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Common idioms for vacation include get away from it all (escape your normal life), recharge your batteries (rest and get your energy back), let your hair down (relax and enjoy yourself), kick back (relax), hit the road (set off), travel light (take very little luggage) and off the beaten track (away from the usual tourist places). For the trip home there is back to the grind, and for a “holiday” spent doing your usual job, a busman’s holiday.
One thing to know first: Americans say vacation and British, Irish, Australian and many other speakers say holiday, so several of these idioms use the word “holiday” even when an American is speaking. The idioms below follow a trip from start to finish: getting restless, planning, travelling, relaxing, things going wrong, and coming home. Each has its meaning, a sentence in use and, where it matters, a note on how informal it is. For journeys in general, see idioms for travel.
Quick picker
| You want to say… | Idiom |
|---|---|
| you badly want to travel | have itchy feet; be bitten by the travel bug |
| you need a break from routine | need a change of scenery; get away from it all |
| you have no fixed plan | play it by ear; wing it |
| you are leaving | hit the road; get on the road |
| you are packing very little | travel light |
| you are visiting quiet, unusual places | go off the beaten track (or path) |
| a very fast trip with many stops | a whistle-stop tour |
| you are resting | recharge your batteries; put your feet up; kick back |
| a big night out | paint the town red; live it up |
| the trip was wonderful | have the time of your life |
| a place that is overpriced and crowded | a tourist trap |
| a holiday doing your normal work | a busman’s holiday |
| you are back at work | back to the grind; back to reality |
Before the trip: wanting to go
- Have itchy feet. Feel restless and want to travel or move on. “After two winters in the same office, I’ve got itchy feet.” Common in British and Australian English, understood everywhere.
- Be bitten by the travel bug / catch the travel bug. Develop a strong, lasting love of travel. “She went to Peru at nineteen and was bitten by the travel bug.”
- Need a change of scenery. Want to be somewhere different for a while. “We don’t need luxury, just a change of scenery.” The British proverb a change is as good as a rest says the same thing.
- Get away from it all. Escape work, chores and everyday stress. “We rented a cabin with no Wi-Fi to get away from it all.” The noun a getaway (a short holiday) comes from the same idea.
- Count the days. Wait eagerly. “The kids have been counting the days since March.”
Planning (or not)
- Pencil something in. Book or plan something provisionally. “Let’s pencil in the first week of August.”
- Up in the air. Not decided yet. “Our dates are still up in the air until my leave is approved.”
- Play it by ear. Decide as you go, without a fixed plan. The phrase comes from playing music without written notes. “We’ve booked the first two nights and we’ll play it by ear after that.”
- Wing it. Informal. Improvise with no preparation at all. “We didn’t book anything; we just winged it.”
- Iron out the details. Settle the last practical questions. “We still need to iron out who’s driving.”
- Break the bank. Cost too much, usually in the negative. “A week in Portugal in May won’t break the bank.”
Getting there and getting around
- Hit the road. Set off on a journey. Informal. “We’ll hit the road at six to beat the traffic.” In “Hit the road!” it can also mean “go away”.
- Travel light. Take very little luggage. Note the form: travel light, not travel lightly. “I travel light: one bag, no checked luggage.”
- Make good time. Travel faster than expected. “We made good time and reached the coast by lunch.”
- Break the journey. Stop somewhere overnight on a long trip. Chiefly British. “We broke the journey in Lyon.”
- The red-eye. An overnight flight that arrives early in the morning, named for how passengers look on landing. “I took the red-eye and went straight to the beach.”
- Live out of a suitcase. Travel so much or so constantly that you never unpack. “Three cities in five days: we lived out of a suitcase.”
- Off the beaten track (British) / off the beaten path (American). Away from the places most tourists go. “We found a village off the beaten track with one café and no coaches.”
- A whistle-stop tour. A trip that visits many places very briefly. The term comes from American railways: a whistle stop was a small station where a train halted only if signalled, and politicians made “whistle-stop” speaking tours from the backs of trains. “It was a whistle-stop tour of Europe: twelve countries in fifteen days.”
- A flying visit. Chiefly British. A very short visit. “It was only a flying visit, but we saw the cathedral.”
- See the sights / take in the sights. Visit the famous places. “We spent the morning taking in the sights.”
- Get your bearings. Work out where you are in a new place. “Give me a day to get my bearings before we start exploring.”
Relaxing and enjoying yourself
- Recharge your batteries. Rest so that you have energy again. “A week by the sea and I’d recharged my batteries completely.” Use the right pronoun: my batteries, her batteries.
- Put your feet up. Sit down and rest. “Once the kids were at the pool, I put my feet up with a book.”
- Kick back. Informal, especially American. Relax completely. “We kicked back on the deck all afternoon.”
- Take it easy. Relax and avoid effort. “The doctor told him to take it easy, so we chose a quiet resort.”
- Let your hair down. Relax and behave more freely than usual. “The office party is where the accountants let their hair down.”
- Veg out. Informal. Do nothing at all, often in front of a screen. “We vegged out in the hotel room after the long flight.”
- Soak up the sun. Lie or sit in the sunshine. “She spent three days soaking up the sun on the terrace.” More sunny phrases are on idioms for summer and idioms for the beach.
- Paint the town red. Go out and celebrate noisily, usually at night. “On our last night in Madrid we painted the town red.”
- Live it up. Enjoy yourself, often by spending freely. “We lived it up for a week and ate noodles for a month after.”
- Have the time of your life. Have an extremely good time. “The children had the time of their lives at the water park.”
- A home from home (British) / a home away from home (American). A place where you feel as comfortable as at home. “The guesthouse was a real home from home.”
- R and R (R&R). Rest and relaxation, or rest and recuperation; it began as military slang for leave. “After the exams, I need some serious R and R.”
- Off the grid. Out of contact, with no phone or internet. “I’ll be off the grid in the mountains until Monday.” Its first meaning is a home not connected to public power or water.
Most of these are casual. In a work message, “I’ll be out of the office until 12 May” or “I’m on annual leave” is better than “I’ll be off the grid kicking back.” For ready phrasing, see other ways to say “have a good vacation”, and for more ways to say relax, idioms for relax.
Short breaks and slow days
Not every holiday is a fortnight abroad. These fit a weekend away, a day off or a slow afternoon on a longer trip.
- Take a breather. Stop for a short rest. “Let’s take a breather at the top before we walk down.”
- Watch the world go by. Sit somewhere and idly watch people pass, a favourite holiday pleasure. “We spent the afternoon at a café in the square, watching the world go by.”
- A breath of fresh air. Something new and refreshing after routine. “After a winter in the city, the island was a breath of fresh air.” It is also used literally for going outside.
- Take some time out. Step away from work or study for a while. “She took some time out after her finals and went walking in Wales.”
- Take a load off. American, informal: sit down and rest. “Come in, take a load off; you’ve been driving all day.”
- A mini-break. British: a short holiday, usually two or three nights. “We booked a mini-break in York for our anniversary.”
Holiday words worth knowing
- A busman’s holiday. Time off spent doing the same thing you do at work. “The chef spent his holiday cooking for twenty relatives: a real busman’s holiday.” It dates from the late nineteenth century; the usual explanation is that a bus driver on his day off would ride around on someone else’s bus.
- A working holiday. A trip that combines work and leisure. It is also the name of a visa that lets young people work while travelling in countries such as Australia and New Zealand.
- A staycation. A holiday spent at home or near it. A blend of stay and vacation, widely used since the late 2000s.
- A tourist trap. A place that exists to take money from visitors, usually crowded and overpriced. “The harbour restaurants are tourist traps; eat two streets back.”
- A holiday romance (British) / a summer fling. A short love affair on holiday that is not expected to last.
When the holiday goes wrong
- Hit a snag. Meet a problem. “We hit a snag at the border: my passport had expired.”
- Go pear-shaped. British, informal. Go badly wrong. “The trip went pear-shaped when the ferry was cancelled.”
- Rain on someone’s parade. Spoil someone’s plans or happiness. “I hate to rain on your parade, but the hotel is closed in October.”
- Put a damper on something. Make it less enjoyable. “The jellyfish put a damper on the beach day.”
- A fly in the ointment. One small thing that spoils something good. “The only fly in the ointment was the building work next door.”
- Back to square one. Forced to start again. “Our flight was cancelled and we were back to square one.”
- The holiday from hell. Informal. A trip where everything goes wrong. “Lost bags, food poisoning, a storm: the holiday from hell.”
Coming home
- Back to the grind. Back to tiring, routine work. “Two weeks in Greece, and now it’s back to the grind.”
- Back to reality. The end of a pleasant break. “The suntan fades, the emails pile up: back to reality.”
- Back to the salt mines. A jokey way of saying you are going back to work, as if it were hard labour.
- The post-holiday blues. Sadness after a holiday ends. Careful: in American English “the holiday blues” usually means low spirits around Christmas and New Year.
- There’s no place like home. Home is best after all. The line goes back to the 1823 song “Home! Sweet Home!”, and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz made it famous worldwide.
- All good things must come to an end. A proverb for the last day of a trip.
Vacation or holiday?
| Meaning | American English | British English |
|---|---|---|
| time off to travel or rest | a vacation; go on vacation | a holiday; go on holiday |
| a public day off such as 1 January | a holiday | a bank holiday or public holiday |
| “the holidays” | the Christmas and New Year season | usually the school break |
| away from popular places | off the beaten path | off the beaten track |
| a place as comfortable as home | a home away from home | a home from home |
Common mistakes
| Wrong or unclear | Better | Why |
|---|---|---|
| I’m getting itchy foot. | I’m getting itchy feet. | The idiom is always plural. |
| We travelled lightly. | We travelled light. | Light works as an adverb in this fixed phrase. |
| Off the beaten road. | Off the beaten track / path. | Only track or path is used. |
| We went the distance to visit five parks. | We went a long way to visit five parks. | Go the distance means last to the end, not travel far. |
| After the spa, we were on easy street. | After the spa, we felt completely relaxed. | On easy street means rich and comfortable for life. |
| Once we were through security, we were home free, almost finished. | …we were home free. | Home free means safe, sure to succeed, not “almost done”. |
| We were out of pocket when the card was declined. | We had no money when the card was declined. | In British English out of pocket means having lost money; in American English it often means unavailable. |
| A busman holiday. | A busman’s holiday. | The possessive is part of the idiom. |
A short example
“By February I had itchy feet, so we pencilled in ten days in Sicily and played the rest by ear. We hit the road at dawn, travelled light and stayed off the beaten track, apart from one whistle-stop afternoon in Palermo. The trip hit only one snag, a ferry strike, and otherwise it was exactly what we needed to recharge our batteries. Now it’s back to the grind, and I’m already counting the days to the next one.”
Practice
A. Complete each sentence with one idiom: travel light, off the beaten track, recharge my batteries, hit the road, a busman’s holiday.
- We wanted quiet villages, so we went ______.
- I’m exhausted. I need a week in the hills to ______.
- Let’s ______ before the traffic builds up.
- I always ______ so I never wait at baggage claim.
- The teacher spent her summer tutoring her nephews: ______.
B. Correct the idiom.
- We need to iron on the details before we leave.
- The rain put a damper on our parade.
- It was only a flying trip, but we loved it.
Answers
1 off the beaten track · 2 recharge my batteries · 3 hit the road · 4 travel light · 5 a busman’s holiday · 6 iron out the details · 7 either “rained on our parade” or “put a damper on our day”; the sentence mixes two idioms · 8 a flying visit
Quick answers
What is an idiom for going on vacation?
“Get away from it all” is the most general. “Hit the road” is for setting off, and “take a break” or “take some time off” are the plain, neutral versions.
What is an idiom for relaxing on vacation?
“Recharge your batteries”, “put your feet up”, “kick back” and “let your hair down”. The first two are the safest in a semi-formal message.
What does “a busman’s holiday” mean?
A holiday or day off spent doing the same kind of work you normally do.
What is an idiom for wanting to travel?
“Have itchy feet” or “be bitten by the travel bug”. The noun wanderlust, borrowed from German, is a single word for the same urge.
Is “staycation” an idiom?
No, it is a blended word (stay + vacation). It is informal but widely understood.
How do you wish someone a good vacation?
Plainly is best: “Have a wonderful trip” or “Enjoy your time off; you’ve earned it.” Idioms such as “recharge your batteries” fit a friendly note to a colleague.
New to idioms? Figurative language explains how idioms differ from similes and metaphors.