This season
When summer asks the harder question
The out-of-office is on, the beach is booked, and still something is unfinished. A short seasonal reading on travelling for more than a break.
July, and the out-of-office is finally on. The beach is booked, the calendar is clear, and by the second morning something you did not schedule turns up anyway: the quiet sense that a week away is not quite the thing you were missing. That feeling is worth listening to rather than fixing. A holiday rests you, and rest is worth having. It was never meant to answer the larger question of how you actually want to spend your one working life, so it can be unsettling when it briefly raises it. If summer has surfaced that for you this year, you are in good company, and there is a long line of people who followed the thread somewhere interesting. Read the thinking behind it below, or simply let the season do its slow work.