What is the difference between Travelling and a Holiday?
If you’ve ever watched the 2nd Inbetweeners movie, you’ll be familiar with the immense effort that Will, the nerdy one, goes to in claiming that he is travelling Australia on his 5-week adventure and not on holiday as claimed by his backpacker peers.
So, where are the boundaries between travelling and holiday?
Is it the number of bracelets you’ve collected, the length of your beard, whether you’re travelling with a backpack or suitcase, the number of places you’ve been to or just simply the length of the stay?
Or is it that you need to have quit your job to be classed a ‘traveller’.
The Digital Nomad Lifestyle: Travel and Work Combined
In today’s digital nomad lifestyle, many people are working while travelling or while on holiday, so this now blurs the lines even further.
I use the term travelling when it’s for an extended period outside of the normal 1–3-week holiday, and usually this entails moving around from place to place.
As a rule, when we holiday as a family, we move around a lot anyway, sometimes staying in more than one place in a short amount of time, thus maximising the experience of being exposed to different towns/regions of a place.
That might just be me and my need to see as much as possible, most of the time with ants in my pants.
But some people prefer to just stay in one place for a whole holiday because they love the relaxation , feeling they need to do nothing after a year’s work.
Maybe they do several tours to see parts of the country.
Is this then travelling or just a holiday?
Or does anyone care and does it really matter!?
Traveller vs Tourist: Understanding the Label
Do we need to label? I often find, like Will, being pressured into using the term ‘travelling’ really matters to some people.
Either way, I have found that both holidays and travelling BOTH give rewarding experiences.
For me, the difference between travelling and a holiday often comes down to mindset, not distance or duration.
At the end of the day, they are all experiences of one kind or another and it’s these experiences that make us grow and give us memories for a lifetime.
Label it if you like, but labels don’t matter, memories do.
I just thought I’d put this post up to see what people’s thoughts are.
Let me know in the comments!
