Summertime, and the living is easy—or so they say. I say, What was Gerswhin thinking?

Summertime can be really hard. There’s everything from the question of how and whether to wear shorts (which really don’t work any longer on my 50-year-old big legs) to the pressure to constantly have fun. I crave ice cream every night because it’s so hot, but then I have to run it off the next morning (see previously mentioned shorts problem). And because the weather is so good, we can’t just sit at home, can we? We have to take a big summer vacation. Although, with the weather so good at home, shouldn’t this be the season we stay here? 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, we used to take a summer vacation. We’d pack up and fly off with children in tow, settle into some stranger’s condo rental and try to relax. Or we’d pick a place on the map, do all our research about what to see and do there and then tour non-stop. 

Vacation is something I yearned for. Either a sitting or a touring vacation—I’d take anything. So what happened? Life, work, the economy. It’s been a while since our family really did a trip to the hilt.

Yet I used to love everything about vacation, even the planning and the exhausted trip home. When my kids used to complain about the time it took to reach our destination, I told them the traveling is part of the vacation. You have to enjoy that part, too, or in some cases you’ve lost a good chunk of your vacation. In my mind, vacation really starts the moment the car leaves the driveway. 

Our last big vacation was five years ago, as soon as school let out in June. My husband and I wanted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our first date. Without that first date, the kids wouldn’t exist, so we figured they should come along too. When we arrived in London, our room wasn’t ready so we immediately took a Double Decker Bus Tour. My favorite picture of the trip is my daughter dressed in a rain poncho with her head slung back and her mouth wide open as she slept through the entire bus tour. 

Boy, did we tour. Along with the typical touristy destinations like Madame Tussauds and the London Eye, we showed the kids where we first met and had our first date. We took them to Oxford and showed them my dorm room where I would sneak their dad in late at night. (Come to think of it, why did we give them that idea?) We punted on the Thames and stayed in an old pub where they said Richard III once had slept—definitely not fit for a king anymore. We visited old friends and old castles. 

It was exhausting. 

When the kids were really little and we lived in Washington, D.C., our summer vacations always involved 12-hour drives to the beach. We’d arrive and sleep on the beach all day because we couldn’t get into the room (why is that rooms are never ready?). I loved leaving someplace hot and going somewhere even hotter. The days were lazy, long and filled with bike rides, sand castles and dodging the alligators on the golf course. We’d come home tan and fat. And exhausted. 

But eventually we just stopped going away. Took a vacation from going on vacation. I travel so much for business that traveling for vacation seemed like too much work. And trips with four people—rather than two adults and two children—became way more expensive. We used to be able to get my son to eat the kids’ meal, but suddenly he wanted the grown-up version. He would eat it all and then some. Just feeding him could double the price of a vacation. 

I keep hearing about people going on cruises, traveling to the Bahamas or going to France. And I wonder how. How do they find the time? And how do they send their kids to college, too? 

The last few years, we’ve found the best loophole. Our kids have been having the most fabulous summer vacations—at camp—while we keep working, to pay for them to go to camp. Then, at the end of the summer, my husband realizes we haven’t done anything as a family all summer, so we hurry up and steal away for five days. 

“Steal” is the operative word, because we try not to spend a lot of money on these trips. For two years we had friends lend us their tiny cabin near Mt. Tremblant on a little lake near a very loud racetrack. At first we weren’t going to borrow a house—so much responsibility. But it turns out we’re really good guests. We take better care of other people’s houses than we do of our own. My husband, who fixes nothing at home, will fix things at other people’s vacation homes. We leave places cleaner than we find them, and we leave really good gifts behind because we’re so grateful. 

We did break a little saltshaker at the house. So I searched and searched to find the best replacement saltshaker possible. I ended up sending an enormous, high-tech shaker from Crate + Barrel with a long note of apology. That’s when our friend told me the saltshaker we had broken cost her 45 cents at a garage sale. 

Still it was worth it, because that little town was so relaxing—mostly because there was nothing to do. It was there that we started taking an annual hike together as a family, climbing a mountain to end our summer together. 

Our hosts kept telling us the place was rustic, but it really wasn’t.  My definition is all about the basics. If there’s an indoor toilet and a kitchen, it’s not rustic. 

Besides, I don’t do rustic. I know a lot of people go camping as a summer vacation, but I’ve never seen the appeal. Maybe it was watching that movie Deliverance or maybe it was my one actual camping trip as a kid. But something made me realize I prefer even the crappiest hotel to sleeping outside, waking up with my mouth feeling like it’s covered in fur and having a rock imprint in my back. I know that some campgrounds these days are like four-star hotels, with bathrooms and outlets for hairdryers and the works. But then it’s not camping—it’s just an outdoor hotel. And why choose an outdoor hotel if you can go down the road and stay at an indoor one? 

My husband swears we went camping once. But I must have blocked it out because, honestly, I actually can’t remember going. 

I have one friend who pulled a Griswold and rented an RV for a summer trip between Connecticut and Ohio. She thought it would be a good time. The plan was for her husband, a sportscaster, to broadcast his show from the camper. So she bundled all four kids, her parents, the husband and his crew into an RV. With one bedroom. 

Between the RV rental, the food and the gas, it probably cost more than a trip to Australia. They arrived at our house for a visit before the last leg of their trip and I never saw kids pile out of a vehicle so quickly. They were kids, but all they wanted was clean sheets and a bed. Her parents, meanwhile, were too tired to move from the RV into our house. 

I drove with her in the RV to Niagara Falls for the day and became instantly carsick, so I could imagine what three weeks in that thing must have been like. When she had to pull off the road to empty the toilets, I knew this would never be my kind of summer vacation.

As we pulled into our driveway and I put my kids to bed that hot summer night, I realized there is a value in just staying home and slowing down for the summer. Exploring all that our region has to offer. Sunsets at the beach; festivals; ice cream along the canal. 

Yes, summertime and the living is easy—when you don’t have to unpack.

As first published in the Democrat and Chronicle and USA Today Network.