I’ve never totally lost my childhood excitement around holiday season.
As the days lengthen and the ‘out of office’ alerts begin to accumulate in my inbox, I feel a nostalgic shiver of anticipation as images of ice creams and sandcastles flash before my eyes.
Much like the run-up to Christmas, it’s a period where I feel most in touch with my inner 10-year-old, when the sight of wrapping paper made me dream of two weeks spent eating chocolate and watching The Great Escape.
In short, I love the holidays. Or rather, I love the idea of holidays. I love holidays in theory. It’s only when they arrive that the reality starts to bite.
The fact is (and I know this isn’t exactly a revelation), holidays as a child and holidays as an adult are birds of a very different feather. When everything was arranged for me and all I was required to do was run around in my swimming trunks, things were just fine.
It’s been an exhausting period, one that’s made me question whether a work-life balance is even possible anymore
But in the last few weeks, I’ve been wondering why I bother with them.
First, there’s the constant struggle of dealing with the work in front of me while trying to get ahead with stuff for the week ahead – checking the news cycle, chasing articles and generally flapping about.
In a way, a week is the worst possible period for a holiday. Go away for a month and everything gets delegated. Go away for a week and things are stored up for your return, to be released in an unstoppable deluge while you’re still in holiday mode.
It doesn’t help that I caught a bug that seems to be claiming everybody in my company recently, laying me up for a day last week. Then, while still struggling with illness, I attended the Oasis concert at Wembley, which I would not recommend as a cure-all.
(This, I realise, is in contradiction to a previous Weekend Essay I wrote, as some colleagues have pointed out. But I never said I was consistent. And yes, I had a great time, thanks.)
All in all, it’s been an exhausting period, one that’s made me question whether a work-life balance is even possible anymore. How often have you heard the phrase “I need another holiday to recover from my holiday”?
Holidaymakers intend to spend nearly £2,982 per trip in 2025. That increased to an average of £4,000 for overseas trips
That’s certainly how I felt earlier this year, when our New Year’s break in Ireland turned into a Captain Scott-style struggle for survival after a snowstorm hit our peninsula, cancelling the flight home and knocking out the electricity for three days.
When we finally made it back to London a week late, cold and exhausted, I spent nearly a month trying to catch up with all the missed work, while pointlessly trying to extract some compensation from Ryanair.
The conclusion was inescapable: why the hell didn’t we just stay at home? It would have been more relaxing and less expensive.
Which brings me on to the numbers. Aviva’s recent How We Live report showed that holidaymakers intend to spend nearly £2,982 per trip in 2025. That increased to an average of £4,000 for overseas trips, while UK staycations exceeded £2,000.
We’re lucky to be renting a property in Devon with the wider family, so the burden is split between us. And the fact we’re driving means we don’t have to deal with expensive flights (our son, having reached the grand old age of two and a half, no longer goes free).
Advisers can play a role in framing holidays as part of a broader life plan rather than unplanned luxury
But still, there’s the money spent on petrol, the day-to-day-expenditure, the endless demands for ‘treats’. Even if you’ve budgeted for it, you’re still facing the prospect of lentil soup between now and October to claw back the cash.
If all this sounds like a self-indulgent whinge, you’d be partly right. But really, it’s only a reflection of most people’s reality. With the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, not many of us have £2,000 stuffed down the back of the sofa, let alone £4,000.
Earlier Aviva research revealed that 35% of UK adults rely on credit (e.g. credit cards, loans, BNPL) to pay for trips, with nearly half of those worried about how long it will take to repay. Only 27%, meanwhile, deliberately create separate savings accounts to fund holidays.
This is where advisers can play a role – not just in encouraging people to use multiple accounts or pots, but to frame holidays as part of a broader life plan rather than unplanned luxury. As I’ve outlined above, a real mental and behavioural shift is required if holidays aren’t simply going to be a burden.
Anyway, I hope this hasn’t prompted you to toss your bucket and spade in a skip. Despite all the fuss, I’m still retaining my optimism. And now that I’ve finished this essay, I can tick another thing off my pre-trip to-do list.
See you all in a week’s time!
