I’ve shared this before but it really bears repeating — the best advice comes down to: spend time planning vacations, take more trips, work while you’re gone, and experience new and unusual things.

1. Planning vacations contributes more to your happiness than actually taking them. You may need to go on vacation to justify all of the planning time.

2. You get all of your relaxation benefits on the trip itself, but don’t expect to be relaxed when you get back. We quickly snap back into the stress of daily life, sans any benefit from the vacation. Go in knowing you’ll enjoy yourself while you’re gone, but don’t set the bar for “needing a vacation” that you expect to be reset, relaxed, and in a different place with work upon your return.

   
   View from the Andaz Maui

3. Being on vacation can actually be stressful. We put pressure on ourselves to enjoy, quickly, in a compressed period of time. After all, unless you travel frequently, you only get one shot per given period of time and you have to make the most of it.

   So take more trips. Don’t make them one-shot deals. Avoid the stress where each trip has to be perfect. Don’t try to do everything, it’s better to leave some sites unvisited and have some experiences left for the future. Leave yourself longing for more.

   
   Overwater Villa at the Park Hyatt Maldives, Where I’ll Soon Return for the 5th Time

4. People actually enjoy trips more when they’re interrupted by real time, as counterintuitive as it seems. Many short trips get interrupted by returning to work in between. For longer trips consider staying connected.

   
   Working Onboard Etihad First Class, Abu Dhabi – Dusseldorf

5. Look for intense or unusual experiences, things you’ll remember specifically. You’ll get more lingering value out of the trip that way than just a general sense that you must have been relaxed but where did the relaxation go?

   
   View from Waku Ghin at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

6. Make travel part of the trip. And since planning contributes to happiness spend time working through contingencies so you know how you’ll handle things like missed connections along the way.

   
   Showering in First Class on an Emirates A380 Really Does Feel Like You’re Already on Vacation