Each group or sub-group has his constraints in "social noises" that keeps the group coherent, but distracts you from the view  (It is impossible to take a decent picture when someone is talking to you)!

But then maybe the "Holidays" are necessary, either to escape those socializing structures or on the contrary to find new bonds ?
Usually, holidays are exhausting... The change in one's pattern and schedules, plus the climate and exotic food, sums up in keeping some time at home to rest from the holidays !

The word itself, has some meaning, as in english it seems you're about to deal with some pilgrimage, while in french, "vacances" (as in vacancy) tends to indicate  the unplugging of ones hard disk...!

Traveling is quite new, as a social behavior, and goes in par with the sightseeing stuff, while enlarging our CO2 footprint!
The old "Kilroy was here" sort of graffiti is renewed by the postcards we send to team workers, and we wouldn't be able to sustain our rank in society if we didn't "see" (like in "seeing Naples and die") such fashionable site!

Isn't it strange to consider that our grandparents didn't even know about holidays and that most of them still lead full lives ? Do we really need that "organized break" for our mind's health, or is it another form of "spending spree" that goes with some discourses on global economy?

I've often been "on the move", since I was a toddler (not my choice), and lived in several countries (as many here)...Travel is usually for work reasons, and holidays is for another sort of work, filing in what couldn't be accomplished in "work time" !

In fact, my "holidays" are when I can look around me with curiosity... Whatever the place or time.

Maybe it's because, after spending some time in an hospital bed after an accident, listening to the wind rustling tree leaves while sipping some wine at a café terrace, still seems to me a fantastic goal...

"What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman