"The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life" by Pam Grout

For anyone who has tired of vacations that involve relaxation on a beach with a novel (which is not me, yet!), this book is full of ideas for unique and fulfilling things to do if you can get a few days or a week off work. It's divided into four chapters: arts & crafts getaways, volunteer vacations, brain retreats, and wellness escapes (though some of the suggestions would fit into more than one of these categories). 

I bought this book years and years ago (possibly almost 20) but had never read it until now. As such, I ignored the dollar amounts it lists for costs and fees. I didn't check on any of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they've basically all doubled by now (or worse). 

For a lot of these vacation ideas, I found myself wondering: Why not just do these things close to home, on a smaller timescale? A lot of them are not necessarily location-dependent (as long as you can find people with know-how and supplies). The book does make a good point about this: doing new things while on vacation allows you to focus on them in a way you normally could not, if you were trying to squeeze them in between days at work and dentist appointments and taking out the trash. Also, even if you could do these things close to home, would you? It takes a certain amount of intentionality and motivation. Well, maybe this is how I ended up taking a brief wheel-throwing class at a local art space this summer?

Out of all 100 vacations suggested in this book, though most sounded intriguing and unusual, there were two that stood out to me as ones I might actually want to look into:

• Colby College Great Books Summer Institute: a week-long "in-depth discussion and workshop on six selected classic books" in Waterville, Maine. Alas, Google makes it appear as if 2025 was the final year for this!
• Immersive Spanish lessons at Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. From a satisfied customer: "I learned more Spanish in one month than I did in two years at my local community college." I never had the opportunity to be an exchange student. Maybe it's not too late!