Whether close to home or halfway around the globe, holidaying can sometimes seem more stressful than it's worth. Reporter Vaughan Elder talks to an academic and an experienced traveller about ways to get the most of your trips away.
Getting together visas, getting the right vaccinations, booking flights and everything else that goes with preparing to head overseas can be difficult at the best of times, but for frequent traveller and Dunedin Travel Club president Christeen Bates (62), dealing with Parkinson's adds an extra level of complications.
Despite the complications that came with having the condition, Mrs Bates was not about to give up travelling - one of her ''passions'' - and after returning from Europe in September she was already thinking about her next big trip.
''In the aeroplane on the way home I said to my husband 'well, I have achieved that goal, now it's time to set a new one'.
''My new goal is to maintain my health at the stage it is now and go to Canada and Alaska in two years' time,'' she said.
Travelling was her ''reward system'' and the photos of her travels she had on the wall next to her computer gave her solace when doing the monthly accounts for her and her husband's building business - something she detested.
''We go away on a big trip every two years. We don't go away every year, because I like to spend a lot of time planning and looking into things and delving into their culture and their history.
''Then, of course, when you get home, you have got such wonderful memories that are still inside your head. I don't want to replace them with new visions of where I am going to go next time.''
Her best piece of advice for avoiding nasty travel hiccups - whether it be getting lost or health complications - was to plan thoroughly before leaving.
This meant photocopying passports and other important documents, such as the numbers for health insurance providers, and letting credit card providers know where you were going.
Mrs Bates and her husband also found it useful to use Google Earth to go over trips before they left, so they knew where they were going when they stepped out of an overseas airport.
All this preparation paid off and meant fewer arguments.
''I can honestly say that we didn't have one cross word or argument when we were away. I think it's all due to planning.,'' she said.
Mrs Bates said having a disability did not necessarily mean missing out on travel, but it did make preparation all the more important.
''My neurologist always sees me about six weeks before I am due to go, so he checks me over to make sure my medication is up to speed.
''We go through where we are going and what sort of stresses I am going through, like having a 31-hour day as opposed to a 24-hour day when you are travelling, and how you can overcome these things with medication.''
Getting enough medication and spreading it across both her and her husband's suitcases and travel bags had got her out of what could have been a much worse situation while travelling in South Africa.
''When we were in South Africa my suitcases got trashed in between Cape Town and Johannesburg and they took all my medicines that were in there ... and anything else that they thought was of worth.
''But, because I had my medications in my husband's suitcase as well as my hand luggage ... I had still had plenty of medications.''
It was also important not to get to flustered or down when things did go wrong - whether it be a delayed flight or becoming sick - which was an inevitable when you were travelling.
''You have to be able to take these things in your stride. There are very few holidays where everything is perfect.''
An example of this was when she got food poisoning in Beijing four years ago, which meant being confined to hotel room.
''We reorganised our flights and went on our way two days later. We didn't miss a beat with that, really.''
Another tip was to not set expectations to high.
''You don't believe the brochures. They pick the best photos.
''If I believed the brochures, I would have believed our cruise was like going through the Rhine River Gorge everyday and it wasn't.
''The Rhine River Gorge was only one day of spectacular gorge scenery. A lot of the other time there were petrochemical plants on the side of the Rhine and there were flat expanses with no ancient buildings or castles,'' she said.
She also felt it was a good idea to not let other people's experiences stop you from doing something you really wanted to do.
''I learnt a very valuable lesson a few years ago when we were going to Vietnam and Cambodia and somebody told me not to go to Siem Reap.''
Rather than going to Siem Reap and visiting the Temple of Angkor Wat, she followed the advice and stayed away.
''That's the one regret I have with travelling. Now, I ask people for advice, but if I really want to go and see something then I will do it.''
University of Otago tourism lecturer Dr Sebastian Filep, who co-authored an e-book with Rod Cuthbert called Vacation Rules, aimed at helping people have better holidays, offers much of the same advice, but grounds it in academic research.
Most of the advice in his book centred around the idea that ''it's not about the destination, it's about the state of mind''.
''That's the key message we are trying to communicate.''
The advice was largely based on the ''Perma'' theoretical model developed by respected positive psychologist, Martin Seligma, which was:
• Positive emotions - feeling good.
• Engagement - being completely absorbed in activities.
• Relationships - being authentically connected to others.
• Meaning - purposeful existence.
• Achievement - a sense of accomplishment and success.
''Now what we have done with the e-book Vacation Rules is looked at the literature and we came up with rules that broadly matched those dimensions.
''For example, for positive emotions, we have come up with a rule called kindness pays.''
Research showed engaging in random acts of kindness boosted positive emotions.
''So we have advised people to engage in those random acts when they travel, whether it's helping people with their luggage or letting somebody take a cab in front of them.''
Another rule was ''do less, enjoy more'', which meant not trying to cram in as many sights as possible in a short amount of time.
''The obvious outcome of that is that you might end up basically mindlessly drifting through places and not getting the most of what you see.''
For the relationships dimension there was the rule ''who you go with matters more than where you go''.
''Nothing enhances a trip more than the right companion,'' he said.
Another one of his favourite rules was ''shop for meanings, not just things''.
''So the idea is to shop wisely, because meaningful experiences provide more long-term happiness than physical possessions.''
''It's really trying to get use away from this idea of impulsive buying, because that is linked to materialism and essentially affects us in a negative way.''
Being ''optimistic'' was another key rule.
''The idea is to stay positive, if your flight is cancelled or delayed, remember that a pessimistic approach to finding a solution is likely to be self-fulfilling.
''So the idea is, again, there is research that shows optimists live longer than pessimists and they deal with problems better.''
One of the ways people sometimes went wrong was going abroad and just ''hedonic activities'' rather than ''challenging yourself, learning things, meeting the locals, so that you get these other wellbeing benefits like meaning, a sense of achievement''.
There was ''an interesting paradox'' with holidays, that meant no matter how much people complained, they kept on doing it.
''We complain how stressful something is - for example a Jet Star flight getting delayed or something like that.
''But, then we re-engage in it. So, there is something innate in human nature about this idea of seeking wellbeing away from the usual domicile.''
There was also some evidence which supported the argument that holidaying regularly was linked to reduced risk of mortality - which was another reason to pack your bags and take a holiday.
