Who is this person I suddenly become on vacation?

At home, I need three alarm clocks and a serious negotiation with myself to get up in the morning. In Bali, the alarm clock rings at 4:45 AM and I suddenly jump out of bed because the sun is rising somewhere behind a volcano.

At home, a 25-minute walk is "a bit far." In Paris, I walk 23,000 steps and find it romantic. I talk to strangers, order dishes whose names I can't pronounce, ride scooters, suddenly wear linen, and at 9 AM breakfast, declare that today we'll "just see where we end up."

Excuse me.

Who is this person – and why does she never come home with me?

Why do we suddenly change on vacation?

On vacation, our personality doesn't change overnight. What changes is the context in which it normally operates.

At home, we move through a dense web of routines, obligations, and expectations. We know when to get up, which route to take, where to shop, and what happens after work. Even our free time often has a schedule.

When traveling, a large part of this structure suddenly disappears. No one expects us to spend the day the same way as yesterday. We have to decide anew where to have breakfast, where to go, and what we even find interesting.

And that does something to us.

Not necessarily a new person emerges.

Perhaps the old one just gets more space.

At home, we have routines. On vacation, we have possibilities.

Routine is great. It makes our lives efficient and prevents us from having to rethink how a coffee machine works every morning.

However, it has a side effect: a lot happens automatically.

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