There are trips where you pack every waking moment full of sightseeing, activities and excursions. And then there are trips you spend mostly horizontal: laying in a lounge chair, reading a book, sipping on a cold beverage and occasionally getting up for a dip in the ocean or pool.
The latter is what cookbook author and mom of four Caroline Chambers aptly refers to as a “plop vacation.”
A plop vacation is one in which you “wake up in the morning and pack a pool or beach bag, and literally plop by the pool or beach for the entire day,” Chambers explained in a comment on an Instagram post from a Mexico trip she and her family took earlier this year.
A plop vacation is similar to what folks in the travel world call a “fly and flop,” Chambers, author of the forthcoming “What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast,” told HuffPost.
“My sister is a luxury travel agent, and I often see her talking about this type of vacation where you fly to a destination and then basically flop down and don’t leave for the rest of the week,” she said. “Some people call it ‘flop.’ I call it ‘plop.’”
Certain travelers might look down on trips that don’t maximize time away by trying to see more, do more, learn more. And that kind of perspective-widening travel does have its benefits. Chambers herself loves “really, really adventurous travel where you are getting off the beaten path, seeing a local community in a way that you never could otherwise,” she said.
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But there are also some notable upsides to vacations of the plop variety.
“Sometimes you just need to completely reset your nervous system and not have to deal with any logistics,” Chambers said. “There is no better balm for the soul that is overtaxed by all the daily logistics of running a career and having a house full of kids than plopping down by a pool and having a waiter come take your drink order and bring you lunch by the pool.”
Plop vacations are great for anyone who just wants to rest and recharge their battery. But they can be particularly enjoyable and (relatively) low-stress for people with young kids. Just pack a bag with everything your family needs for the day: “snacks, diapers, toys, all of it, minimizing schlepping as much as possible,” said Chambers.
“It allows the parents to actually feel relaxed afterwards because our needs are being taken care of too,” Chambers said. “We can sit by the pool and have a margarita and order our kids’ lunch.”
Kelsey Pomeroy is a content creator who specializes in parenting and travel with kids, and has two young children of her own. When she hears the term “plop vacation,” she pictures “setting it all down and letting it all go, a rare treat in the life of parents to young kids,” she told HuffPost. It’s appealing because “schlepping stuff around is “the bane of [her] existence,” Pomeroy said.
Plopping with little kids in tow is not going to be as tranquil as plopping child-free. But it can still be pretty relaxing.
“A plop vacation is what people imagine when they think of the word ‘vacation,’ and I love the idea that even if it isn’t the same as a vacation was pre-kids, you can still plop and achieve pockets of peace throughout the day,” Pomeroy said.
As Chambers wrote in a post on her Substack, even though your kid is “spilling half of your margarita before you can even take a sip,” she still finds it “very restful and fun.” And if you need some grown-up plop time, you can sign the kids up for camp at the resort or book a local sitter, she said.
As parents and caregivers know, it can sometimes feel intimidating to leave the house — let alone leave the country — with young kids.
“So whether the beat of your family is to run around all day or plop, I love seeing easy frameworks like ‘plop vacations’ making traveling with little kids feel more accessible,” Pomeroy said.