Traveling and Vacationing. They are different. However, the phrases are usually interchanged, although they are, again, very different.
Say you are going to travel to England with your family. They used their last vacation days for a week and you all travel to London, a city famous for its English tourist attractions. You are very excited to visit the land of the British and plan and map out all the attractions, museums, and restaurants you want to go to. But once you arrive at the hotel, you find out your parents plan to sleep all day, all week. Bummer. Your parents wanted a vacation, and you wanted to travel.
This is coming from my personal experience and acquaintances’ experience, where you disagree with those you travel with to be tourists, or to chill on a beach for hours. To avoid this in the coming summer, here is the difference between traveling and vacationing.
Traveling, sort of by definition, is to move from one place to another, typically different states or countries, to experience different cultures, see new places, and to replenish one’s surroundings. Traveling helps people to understand and respect other places other than their own home and can teach many life lessons and skills. Many individuals find traveling rewarding, in a sense of peace, learning, or pure fun.
Vacationing, however, is the opposite. When people go on a vacation, they take days off of work, they do a detox of something or other, and chill. Whether it’s sleeping on a beach, reading a book on a hostel balcony, or eating in a simple restaurant, these “vaca” people travel the country to relax from their overwhelming life.
While vacationing is perfectly fine, and taking a nap in Italy is every person’s dream, it can be frustrating to travel with a “vaca” person as a tourist who wants to walk for hours around sights and attractions.
So my piece of advice to you, whether you want to travel as a tourist or as a vacationer, plan your next trip in agreement with those you are traveling with to accommodate each other equally so you can avoid the irritation of disagreement in a foreign country.