Somewhere along the way, a vacation turned into a schedule. Reservations booked weeks ahead. A list of things you are supposed to see. One eye on the clock and the other on the map, right up until it is time to pack.
PJ and I have taken that trip. You come home tired, and the week blurs into the drive between places.
Giving yourself permission to slow down
There is another way to plan a week away, and it has nothing to do with the calendar. It is a decision you make about the itinerary itself: leave most of it empty on purpose.
When the plan is looser, the morning changes. No alarm set to beat traffic. Coffee first, in a quiet kitchen, with nowhere you have to be by ten.
The parts of a trip people remember are rarely the parts that were booked. They happen around the dinner table after a simple meal cooked at home. They happen over coffee, before anyone has picked up a phone. An unhurried itinerary is what leaves room for them.
A quiet base on Florida’s Nature Coast
Where you stay makes that easier or harder. Our Golf and Pool Home sits in the Citrus Hills golf community in Hernando, Florida, inland on what is known as the Nature Coast — a friendly neighborhood rather than a tourist strip.
Space is the thing you notice. An afternoon by your own private screened pool. Meals cooked in a full kitchen because you felt like eating in. A furnished lanai in the evening. Three bedrooms, two baths, room for eight.
If you want to go out, there is plenty within easy reach — golf courses in and around Citrus Hills, bike trails, the springs at Crystal River. Tee times and access at any course are arranged with the course itself, and we are glad to point you at the ones our guests like.
Coming home rested
A trip should not be an endurance test. Choosing an unhurried week is not a lesser version of the trip. It is the version with room in it: room at the pool, a slower morning, and time with the people you came with.
That is the week we built this house for.
— Bob McEachern, The Restful Vacation