The Last Day of the Holiday: Oh Happy Day, Or a Hard Goodbye?

13Sep
by Cherryl

The last day of the holiday should be a joyful day really – filled with satisfied smiles as you think about the blissful time you’ve been having (hopefully 😬) and how grateful you are to have had it, right?

Yet, its often ‘paradoxically’ a mournful day of bitter-sweet grief – can you relate?

Although there have been trips where I have felt ready to get back home, there’s still a sadness about leaving a place you’ve grown to  call home for few days or weeks. 😢

On the whole, the last day of the holiday tends to feel like one of two extremes – a warm welcome or a sad goodbye….lets look at both sides, just to try and keep things balanced.

Last Day of the Holiday: A Hard Goodbye

You wake up with a sad and heavy heart, wishing you could rewind back to day one again.

Maybe you regret not savouring every moment just that little bit more, wishing you’d booked a few more days and realising all those people were right when they said ‘surely one week’s not enough’. 😞

If you’re lucky, you get one more shot at the breakfast (and lunch) buffet – ‘the last vacation super’, it’s all the more special knowing you won’t be getting anymore – so you eat a bit more than you would normally, making sure to try and sample all the things you overlooked before! 😋

With all your might, you try and memorise ‘that view’ for the last time. 👀

You stare ‘green eyed’ at new guests arriving at your hotel to check-in. The excitement they must be feeling – looking forward to their new rooms and exploring. Even worse, if the weather forecast for the week ahead is even better than the week you just had. The injustice. 😩

Maybe you left your packing until today, trying to prolong the denial period, refusing to accept that’s its over, understandably – but now you end up wishing you’d packed the night before, since the ten minutes you thought it would take has now gone on for nearly an hour (…hey there ‘over packers’) 👋 🙌

The last day of the holiday, is it usually a happy or sad day for you?

Once you start packing it’s like a signed and sealed deal. 🔨

The dread of all the pending airport rigamarole sets in. 😳

Panic ensues when you realise you still have currency that you can’t take out of the country – time to buy a whole load of stuff you don’t want or need…a few more fridge magnets perhaps! 🙄 Or maybe just leave some generous tips!!

You start to fantasies about a volcano emitting a suitable amount of ash, enough to ground all fights home for a few more days – how terrible it would be to be trapped in paradise for a while longer. 🌋

These feelings of dread lead you to grasp at any remaining ‘complementaries’ in your hotel room, from soaps to teabags, they’re all souvenirs now. 🙈

Maybe you’re relieved and ready to go home, to a nice bubble bath and your own comfy bed…ahh, but those sunsets, those views, and that wonderful hotel entertainment….you’re torn, mixed feelings – to stay or to go?

Thoughts of your next getaway compete against thoughts of you back at work, or in the office….and for those of us who have evolved into WFH more – well at least you can probably get all your washing and unpacking done more quickly…..washing away all that wanderlusty evidence and tidying away the memories 😅

On a slightly more serious note, an article by Intrepid Traveller Tribe offers some useful insights and tips to help if you are feeling very affected, or even depressed by the end of a travel experience: ‘How to stop Mourning the End of Your Vacation”. 

With all of that said, I suspect there are some of you who literally trip over yourselves (at times) to get to the airport and get home….🤔

The Last Day of the Holiday: Oh Happy Day

Arguments and tension that you’ve been enduring because you’ve been trapped – will finally release their grip somewhat as you disentangle yourself from that holiday from hell…or simply ‘that person or those people’. 💫

There are so many exciting things happening in your life that you’re gushing to get back so you can get on with the next wonderful thing. No time to pine… 🚀

You’ve been terribly ill or badly sunburned and want to get back to your real home, to heal. 🤕

You picked up in the news that there are some dangerous political tensions brewing in the territory of your holiday, and have never been happier to flee. 💣

The ‘travel corridors’ have shifted and it’s going to create big problems you personally.😷

Or maybe you just don’t like travel, or holidays.

We’ve probably had feelings of both extremes at some point, whatever your thoughts, share them below, I’m curious – ‘the last day of the holiday’, how has it been for you?

29 thoughts on “The Last Day of the Holiday: Oh Happy Day, Or a Hard Goodbye?”

  3. Two Tickets To

    Always a shame to have to wrap up a holiday, but (before Covid, at least!) there was usually the promise of planning the next trip once we got back – that’s what we would always cling on to!

    It helps if the flight back is in the afternoon or evening, so that you don’t have to feel like you’re rushing out of the door and straight onto the plane. A chilled final day breakfast can be a real treat 🙂

    Reply

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