Hello all! Today Mr. Science and I are going on holiday for 10 days to NYC. Hurray! During this time I’ll be far away from the computer, however I have some blog posts scheduled for next week to keep everyone occupied while I’m gone 🙂

The last time I was in NYC (okay, the ONLY other time!), I got to meet a whole bunch of awesome bloggers, like Danielle.

Taking a vacation and getting away from “real life” is important every once in a while. Too often when we “go on holiday,” we end up getting stressed out or doing work when we should be relaxing. Here are some of the things I recommend doing to make the most of your holiday (and the things that I’m doing for this one!):

1) Step away from the Internet. Mr. Science and I will likely find a computer once or twice during the trip to boast about how awesome New York is on Facebook (tehe), but other than that I have no desire to check emails, blog, update Twitter etc. Staring at a screen for too long isn’t good for your eyes or your brain, so getting away from it is good. All those emails will still be there when you get back home.

2) Arrange things ahead of time. We have shuttles booked to and from the airport, we have a Rough Guide to NYC (courtesy of the mother dear), we have someone (the mother and father dears) checking on our plants and collecting our mail, we’ve called our credit card companies and we’ve put together a very loose itinerary. It’s good to prepare for the trip as much as possible so that you don’t get any nasty surprises upon arrival.

3) Don’t book yourself up too much. If you’re going to a new city it can be tempting to try to do too much all at once. But if you’re sightseeing and visiting museums and going on guided tours every day, you’ll likely tire yourself out too much to properly enjoy the trip, and you’ll be so exhausted when you return home that you’ll need a second holiday! Besides all that, there are almost always a couple things that come up that you will really want to do when you arrive – so it’s best to leave room for those things. Mr. Science and I have broken down our “itinerary” into the neighbourhoods we want to visit, with just a handful of actual sights to see (such as Rockefeller Centre and the MET). We’re giving ourselves lots of time to simply roam the streets of NYC and do what we feel like on a day-to-day basis.

Feel free to share your suggestions for taking a relaxing holiday in the comments section below! I’ll be back to join you all in a couple weeks 🙂