What a Greek Island Known for Bar Culture Taught Me About Doing Nothing

Somewhere between the pool, a good book, and a cat, I remembered what vacations are supposed to feel like.

We had plans that day.

A beach on the other side of the island. A restaurant the concierge had recommended. A sunset viewpoint we’d bookmarked in our notes months ago.

Then, the cat who served as hostess to our suite, jumped into my lap, and I happily used her as an excuse to stay put. Who am I to disrupt my host?

So put we stayed.

We settled into chairs by the pool. Ordered lunch, with a bottle of Moschofilero, of course, without once looking at the time. I read almost an entire book. The water was that impossible shade of blue photographs never quite capture. The towels were warm.

Nobody needed to be anywhere.

Especially not the cat.

Lying there, I realized that not so long ago, I would have felt guilty.

My host cat, who bite me several times while cuddling in my lap.

I would have told myself we were wasting the trip. That we should be out seeing things. That we hadn’t flown halfway around the world just to spend an entire day beside a hotel pool.

But that was the old script.

The one that says travel is about doing more. Seeing more. Checking off more.

Mercy and I aren’t lazy travelers. We’re usually first at breakfast, first in the airport lounge, first on the museum’s pre-opening tour. We don’t nap. We don’t skip meals. We don’t waste vacation days.

Until we did.

And it turns out the best day we had in Ios wasn’t spent exploring the island.

It was spent exactly where we were.

Not simply because the hotel was extraordinary (though it absolutely was) but because, for the first time in a long time, we gave ourselves permission to believe that doing nothing in a beautiful place wasn’t wasting the trip.

It was the trip.

I think that’s something a lot of us forget.

We work so hard to earn the vacation that we accidentally turn it into another job. Every hour has to be optimized. Every recommendation has to be experienced. Every meal has to be the best one.

Somewhere along the way, we forget that rest is part of the reason we came.

So here’s my advice.

Go to Ios. Wander if you want to. Eat long lunches. Find a pool with a view.

And if you wake up one morning and decide not to leave the hotel...

Don’t.

Years from now, that may be the day you remember most.

This essay is part of the Become series on Empty Nest Rebellion.

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