Here in Iowa it’s the middle of winter, so it’s a great time to think ahead to your next vacation! Whether you are dreaming of a tropical destination, visiting family in another region, or even a staycation in your own hometown, planning a vacation is a feel- good activity.\u00a0 In fact, it’s been proven that planning a vacation releases more endorphins and other “happy brain” chemicals than actually going on the trip!<\/p>\n
Full disclosure- I started celebrating this one early.\u00a0 My niece has a special “duet” performance at her spring dance recital in early June, and so I’ve decided to make that the starting off point for my summer vacation.\u00a0 I have been weighing two possible destinations –\u00a0 Duluth MN or the Black Hills of SD- and I would have a good head start on either from there, so it just makes sense.\u00a0 \u00a0 Plus I often go on vacation in early to mid June.\u00a0 \u00a0Tourist attractions in the Midwest are often a little less crowded then vs. later in the summer, and there usually aren’t many other folks on PTO at my work during these times.<\/p>\n
So whether you haven’t given a single thought to your summer plans yet or if you have a detailed agenda already in place, spend a little time today thinking about vacation.\u00a0 It’s bound to put you in a good mood!<\/p>\n
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Here in Iowa it’s the middle of winter, so it’s a great time to think ahead to your next vacation! Whether you are dreaming of a tropical destination, visiting family in another region, or even a staycation in your own hometown, planning a vacation is a feel- good activity.\u00a0 In fact, it’s been proven that planning a vacation releases more… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[24,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-bright-shiny-objects"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/van-on-vacation.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}