‘Really terrible’, Milou van Roon (30) thought it was that she could hardly travel the past two years. Before the outbreak of the corona pandemic, she was abroad for at least one week a month. Sometimes for vacation, sometimes for her work as a travel blogger. “Traveling is my passion,” she says on the phone from Paris, where she will be staying for a few months. “By traveling a lot, I always have something to look forward to. When that went away, I felt really depressed for periods.”
Van Roon wasn’t the only one who had to put her travel plans on hold for a while. Due to the corona pandemic, the number of holidays by Dutch people abroad has halved in 2020 compared to 2019, according to figures from Statistics Netherlands. While in 2019 the number of foreign holidays was still almost 23 million, the following year there were only 11.7 million. And the number of trips abroad is still not back to the old level.
mass tourism
In any case, the Netherlands is still the most popular holiday destination for the Dutch, according to recent research by the ANWB† No fewer than 43 percent of the two thousand respondents indicate that they will also go on holiday in their own country this year. And of the rest who prefer abroad, the majority stays in Europe. They mainly go to Germany, followed by France, Spain and Belgium.
The difference with a few years ago is big. Then the credo seemed: the further away on holiday, the better. And that was possible. Since mass tourism emerged in the 1960s, more and more people have traveled the world for less and less money.
Ondrej Mitas, senior lecturer in tourism at the Breda University of Applied Sciences, doubts whether that period will return. “Climate change will not only make it more difficult to travel far, but also more expensive. I expect the costs of travel to increase substantially in the next ten years.”
Is that bad? Can the ultimate holiday feeling only be obtained far away? “In a sense, yes,” thinks Van Roon, who mainly travels within Europe. “For me, I relax much more in a place where everything is different than at home.”
Lisette Dijkshoorn (27), on an indefinite journey through Latin America with her husband, experiences the same. Before the corona crisis, she usually made long trips three times a year, usually to an Asian country. “I prefer to go on holiday outside Europe,” she says. “My life is often the same in the Netherlands. I work during the week, I usually exercise in the evenings and I see my friends at the weekend. The moment I step off the plane outside Europe, I find myself in a completely different world. This forces me to step out of my comfort zone and that really relaxes me.”
Psychologist and travel fanatic Ap Dijksterhuis understands why. “During the year you build up stress and tension,” he explains. “The purpose of your vacation is to clear your head completely.”
You can do that at home, but according to Dijksterhuis it goes faster in a country where the culture is far removed from you. “The more new stimuli you get, the less room there is in your head for the worries at home. In that sense, a week in India will give you more than a week in France.”
His book Who (not) travels is crazy, which was released in 2017, is therefore a great tribute to distant and exotic travels. “Man is in constant need of new stimuli,” he writes. “Is there a better way to satisfy that need for incentives than by traveling?” Probably not, concludes the writer.
Also read: So why should I still fly, when a train journey is so beautiful?
But since then, the pressure has increased to at least take the plane less often. Dijksterhuis acknowledges that he is not immune to this either and that he is more likely to look closer to home. Does this mean he enjoys his vacations less? “No,” is his answer. “But it does take more effort to achieve the same effect closer to home as it does on the other side of the world.”
leave home
A good holiday, one in which you really relax, meets a number of conditions. “Firstly, it is important that you completely disconnect from your work,” says Marianne van Woerkom, professor of positive organizational psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam. “That means that you don’t have to quickly check an email. If you keep doing this, you’re not charging.”
In that sense, it is not surprising that people leave home and hearth for a holiday en masse. “When you go on vacation, it’s about taking a step back from the things you have to do. And that is a lot easier when we are away from home. Moreover, you will not be reminded all the time about any household chores that have been left behind.”
This does not mean: the more kilometers from home, the better. Van Woerkom: “You can fly to the other side of the world, but if you do the same there as at home, such a distant holiday is of little use.”
It is also about breaking your normal routine as much as possible, and preferably by doing many activities. Dijksterhuis: “That can be a mountain trip, but also a visit to a museum or a city.”
At least as important: sharing experiences. Dijksterhuis: “Doing fun things increases your feeling of happiness, but if you do this together with others, that effect is enhanced.”
wild camping
If you had asked Lisette Dijkshoorn before the corona pandemic whether a holiday within Europe could also be adventurous, she would have firmly denied it. But now that she has been forced to stay within Europe’s borders for two years, she has changed her mind. “But we did our very best for that. Because we rarely stayed anywhere longer than three days, and often went camping in the wild, I became completely detached from home. I couldn’t have done that at the campsite in France.”
According to Mitas, we can train ourselves in getting that holiday feeling close to home. “It’s very much about your attitude. You can go to South Limburg and focus on things that are the same as where you live, but you can also pay attention to the beautiful hilly landscape. After all, you don’t have that in the rest of the Netherlands.”
Lieke Hermsen (42) has a say in this. She always goes on a cycling holiday in the Netherlands and is never bored. “By bike you participate much more in nature. I am very aware of the weather and the change in landscape. That makes me enjoy it intensely.”
“That may be right,” says Van Woerkom. “When you travel slowly, such as by bike or on foot, you experience the travel much more intensely. This allows you to achieve the same feeling in the Netherlands as when you take the plane to, for example, Japan.”
And what about having a holiday in your own home? “This is possible,” says Van Woerkom. “But it does require extra discipline. For example, put your laptop and everything that reminds of things that should be locked up.”
You also have to force yourself to break your daily routine. “Don’t just go to the cinema and museums, but also go somewhere you never go, and do your shopping in a different neighborhood.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of March 22, 2022