Let’s face it: a stay-at-home vacation can feel like a compromise. Here’s tips to get it right so you can feel refreshed and fully decompressed from your well-earned time off.

Nearly 40% fewer people here in the Netherlands are planning summer travel compared to last year, and of course that number decreases in the places where the epidemic is more out-of-control.

A staycation close to home can be either a satisfying alternative, or it can feel like wasted time that doesn’t give you much relief at all.

Below I share some ideas on setting up your staycation to get the feeling you want.

Too often a holiday can leave you feeling worse off than before. It’s near-impossible to avoid the pitfalls of impulse junk food and subsisting on a diet of fries, pizza and ice cream.

So you might come away with low energy from late nights, from being out of the healthy habits you normally try to do, from too much alcohol and eating unhealthy food at all hours. And that yoga mat you packed? It stayed at the bottom of your bag.

Back to work, the free feeling disintegrates far too quickly. You may be left feeling stressed and maybe even a little depressed.

No wonder it’s so easy to end up feeling disappointed when you’re home from holiday. No wonder your day-to-day can still feel like a daily grind.

A detoxiVACATION can help you get real satisfaction from your time off- especially if you apply a little forethought. You can create a special time for yourself to deeply recharge.

Follow the 3 steps below to map out your time off for an effective reset once you decide to stay close to home for your vacation.

Step 1

Decide how you want to feel after your time off.

How do you want to feel at the end of your holiday?

• Do you want to use your time to have a healthier body?
• Do you want to create space and peace of mind?
• You may feel the need to hit the reset button.

If you’ve been unsatisfied with the direction your life is going, you may even decide your main goal is to create space for thinking through how to make a big change for yourself.

• Do you need a big mental breakthrough?
• Are you going for a feeling of rediscovering creative and playful pastimes?
• At the end of your time off, do you want to feel light and refreshed?
• Do you need to feel more energy?
• Do you need to feel less reluctance to do what you have to when you return to ‘normal life’
• Is the strongest need coming up right now to feel clear-headed and focused? At peace?

It can be you want to come away from your time off with a greater sense of purpose: 

• Do you want to do discover your life’s purpose?
• Be able to approach life with more confidence in who you are
• Do you want to make sure you have more clarity about the steps you need to do to make a shift around how you’ve been living?
• Are you aiming to simplify life, so you have more time and the natural impulse to do what you care about, and to be with those you care for?
• Do you want to put time into activism for causes you believe in, and do something meaningful?

Now that you’ve clarified how you want to feel, it will help you with Step 2 – Setting the tone for your Staycation Vibe.

Step 2

Set your Staycation vibe

This is the mindset you want to experience during your time off, which will help you decide which activities to engage in. Based on what you decided in Step 1 about how you want to feel, set your Staycation vibe!

Do you want your Staycation vibe to be:

• Slow and spacious
• Interactive and playful
• Creative and joyful
• Purposeful
• Delightfully empty
• Active and energized
• Light and refreshed

Step 3

Brainstorm what activities will support how you want to feel

Remember, the goal for your holiday is to de-com-press!
Use how you want to feel from Step 1, and setting your Staycation mindset in Step 2 to creativly plan activities.

Here’s some ideas:

• If you’re looking for a big clean-out of your body, think about doing breathing exercises, investing time in learning new healthy recipes from around the world alongside a more intensive detox. 
• If you are craving creativity and playfulness, it’s all about dance, dance, dance! Also think about how you can weave in crafts projects, music and make art – with full permission to bungle it up if you’re out of practice! Create a giant checkerboard or a clubhouse in the back garden with your family. You set aside time to work on a side-project if you want to feel intense and focused in a creative way.
• Centering your staycation around introspective activities that help you spend time in silence can help you hear your inner desire. Reawaken an ability to listen to needs to change for you in life. Think meditation, massage with warm oil, stretching, walks in nature and tai chi. A gentle-to-medium detox can create clarity in your mind and heart to help you connect with your purpose. And consider taking 24 hour chunks of time off all devices and screens.

• If your goal is to feel more lightness in your body and mind, there’s no better option than following a detox, whether that’s gentle or intensive.
• The feeling will last well beyond your time off, and expand into how you experience your workdays, family life and relationships. I hear consistently from clients that some unexpected possibilities open up for them that they couldn’t see before.

Whatever you choose, make it something that actually gives you deeper benefits beyond a superficial change of location and partial time-out.

Everybody deserves the relaxed feeling of spaciousness you may be searching for.

If you discover that what you really want to feel from your holiday time is freedom and ease in your body and mind, consider an Ayurveda detox. It has a way of clearing a surprising range of obstacles that keep you feeling stuck.

You can unlock access to a fresh outlook and energy for living the life you want to live.

An Ayurveda detox is something you can do guided at home, or with the support of treatments if you’re local.

You can think of it as your own personal detoxiVACATION. Breaking free from physical heaviness and constant stress has a powerful effect to open up space and possibility in the mind.

Most of us are craving to feel free, deeply relaxed and coming home to yourself. It’s what makes us feel alive!

In my mind, a real holiday is going to give you an incredible feeling that stays weeks beyond your time off because it changes your inner ecology to support wellbeing.

So as an Ayurvedic practitoner, of course I’m going to suggest making it a detoxiVACATION!

If you decide you deserve a real break, consider integrating a cleanse into your summer.

Here’s how it works:

If you are out-of-town: select a Guided Home Detox

This is one-on-one instructions and support through an gentle and effective Ayurveda detox that I provide for clients in all corners of the world

If you are local to Amsterdam:
Choose the level of intensity you want to cleanse from these options:

I lead programs that help people actually do the Ayurveda non-negotiables that lead to thriving health & vitality. I help women do what they know they should do to get their lives back from fatigue and hormone imbalance, so they feel energized and vibrant.



I’m a trained Ayurvedic practitioner with over a decade of clinical and teaching experience. My specialties are women’s hormones, menopause, low energy and burnout.