Get to Know Alex & Haley: Vacation Edition

I once head someone say that they didn’t want to wait until they were old and gray to enjoy their retirement, but instead, enjoy it little bits at a time throughout their life. To me, that means doing the things you feel like you need to “wait for retirement” for; like traveling, or learning a new hobby.

As long as we’ve been married, Haley and I have made it a priority to travel. It’s easy to say, “we’ll have more money someday” or “we’ll have more time once things settle down,” but “someday” has a way of always being a little out of reach. So we travel. Some years it’s just a weekend away, others it’s a big trip across the ocean, and some years it just doesn’t happen, but still we try to make a priority of it.

After traveling together for several years now we’ve developed a bit of a “vacation style”. This is all the things: where we go, what we do, how we do it, how long we stay, etc. The following are our “rules of the road” for vacationing as a husband and wife photo and video team.

1. Keep ‘er moving

For most of us vacationing as kids looked like either staying in the same resort/town/campground for a full week, or rushing off to a new attraction/hotel every day. We try to find the balance of those two options. For us, that means staying in town/village for 2-3 nights max. That way we can see all the things in that area, all while getting comfortable with our surroundings. But we’ve realized after a few days we get either bored or antsy to see they next stop and we are ready to move on to the next town.

2. Take it easy

There’s a temptation to try and “see it all”. We’ve found that that can be exhausting and unsatisfying. When we pick a location we’ll online scout several attractions to visit knowing we will only see a few of them. And we won’t feel guilty about that. Instead, we sleep in as long as we want, get breakfast, drive around, see a few things, maybe take nap, and go out again…if we want. We are there to relax.

3. Gimme some space

Don’t get me wrong, people are great. It’s just that sometimes I like less of them. One of my favorite feelings in knowing there isn’t another soul around for miles. I love being in the middle of nowhere. It’s like time slows down, along with all the activity in your brain. There’s no waiting in line to see the thing, or stretching to get a better view; just you and the biggest view you’ve ever seen. I also like to think “what if I’m the first human to stand here in 100 years? or ever?”

4. Don’t stress about “the shot”

Let’s be honest, we aren’t landscape photographers. I’ll leave the pre-sunrise wake-ups to them. I just want to take a great picture that reminds me of this trip I took with my wife to this cool place that I may never return to. Sometimes I feel like we need to hike a little further, or stay a little longer to get the perfect shot, but the shot is not why we came out here. We wanted to see cool things and spend time together. No pressure to create the Instagram banger.

What is your ideal vacation style?

Everyone has a vacation style… ours is pretty laid back. We like options, but we skip a set plan that would make us feel boxed in. We take naps, eat good food, and always rent a car so we can find the paths less traveled with a camera in hand. Cheers to an early retirement!

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