“Wow, I need a holiday from this holiday!”

Ever heard that one before? That just means that they’re doing it wrong. Planning a holiday should never be stressful or anxiety-inducing. It should be calm, peaceful, enjoyable and above all, fun. If you’re sitting on the beaches of the Costa Brava in Spain or relaxing in the sun of the Greek isles, the last thing you want to be doing is stressing out about your trip.

There are tips to plan the perfect stress-free holiday, and you just have to find them. Luckily, we’ve gathered them all for you right here. Use this handy guide to have the best, most enjoyable experience on your next “stress-less” holiday adventure.

Pick the Perfect Destination

The easiest way to get the perfect, easy holiday is to find the perfect destination. You need a place that inspires relaxation and fun, and that caters to everyone in your family.

How about Spain? It caters to travellers from all over the world, and has enough sights and scenery to captivate anybody. The beaches are always pristine and ready to swim in. The cities are bustling with life, full of vibrant festivals and colourful people. And the food is a mixture of both the exotic and the familiar. It’s enough for anybody.

How could life be stressful on the Costa Brava, one of Spain’s most coveted destinations, where the sun hits the sand on over 300 days of the year? How about travelling to some of the islands, like Mallorca or Ibiza, where there’s always something exciting going on? You could even find yourself in places like Lloret del Mar to enjoy a private beach or some of the untainted natural beauty.

When you find the perfect destination, everyone will relax and enjoy themselves more, reducing your stress while you’re there. If everyone’s having fun, so will you.

Book Simple Accommodation

It’s tough to find enough accommodation to suit everyone. You will probably pay an arm and a leg to get adjoining rooms in a hotel, if they’re available at all. If you’re travelling with a large group, staying somewhere can be a challenge, and you will most likely end up split all over the city.

Try staying in a private villa. You all get to stay together, and you don’t have to fight for space, either. There’s enough room around the large communal table, and your private pool never has closing hours or cleaning times.

Plus, you get the experience of living like a local. It’s a huge draw to come to Spain to visit. But imagine if you weren’t visiting, but actually staying there. That’s what it feels like when you book your very own private villa. Stress-free, worry-free, and completely your own. How could you get better than that?

Plan Activities for Everyone

If you’re going to have no stress, you want to make sure that there’s something to do for everyone on the trip. Plan a journey that gives everyone time to enjoy what they want to enjoy. Plan an outing to a museum in Malaga. Take some much-needed time at the beach. Enjoy a daily “siesta” to unwind and prepare for a big night on the town.

If you make your destination easy, you can find something to please everyone. It’s much easier and less hassle if everyone on the trip is happy.

Leave Enough Time For Everything

Beach at 10 AM

Drinks at 11 AM

Lunch at 12:30 PM

City tours at 1 PM

Rest at 2:30 PM

What kind of schedule is that? It’s rushed. It doesn’t leave enough time to enjoy what you’re doing. It’s stressful!

Plan to leave time in the schedule for whatever it is you’re doing. If you leave enough time at the beach, you won’t feel you have to leave early to move on to the next task. There’s nothing more relaxing than never having to worry about the time during your holiday. You worry enough about it at home, and you certainly don’t need the reminder while you’re relaxing and enjoying yourself.

Better yet, leave your watch at home. There’s something amazing about losing all track of time on your holiday. It’s refreshing to find that the entire day has passed without you once looking to see what time it is.

Plan to Improvise

Plans never go to plan. When you’re on holiday, someone will get sick, or something will be delayed, or you’ll find that you don’t want to leave one thing, or something will be cancelled at the last minute.

And that’s OK.

When you let go of the timetable and the planner, you allow fun to be a part of your day. If you plan to improvise, then when life happens and things go pear-shaped, you’re ready to handle it. You don’t feel rushed or harried.

It’s OK. I’ll move on. Let’s reschedule. Let’s pencil it in for tomorrow.

No big deal. No worries. And above all, no stress.

Plus, when you plan to improvise, you make room for all the fun adventures you can have along the way. If you meet someone for the first time and they invite you to get drinks or join them for dinner, you have the freedom to say yes. If you come across an amazing opportunity to do a tour or see some sights, you can respond with a “Yes!”.

It’s also impossible to make any concrete plans when you don’t know what’s coming around the corner. The best travellers know to make plans in pencil. The best opportunities are usually the ones they never knew about until they were actually there. Leave room for the unexpected. Plan to improvise your trip. Be ready for whatever your plans give you.

Your holiday should be fun and enjoyable. You should have the time of your life, refreshed, re-energized and ready to take on life again. Once you plan a “no-stress” holiday, you’ll be excited to start planning your next one straight away.