Yes, taking a vacation is actually an art form.

How many times have you heard someone say, "I need a vacation from my vacation!" Perhaps you've even said it yourself.  The problem is that we forget what a vacation is supposed to be.

A vacation is time away from your daily life — time to relax, rejuvenate, and renew.  If you treat every day of your vacation like a work assignment with to do lists and marching orders, it's different than daily life how?

That doesn't mean you don't plan your time away, just that you don't over plan and that you leave blocks of time for rest and serendipity.

No matter where you go, you'll never be able to see it "all."  People who have lived there their entire lives haven't seen it "all." You aren't going to do it in 10 days.  Decide what things are your non-negotiables — what you absolutely have to see.  I like to pare my list to no more than 2 or 3 things a day.  For example, when I visited Rome, I put the Boca de Verita, the Colosseum, and the Forum on the same day.  they are all in the same neighborhood, so I took a leisurely stroll from one to the next — with breaks to visit the street vendors and get a gelato.  If I saw something interesting, I could take the time to stop and visit without ruining my schedule.

Also, leave time to just be.  Sit on a beach, people watch in a cafe, hang out in a park, loll in a museum.  Give yourself a chance to take a breath.  I like to use that time to make little journal notes to help me remember what I've done.  Giving myself breaks also helps me to stay patient and polite when people aren't moving to my specifications.  I'm much more laid back when I don't have a tight schedule running through my mind.

When I vacation, I'd rather do less and do it more deeply that try to do everything and just touch the surface.