How a Cancelled Holiday Can Actually Make Life Better
There was supposed to be sand, grandparents, and the kind of fried seaside food you pretend is “part of the experience.” Instead, there was a pharmacy bag on the kitchen counter, a GP appointment on a Saturday, and antibiotics lined up next to the kettle. Our long-planned family trip to Devon didn’t happen.
Instead, we had our first cancelled holiday.
It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t restful. And yet — it ended up being its own strange lesson in health, slowing down, and listening to what really matters.
Why This Cancelled Holiday Mattered
I’ll admit it: I was reluctant to cancel. Our little one had been poorly, yes — Scarlet fever, of all things. (Who is Scarlet? Why did she give our child a fever? No one seems to know.) We’d already made the trip to A&E, then another to the GP, which ended with a prescription and the promise of a slow mend.
So, when the day of departure loomed, part of me wanted to just go. Surely she was almost better. Surely we could still bundle her onto the train and hope for the best.
But five hours on a train with a feverish toddler? Not exactly a kind plan. And the truth landed heavy: she wasn’t well enough, and we weren’t either. We’d had one decent night of sleep in seven. My partner looked worn down. Our daughter needed home.
Cancelling was a disappointment, but it quickly turned into something else: parental concern. And then, parental clarity.
The Cost of Cancelling (And Why It’s Worth It)
On paper, the decision looked like a financial win. We saved the accommodation cost. We got our train tickets refunded. We avoided the endless little expenses that sneak into every holiday — the takeaway chips, the extra ice creams, the impulse souvenir your toddler insists is “essential to happiness.”
But the real cost wasn’t money. It was emotional: the wave of disappointment, the shift from anticipation to worry, the gnawing feeling that we were missing out.
And yet, skipping the trip gave us something more valuable: space to care. Space to rest, even in fractured sleep. Space to focus on health instead of logistics.
No greasy burger-and-chips for me this time — but also, no five-hour train ride spent wondering if we’d made a mistake.
What I Learned From a Cancelled Holiday
Listening, Not Forcing
I wanted the trip to happen. Really, I did. It had been in the diary for ages, and there’s something about cancelling that feels like failure. But what I learned is that pushing ahead, just to keep a plan alive, isn’t strength.
The strength was in listening. To my baby. To my partner. To the quiet truth that my family’s health mattered more than a seaside weekend.
Health Is the Real Holiday
There’s a temptation to treat holidays as the antidote to life — the thing that will finally give us rest. But when someone is ill, even the best trip becomes an obstacle course. Packing bags, catching trains, dealing with naps and snacks and meltdowns in an unfamiliar place… it’s not rest. It’s performance.
Staying home, as unglamorous as it was, gave us what we actually needed: the conditions to mend. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget the moment I realised that “being kind” wasn’t just about my daughter. It was about me, too.
Redefining What’s Precious
The cancelled holiday reminded me of something obvious but easy to forget: the trip itself wasn’t the point. The people were.
My world isn’t the Devon coastline, however lovely it may be. My world is the little one in my arms and the partner by my side. They are what’s precious. And they’re the reason that, on that day, the only journey worth making was towards health.
The Hidden Gift of Staying Home
I won’t romanticise it: staying home with a sick child is hard. Sleep deprivation, worry, and the constant hope that the antibiotics are kicking in don’t exactly feel like gifts.
But once the disappointment wore off, I noticed something gentler. Home was quieter. Slower. We had no itinerary to keep up with. No rush to make the most of the trip. Instead, there were small moments of closeness. Reading books in bed. Sitting together on the sofa. Letting the day stretch without structure.
It wasn’t the holiday we planned. But in its own strange way, it was still a break — a forced pause, a reminder that slowing down is sometimes the healthiest option.
And maybe, just maybe, a cancelled holiday is an invitation to rethink what “rest” really means.
Gentle Questions for the Road
This was my first cancelled holiday. Hard, yes — but also a reminder that health is the foundation. These days, I try to treat cancelled plans not as failure, but as space for care. Sometimes the holiday you don’t take teaches you more than the one you do.
So I’ll leave you with a few questions:
- What surprised you the last time life forced you to slow down?
- What’s one plan you’d cancel if you gave yourself full permission to put your health first?
- How do you know when to push forward and when to rest?