. It is a core memory of standing there with my friends, just mouths open, just like stuns. It felt like something out of a movie. It felt completely unreal that we just walked up and there were just all of these people who had met up to dance. And we stood there for at least 45 minutes and just watched them dance. It was so incredible. But if I had planned every second of the day, if it was like, okay, well, after the dinner, we're gonna go to the dessert and then we're gonna do this, and we're gonna meet at for a nightcap at the hotel, we wouldn't have decided to just wander around Barcelona at night, and we wouldn't have found this magical moment. The best parts of your life are the unplanned ones. And when you go on a trip, you've got to leave some space for magic. It's the most abundant attitude you can have that if you just leave space open, God's gonna show up, cool things are gonna happen. It's actually a super control freak mentality to believe that you can perfectly plan every single part of the trip so that nothing bad can happen. It's ridiculous. And of course you're setting yourself up for success because you've decided that it needs to be a certain way. And then if it's not, you're gonna be disappointed. My husband loves a vacation. Loves, loves, loves it. And probably because he spent most of his career traveling, he loves to travel, loves to see the world. And whenever we have a trip coming up, inevitably the week or two before Kez will start going, are you excited? Are you getting excited? Are you excited about Iceland? Or he'll be like, are you excited about, you know, going back to London? Oh, are you excited about the concert we're going to? Who always asks me? Because he's excited, right? There's a study that says the anticipation of a trip. Trip for a lot of people is actually better than the trip itself. So he'll. He always asks me. And it's so funny because my response is always the same. I'm always like, oh, I'm not really thinking about it. I don't think about it. I very intentionally do not give a lot of thought to the vacation until I'm inside of it. Because my imagination and my slight tendency to try and control variables will make me imagine all these beautiful, amazing things that can happen on my trip. Trip. And when I was younger I would do that and I would come back and it'd be disappointed because my imagination was way bigger than any trip could hold and I was trying to control it. So now I purposely refuse to think about the vacation before I'm inside of it. And then when I'm inside of it, I'm like, oh, what's gonna happen today? Let's see what happens. Now. That being said, my last thing that I think people make make the biggest mistake on when they are planning a vacation is not planning far enough in advance. Okay? So you have to plan way further out than you think that you do. Not if you're like going to your sisters this weekend in Vegas. But if you actually want to take a legit vacation where you are able to relax and let go, you really need to plan further out than you think that you do. You. It's kind of like a wedding. The more well planned a wedding is, the more you can actually get to that weekend and just completely let go and enjoy it. But the closer you do, you know, the last minute trip, that can be so fun, but I don't know that it's going to be all the things you would want it to be if you're investing time and money and energy. Okay? So when it comes to planning, I will actually use a very similar philosophy to planning a vacation that I did when I was a wedding planner a very, very long time ago. Every time that I would work with a couple, I would always ask them, what are the elements in your budget that are your non negotiables? Every single couple had them and it was different for every single couple. So I worked with couples where they were absolutely unwilling to negotiate on catering. They wanted the food to be amazing. They were foodies and they really cared about the caterer. They really cared about it. Interesting and beautiful. And then I had other couples who could not care less about the food, but they were obsessed with having a wedding band. Like they wanted a seven piece band on stage. They wanted their family and friends dancing all night. They were really into it. I had couples where the bride was like obsessed. I'm talking obsessed with the stationery. Like they spent so much freaking money on their invitations. That's not something I care about at all. But she was super into it. Other people want an open bar. It doesn't matter what it is that you are going to invest in. But it matters that you know. Because again, if you're that chick who's married to Jeff Bezos, whoever she is, she can do whatever she wants on her vacation. But assuming that you need to make smart choices with your budget, decide in advance what you care about most, and I'm going to tell you what mama cares about most and that is accommodation. Okay, you do not have to copy big sister Rach. But if you are curious, I am at a stage in my life and I worked real hard to get here. And like I said, I set money aside in order to do this, but I stay at really nice hotels. I stay at really nice hotels and I only fly first class. Now, you've maybe heard me tell the story of this. A decade ago, started writing in my journal every single day that I only flew first class. I know that maybe makes certain people feel a certain way. I know lots of people that have a ton of money and don't fly first class because they think it's ridiculous. I'm not one of them. I want. I want that nice seat. I just. It's a whole thing. Call in to ask Rach if you need me to walk you through the process of why I think first class matters for me personally. But I want to get there in a nice environment and I want to stay at a nice hotel. And I will not go on vacation if I can't afford that in the way that I want to. That. That's just. That is my belief. I know so many people have a different philosophy and if you do, great. But for me personally, I want to stay in an environment that is nicer than my home environment. And I want to get there in the best possible accommodation. I want all of those things. Every single trip has the potential of going to hell in a handbasket. Right? We went to stay in Zermatt, which is a ski destination in Switzerland. It's where we got married. We've taken the family many times. It's one of our favorite places in the world in order to get to Zermatt. It's a fly. At the time, we went from LA to London, London to Zurich. Once you land in Zurich, you're gonna get on maybe two trains, maybe three, depending on what's going on that day. But you're gonna take a series of trains up into the mountain to get to your destination. And the first time that I went, I thought this was gonna be like, we're taking the Polar Express. Okay? I thought this was gonna be like, we're taking this fancy, beautiful train. It's magical. We're taking the Orient Express. We're taking, like, something really. But no, sister friend. It's nicer than any American train, that's for certain. American trains is like. Like, I took one into the city recently. It's like, you know, the boxcar children. I. It's commuter trains. Wow. But when you go to Switzerland, you get on these trains. And we were going. The last time we went was to get married. We went there for New Year's Eve, a very popular time to go to this destination. We get on this train, and there are hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of people on this train. And everyone has giant suitcases, and we're completely. I have pictures of this. Our entire family stood amongst luggage. And I'm not talking, like, oh, we were by the. I'm talking, like, squeezed into the luggage next to the bathroom for an hour and a half. Train ride up to Switzerland. It was every nightmare I've ever had. It was all my claustrophobia come to life. It was so stressful. We were by a bathroom also. We're blocking the bathroom path to every other passenger because there's literally nowhere else for people to go. We are sardines in this train for an hour and a half. And I was just like, kill me. Like, take me out. Take me to heaven, Lord. Like, get me out of here. Every trip has the potential to go wrong where, like, it isn't what you thought it would be. And all of a sudden, you're a sardine in between a bunch of suitcases, trying to hold your core strong as the train's shaking you around. But knowing that that could be an eventuality, I will do every other thing in my power to make it as nice on myself as possible. That's my personal belief. So my splurge on vacation is accommodations. That's my thing. A lot of other stuff I do not care about. I see all of these people, like, all these influencers on Instagram who buy, like, whole wardrobes for a Vacation girl, literally never. You are going to see me on vacation in the same clothes you've been seeing me wear for a decade. I literally just went to Mexico. I couldn't find bathing suits because we have moved here and I don't know where my bathing suits are. I found one top, one bottom. They do not match and they're solidly five, six years old from Target. So stretched out and lame. But you know what? I had a bathing suit. I like. There are people who are like, no, if I'm going on vacation, I'm getting a new bag, I'm getting outfits, I'm getting my hair done. Girl, I do not care. But you better believe that I am staying in a bougie ass hotel. That's just what mama wants. Okay, you got to figure out what your thing is. Do you care about the food? Do you care about the activity? You figure out what your dream scenario is, and then you build a budget based on the dream. This is backwards from probably what our boy Dave Ramsey would tell you to do. He'd probably say, you figure out what the budget is and then you figure out what you can get for the budget. That's not what I believe. I believe you build the dream, you identify the budget, and then you build to that budget before you put the dream on the card. I do not believe in going into debt to go on vacation. I don't believe about going into debt for almost anything, but certainly not for vacation because the reality is you're going to put it on your credit card. That would work. I think if you put something on your credit card and then you paid it off every month so that by the time you went on the vacation, it's done. But what most people do is put it on the credit card, go have this experience, come back. And now they've actually made real life harder on themselves because now they're trying to pay off their credit card bill. That's not what I'm saying. I say you start with a dream, you budget what that dream is and then you save up, up. And that literally could be more money than anyone you know would spend on anything. That's none of their. That's none of their business. That's your business. This is your choice. If you are budgeting for something and you're saving your money, you have it in a savings account, you set it aside. Nobody gets to tell you anything about what you do with your money, period. I remember like five years ago, six years ago, I was asked to give a keynote at an event in London. So I have a rate that people book me at to speak at an event. And I had a rate. And this is 2019. So I guess this is like seven years ago. This is 2019. So just as a point of reference, this is like the height of all the success in my career and at that place in my life, because I had two number one books at the same time. 2018, 2019. It was a wild experience. My keynote rate was. You don't even want to know it. It was insane. But the keynote rate was so much so that I also was able to say, if you want me to do a keynote speech, it costs this and also first class travel. That's part of having me as a speaker. And this was in London. And by the way, companies who throw these events are very used to this kind of ask, and they really wanted me at their event. So they were like, no problem. So I have the budget for speaking and the budget for first class travel from Austin to London, which was significant. Like, let's say it costs $10,000 or $12,000. It was a lot. I know that's a lot of money. And I remember my assistant at the time was like, oh, we got the budget in and we got your travel. Here are seats. And she gave me seats in coach. And I was like, oh, no, it's first class travel. They paid. And she's like, no, I know you do first class here, but like a first class ticket to London, it's like $10,000, Rachel. And I was like, I know. And she's like, it's $10,000 for a seat. And I was like, I know, but the company, they paid for it. They paid for that seat for me. And she's like, yeah, but you could just take that $10,000 and put it into something else in your life. Let me tell you something. And maybe right now you're nodding. You agree with that assistant. You're like, this is insane. Use that money for something else. I do not negotiate with my worth worth. I'm not interested in negotiating with my worth. The second that you start to negotiate your worth with others, with the universe, with yourself, energetically, you've decided that that's not for you anymore. I had said that my worth is if you want me to fly to another country and leave my children to speak at your event, it costs this much money. And you will fly me in this seat on the plane. And in that seat on the plane, part of it is that as soon as I get off that plane on a transcontinental, flight. I have to go and be on. I have to go and perform. For this particular event, it was like 15,000 people I was speaking to. So part of that worthiness is knowing, like, I got to take care of myself in order to be able to do this thing you're asking me to do in this scenario. I've asked for this thing and this company has said, okay. And the universe is like, yes, girl, you are worth this much. And then outside influences are trying to project their feelings of worthiness onto me. And maybe this is getting way too deep for a conversation that you thought was just about vacation. But I am ready to argue that you don't ask enough for yourself. You don't have a belief about your worthiness when it comes to the experiences that you have. And I think that you should. I think that you should demand a certain level for yourself. And if that means that you want to stay at a Ritz Carlton in Fort Myers and you understand that you're going to have to save X dollars and it might take you 18 months to save enough money to go do that thing, I believe you should do it. I think that if you are willing to save the money and you're willing for that to be as long as it takes for you to go have the experience that you want to have and you're not going into debt and it's nobody else's money, girl, you better go, you better work, you better go live that life. Because the craziest thing happens when you start believing that you deserve more. The world wants us to think that, like, if we're just, you know, just put your head down and be a good person and like, whatever, that's not energetically how the universe performs. The universe is only ever saying yes. So if you decide right now that the only way you can go on a vacation is to stay at a place you don't really want to stay at and to put it on a credit card and to go come back and be more stressed out than when you left, then that is what you are going to get. That is the energy you're going to get in every part of your life. A vacation is this beautiful opportunity to gift yourself with an experience that raises your vibrational level. And part of that is that you are willing to ask for more for yourself. I cannot stress this enough. Do not hear me say this and be like Rach said, I should go put a crazy vacation on my credit card. That is not it. That is actually super twisted thinking and it's a scarcity mindset, an abundant mindset says I can budget for this, I can work for this, and then I can enjoy this, the fruits of my labor on my terms. Whether that's a bougie vacation, whether that's hiking the Appalachian Trail, a camping trip with your family, you know, going and traveling cross country in an rv, dude, it's all about what would make you feel good. It doesn't have to be bougie like me. But I think that when you treat yourself to an experience that is more elevated than you normally get to live, the most incredible things can happen. So I hope that you will consider taking yourself on a vacation. I hope you'll consider planning for the dream, figuring out the budget, and then backing yourself up from there. I hope that you'll dive deep into researching the topic and researching the place you want to go and learning cool things about it. But you won't overdo it. And I hope that you get to experience something really cool this year because you set the standard for yourself. Now. I will be back soon with more conversation. Guys, as always, I love you and I'm rooting for you. The rachel hollis podcast is produced by me, rachel hollis. It's edited by andrew weller and jackson noble. There's a difference between liking a house and actually getting it. Redfin is built to close that gap. Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents, so when you find a home you love, you're not a step behind when it's time to make an offer. That means less watching great homes disappear and more zeroing in on the one you'll actually end up with. Calling home. Redfin helps turn saved listings into real addresses. Get started@redfin.com own the dream so good, so good, so good. Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now, and they're up to 60% off. Stock up and save on Rag and Bone, Madewell, Vince, All Saints, and more of your favorites. 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