For a host of reasons, some of my trips over the past year or two haven’t been as much of a vacation as I would have liked. Whether it was allowing work to intrude in a few cases, or me not able to get my head in the right frame, or a plethora of other factors, I had been struggling with consistently achieving the sense of rest, wonder and pleasure of a good vacation.

I’m back from a recent trip to Washington, DC, and while it started out with a work-related course, once that outstanding learning opportunity concluded, my mind slid pretty easily into vacation mode. I think I found a bit of my groove again by accident, but something I can learn from. While there are weeks and weeks of stuff to do in DC, I didn’t cram my itinerary full. I saw the sights I wanted to, and allowed a lot of time to just wander (take one look at my step count, and you’d see that I did some professional level wandering around the city). With little “fear of missing out”, I skipped the Arlington National Cemetery and hit a craft brewery taproom with a book because that felt like more my speed on that day. I was indulgent and went to five baseball games and enjoyed being absorbed in the games and nothing else for a few hours. All of this unlocked a lot of time for my mind to be by itself, and when I found myself listening into its background chatter, I could tell I was happy and relaxed. I mean, seriously, relaxed.

I’ve got trips coming up to Denver, Phoenix, and a big one to Japan including Tokyo and Osaka over the next few months. I’m hoping I can tap into the magic there was in these five days of vacation in DC and continue this groove for my upcoming trips.