Vacations are meant to be relaxing, but just getting away for a trip can be more stressful than you might think. According to Forbes, more than half of Americans report not using all of their paid vacation days—and that’s just those fortunate enough to have PTO in the first place, as nearly a third of US workers go without. Of those who do take time off, over half say they’ve found themselves working while on vacation anyway.
In a perfect world, everybody would have as much time off as they needed, and the ability to spend it actually decompressing. In our real world, however, we have a realistic solution: the day trip. Getting away for a short time can do wonders for your well being, and in many cases can also be more fun and less stressful than a longer vacation. You don’t have to be all-or-nothing about your vacation, especially when it comes to trips to the slopes.
The more places you visit, the happier your brain
According to a 2020 study from researchers at New York University, Columbia University, and the University of Miami, spending time in a wide variety of places has positive effects on your brain, which translate to positive effects on your mood. While taking a single, long trip has its benefits, it’s also the vacation equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket. Longer trips can wipe out your financial reserves and quickly eat up the time you’re able to get away from work and other responsibilities.
On the other hand, day trips create less of a concentrated drain on your resources, allowing you to spend less at once and enjoy the novelty of multiple new places. Trying out different day trip locations stimulates the novelty and reward centers of the brain. What’s more, researchers investigating how anticipating an experience affects the brain at Cornell University and the University of California found that just looking forward to a trip has mental health benefits.
The more day trips you’re able to take, the more chances you get to reap the emotional rewards. While there are some areas where one mountain has a monopoly for miles, chances are that if you live within a couple hours’ drive of one slope, there are more peaks to visit where that came from. Hunter Mountain, Belleayre, and Catamount" are all a quick drive (or bus) from New York City.
Happy brain, happy body
There’s a well-established link between physical and mental wellbeing—basically, when your brain is happy, the rest of you tends to follow suit. One paper published in Psychology & Health found evidence that the positive experience of a vacation was potentially protective against metabolic symptoms like heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. And the more trips a person was able to take, the more their risk decreased: according to researchers, “metabolic syndrome decreased by nearly a quarter with each additional vacation taken by participants.”
One of the best things about skiing and snowboarding is the chance they give you to unplug and get outdoors.
Spending time in nature can help abate everything from high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, according to a study conducted at the University of Michigan, to heart disease. By taking day trips, you can spread those benefits out, rather than concentrating them during one time period.
For beginning skiers and snowboarders—like myself—one day on the mountain can be more than enough. Taking a day trip to the mountain may just be the perfect way to minimize the stress of a vacation, while maximizing the benefits and getting just the right amount of mountain time.
Lindsay Lee Wallace is an enthusiastic amateur snowboarder based in New York City. Her work focused on culture and health equity has appeared in TIME, Slate, Teen Vogue, SELF, and elsewhere.
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