Something terrible has happened. Somewhere along the line holidays stopped being about spending 7 days in a pool full of other kid’s wee and started being about heaving ourselves up mountains for the perfect Instagram shot. In a millennial economy that trades on the richness of our experiences rather than summation of our material possessions, holidays have become an extravagant game of supermarket sweep. Instead of lying down and attempting to recharge our poor, adrenalin-ravaged bodies, we end up spending our 25 days a year running around European cities and exotic islands collecting memories like frenzied Super Marios collecting gold coins. The holidays of my childhood were simpler - nothing Instagram-worthy happened, nothing spiritually ‘transformative’ happened. Every year we went on all-inclusive, no-frills package holiday to somewhere hot and sunny. No schedule. No fuss. Everyone just got down to the job of holidaying and holidaying well. We have lost the pure associations that the word ‘holiday’ once conjured up and - in light of this - Ditzy is here to remind you how to holiday like a kid.
Leave all your middle-class self-consciousness at home
Make many many friends on the plane
Spill all your coke in the pool as you make your way back from the ‘swim-up’ bar
Immediately turn your neat, standard double room into a gypsy encampment by hanging your damp cossies over the balcony to dry each day
Get stuck into the ‘3 buffet meals a day’ challenge like a man training for the Olympics
Have at least 7 food groups on your plate at any one time, including one beige thing that you aren’t able to identify until after you’ve nibbled tentatively at the corner
Immediately spill sun cream all over your books
Apply factor 20 in half-hearted patches over your body before washing it all off in the pool
Do not leave the resort for the full 7 days
Do not dedicate even a single moment to worrying about improving yourself, whether you know enough about Cambridge Analytica or if people will get that your braids are ironic (they’re not and no one gives a damn)
Forget Orange Fanta, Lemon Fanta is everything now
Leave your book out in the sun, melting the glue and losing pages 250-350 to the winds
Steal a small child’s goggles, remember how COOL it is being able to see underwater!!
Don’t touch a leaf of raw salad/veg - as this is the only thing that has not been plunged into a vat of oil it will almost definitely contain e-coli
Forget what a podcast is
Forget what the Guardian is
Forget that there is a planet beyond your sun-lounger and the swim-up bar
Stop washing your hair (the braids will hide a multitude of sins)
Have 15 ham and cheese toasties a day
Only eat crisps that are crinkled
When the holiday rep asks if you had a good time, throw your burnt arms in the air, sloshing the last of your pool-bar coke down your neighbour and shout HELL YES
Shed a private tear as the coach careers back towards the airport
Written and illustrated by Jess Bird