Grout - The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life

And what happened then?

Wellin Who-ville they say

That the Grinchs small heart

Grew three sizes that day!

Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

T his is a book of what I call before and after vacations. Any one of the hundred vacations listed here has the potential to seriously change your life. With the possible exception of the Make Yourself Over thats listed in the wellness escapes chapter, you probably wont look much different to the naked eye. But youll be different, guaranteed. Your heart will be bigger, your purpose will be clearer, the petty things that used to seem so overwhelming will shrink and eventually disappear. Youll be puzzled: Whatever compelled me to worry about that silly thing in the first place?

The book is divided into four chapters. There are vacations to stretch your creativity, your heart, and your mind, plus vacations to challenge and treat your physical self.

If you can, resist the urge to pack your cell phone, your BlackBerry, or any kind of to-do list. At first, that might seem impossible leave my cell phone behind, who are you kidding? Within a day or two, however, youll settle into a rhythm and realize that all those normal things, those work things that you spend so much time obsessing over, just dont matter . So get ready to slow down. Make new friends. Scratch a dog behind the ears. Build a sand castle. Smile a lot.

And, best of all, remember what it is you really want out of life. To contribute, to create, and to grow.

Pam Grout

B y day, youre a doctor. Or a teacher. Or a stay-at-home mom. Maybe you file income tax forms for a living or drive a taxi. But in the still of the night, in those last few moments before drifting off, theres a dream that keeps peeking around the corner of your consciousness. Maybe its a poem tapping on your heart, or a screenplay that wont leave you alone, but theres a dream you keep pushing aside with some comment like Nah! I could never sing or dance like that or I could never make a film.

Now is the time to quit pushing that dream aside.

In this chapter, youll find 24 arts-and-crafts getaways. Theyre vacations that will give you uninterrupted time to pursue that childhood dream, whether its playing the guitar or designing your own home.

It doesnt matter if the song you write is never heard on the radio. Who cares if it doesnt make the Top 40? Somebody out there needs to hear it. Maybe its the 92-year-old shut-in who lives next door who giggles every time she overhears you sing I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Weiner in the shower. Isnt that enough?

In these workshops that range from learning the cha-cha to firing pots in an ancient Japanese kiln, youll get the chance to share who you really are, to say This is who I am, and this is what I stand for.

All of us have so much to express. We have so many thoughts rolling around in our heads, so many boiling, seething dreams and plans. But instead of expressing them, instead of saying, Heres what I think, we buy a Hallmark card and let somebody else say it for us.

Very early on, we turn over the reins to someone or something outside ourselves. The coach tells us whether or not were good enough to be on the basketball team. The music teacher decides if we have the talent to sing in the choir. Our teachers give us grades that are supposed to indicate if were smart enough to make the honor roll, bright enough to get into college. Our art teachers give us the rules were expected to follow: Grass is green, skies are blue, and flowers do not have faces.

Robert Fulghums now famous essay All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten was made into a stage play. In one of the first scenes, the kindergarten teacher asks her fresh young students how many of them are dancers?