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What Are Holidays, Essay Example

Pages: 7

Words: 1844

Essay

Holidays are special moments when people come together as family members, colleagues, or friends. For many Americans, holidays provide an ideal moment for people to reflect on different experiences that they have gone through in life. For people who choose to spend time with their families, holidays bring about interesting moments whereby family bonds are strengthened. Above all, holidays create an opportunity for Americans to visit different attractions where they can have fun, sightseeing, or engaging in different sporting activities

An American holiday experience starts long before the fun day. One has to decide about the best time to go holidaying. Summer is the best time to go on holiday in America.

In order to ensure that you are dealing with the right companies that offer tours and travel services, one may inquire about them from a friend who recently went on holiday. Asking him about his experiences, whether they were good or bad, and why they were good or bad would be a very good idea. In addition, you may want to ask the agent for references that you can call upon to further ensure customer satisfaction. If none are available, you can also check with the local Better Business Bureau for a current rating and filing of concerns.

Many people in America go on holiday for duration of between one and two weeks. This means that one has to put all the necessary accommodation arrangements in order to avoid last-minute inconveniences. The task of booking a good hotel can be easy if one puts the necessary plans in place. Just like in the case of booking a flight, there are rogue hotel agents who have no business ethics. In fact, they are in the travel business in name and appearance. When you expect to be given hotel reservation services by such business people, you will settle for an unfair deal at best, which in this case means failure to find accommodation at all (Penner & Ohlsson,  1993).

Planning ahead is important since one gets an opportunity to avoid the last minute rush, which may make one cancel his holiday over a technical anomaly in the holiday arrangements. Couples like going on holiday both locally and internationally. A holiday without a camping adventure does not sound real to many Americans, especially if the chosen attraction is a mountain or a desert. It is good to assemble everything in time (Penner & Ohlsson, 1993). Some people think this is an easy thing to do until they get down to doing it, only to realize that it is real challenge. The challenges of having to conduct independent research makes some Americans prefer to hire holiday experts to do the job for them. When these challenging tasks are shared among family members, everyone shares in the fun.

In America, some holiday experiences come in the form of festivals (Richardson, 2001). One may time a holiday to coincide with an important festival, both within the United States or elsewhere. There are so many of them that after doing a thorough research, you will be surprised to learn about so many of them.

A good holiday is one that evokes pleasant memories about places you have toured, things you did, people you met, and friends you made. In order to gather all these experiences, you need to ensure that you choose your travel agency very carefully. Some agents specialize on business holidays while others deal exclusively with leisure holidays. The agent who books your airfare ticket should be professional in his or her work; therefore, you need to choose him or her wisely. Recently, I hastily choose an agent whose name I witness on a billboard only to realize on the day of the flight that he had not booked a ticket for me. When I inquired with George Bush Intercontinental Airport authorities about the unscrupulousness of the agent, I was told that the said agent did not exist.

Living close to the Texas Gulf Coast, I recently planned a leisure holiday party at the beach, which was rudely interrupted by rain. Everybody blamed me for their wetness since I was the one who insisted carrying tents would be cumbersome. The weather promised to be friendly and even the weathermen had prophesied that sunshine would reign all day. Anyway, they blamed me for the weather and it was awful. You can learn from my experience if you want to hold a beach party. You must have a back-up plan in case you are interrupted by a rainstorm.

Areas such as mountains and deserts are challenging to traverse even for the most adventurous lot (Penner & Ohlsson, 1993). Some sporting activities such as yachting and boat-racing may appear very simple although they require a certain level of experience. People tend to try it out in the shallow waters only to get carried away by the fun of it so much that they go further ashore, something that may lurk danger (Klebanow & Fischer, 2005).

Sometimes one may find himself craving for a holiday so much that there seems to be no choice but to hastily organize one. In this case, one has to be creative in order to please the kids, and any of their friends who may gain interest in such a holiday. Meanwhile, adults may also see sense in coming along for such a holiday if there are such tools of fun as music systems, video cameras, camping tents, lots of foods and drinks, and a good tour guide to take one as many attractions as possible within the available time (Klebanow & Fischer, 2005).

There are different types of hotels to choose from. Some are built close to attraction sites such as beaches, mountains, parks, and hot, rocky deserts. In contrast, others are situated in up market areas in major cities. In this case, price is a commanding factor on one’s holiday accommodation decision. The services one wants rendered will dictate the amount of money one needs to part with.

Some Americans like to go on business holidays instead of pleasure ones. While for others, holiday means work-off. When I went on holiday, it was a work-off situation. I had a one-month leave, which I wanted to put into the best use by going on holiday. When I saw the kind of hotels that business-class holidaymakers were being ushered into, I envied the luxury that awaited them, until I found out the amount of the money they had to pay for the services; they pay really expensively. I doubted whether paying $500.00 for one night was worth a service of any nature rendered in one day in a holiday environment. In my case, I paid almost ten times less this figure for two rooms.

Some Americans intend to make the holiday experience as simplistic as possible. The idea is often to create an environment of serenity, away from the hustle and bustle of city life. The best way to do this is to attach a meaning to a holiday, put a good plan in place, and research on the workability of the plan. I think I did not do this when I decided to plan the holiday; I would draw on my past experiences and attach a religious meaning to it. I would then accumulate enough savings for a business-class hotel, where the services rendered are perfect.

For someone who is planning to go on vacation, one may choose to consider making it coincide with Anzac day which Americans celebrate on April, 25 of every year. This day is commemorated in order to honor everyone who served during the World War I. during this type of holiday, one gets time to reflect on values of nationhood. This is something good for people with nationalistic feelings to do.

In the case of adventure holidays, tour guides always insist that when one is not familiar of an appropriate path, they should use the trodden path. Beaten paths, though lacking in the real sense of adventure, are safe and guarantee a holidaymaker that other people have followed the similar path or track. Beating new paths is an art. Pitching a tent is not as simple as it sounds. The security level of the location where the tent is being pitched should be assessed by experienced tour guides. In cases where one chooses to go on a holiday in a national park, it is important to know which animals one can go close to such as pigeons, and which ones are too dangerous to encounter when they are not in enclosed or tamed environments such lions and leopards (Klebanow & Fischer, 2005).

Few people can go on a holiday only to forget to bring some souvenirs home. Choosing souvenir can be a very easy task, but not without the assistance of local people. Some items are culturally associated with certain holiday experiences. One may be ridiculed for going on a holiday in the beach and failing to come back home with something to prove it or more importantly, to act as a reminder to posterity about ones holiday preferences and experiences.

Holiday specialists suggest that it is important for one to go on a pre-visit in order to get acquainted with the holiday destination. However, this can only be cost-effective in local destinations. In international destinations, the success of the holiday is always at the mercy of foreign travel agents. This used to be the case some few decades ago, when technology was not as developed as it is today.

Today, local travel agents are finding it easy to liaise with associates in target countries in order to facilitate coordination of travel arrangements for American tourists. Such arrangements save holidaymakers the bother of having to carry out time-consuming research on holiday environments that are completely foreign to them and about which they understand almost nothing (Penner & Ohlsson, 1993).

Merging holiday experiences and fun is not as easy as it seems; people who hate dealing with logistical concerns find it extremely difficult to relax their minds even when there is nothing to about by way of logistics any more. For such a person, a business holiday is the best option. Alternatively, it would be good if such a person chose to brings the family or close friends along for company.

In conclusion, holidays and vacations are both an important part of every American’s life. It is good for one to grab the opportunity of a holiday mood in order to go on vacation. In this case, the decision on whether to make such vacation a business or leisure experience is for an individual to make. In either case, one needs to relax his mind while thinking about what to do in the future, once the holiday is over. Seeking some help with the planning process is very much in order. It is meant for one’s own efficiency and enjoyment.

References

Klebanow, B. & Fischer, S. (2005). American Holidays: Exploring Traditions, Customs, and Backgrounds. Vermont: Pro Lingua Associates.

Penner, L.R. & Ohlsson, I. (1993). Celebration: The Story of American Holidays. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.

Richardson, S. (2001). Holidays & Holy Days: Origins, Customs, and Insights on Celebrations through the Year. Ventura, CA: Vine Books.

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