Reading on Vacation

If you’re a bookworm, then you’re probably the type of person who packs a few books with  you on vacation. And not just one or two, but you need to pack fifteen books like you’re choosing your monthly TBR. Don’t worry, you’re not alone on this. I also pack way too many books before going on vacation. I think the whole idea is that you’ll now have all the time in the world to sit down and read. Sadly, that’s far from the truth.

Recently, I packed a bunch of stuff for my trip to San Diego. I decided to take my Kindle with me (which has over 300+ books on it, don’t @ me) so I can read some romantic comedies while relaxing on the beach. I figured three books will be enough for a two-day trip.

I planned on reading:

• Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey
• The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
• The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory

Three super cute romance novels that are super easy to read, put down, and then pick back up again. I even took a break from King of Scars because I knew I couldn’t read a big fantasy novel while on vacation mode.

I figured if my husband was going to be spending his days in the ocean surfing, I’ll be spending my days on the beach reading. I figured I would get more reading done on vacation than I would at home (where I read for about 3-4 hours a day). Guess how much I ended up reading?

Ten pages. I read a whole ten pages while on vacation. The funny thing is I read a book I picked up on vacation rather than the Kindle with 300+ books on it.

I kept thinking to myself how did I get to the end of this trip and only read 10 pages? Of course I have to dive into a weird habit if it’s outside of the normal, so I did some soul searching and realized a few things.

I didn’t ride on a plane

The biggest reason why I bring books on vacation is because of the plane. Most trips I take aren’t road trips, but plane rides across the country. In those instances, I like to spend my time on the plane reading books. It’s actually a really great way to catch up on reading because you’re stuck on a plane for six hours and you can’t just get up and do stuff. You have to sit there and entertain yourself sitting. Most times, I’ll get half a book read or even the whole book read within a six-hour plane ride. However, I didn’t have a plane to take. Instead we drove down to San Diego, which was a lot of fun but I also can’t read in cars. I get terrible motion sickness. I also didn’t have any audiobooks downloaded prior to because I figured whatever was on my Kindle was enough.

I was exploring a new city

I don’t know about you, but my husband and I love to explore new places. We’ll walk down the main street. We’ll walk across the beach. We’ll walk through a park. We just want to take in the atmosphere and enjoy the scenery. In those instances, we just don’t stop. We start early in the morning getting breakfast at a diner, then walk to the beach or to the park or a monument or a museum. We’re on our feet for most of our days and really only break late in the afternoon to head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. This weekend was no different. We walked everywhere and then stopped only to recharge before dinner.

There’s no reading during rest times

Because of our recharge and resting, I feel a little too tired to read. After walking around the entire city all I want to do is lay in our hotel bed, watch a little TV, and then start getting ready for the next thing we’re going to do. During these downtimes, my brain is just processing what we’ve seen, what I liked and disliked, what’s to come. Reading becomes a chore in these moments for me. I also don’t have a lot of time (about an hour or two) between events so that makes it more difficult to carve out a moment to read.

It was only the weekend

I think in the future, I’ve learned that a weekend away isn’t enough for me to build an entire vacation TBR. I won’t be at some resort for seven days with plenty of time for me to sit by the pool or the beach and read. This was a two-day trip with us meeting friends, visiting new places, and socializing. For the future, I’m probably better off bringing one book and hoping for some time to read it. I think psyching myself to read a lot on a very short vacation is like eating with your eyes rather than with your stomach.

I think another reason that I didn’t read as much as I did was because my husband never went surfing. He was supposed to go surfing, but his board got banged up on the ride to San Diego and the waves were a little cruddy. I think we plan on going back to San Diego when the weather gets nicer.

If there’s no extended period of time where I can just sit and read, then reading just isn’t getting done on vacation. Oh well…