Dromomanic Amy Huang explains why she chooses travel over the big family Christmas.

In a week or so, I’ll be on a plane to Cambodia. I’ll be there for two and a half weeks.

Yes, that does mean I am going to miss out on the family gathering, again. Well, that’s exactly how I plan it.

If you have read my previous two posts, you would have figured out that I am not the perfect wife/daughter/family member there is to have. I put travel on the top of my priorities and that means any days off work is opportunity for me to get away.

While most people take the opportunity to go inter-state and visit various family members and spoil their nephews and nieces, I fly far far away, because to be honest, I don’t like wasting the time I could be exploring the world listening to various family arguments over timing of dinner, size of presents and why we don’t have kids yet.

Living in Australia, we get two days of public holiday for Christmas, and one day on New Years Day. It is also the summer school holidays when everyone decide to travel. Therefore, many organisations and companies decided that it wasn’t worth keeping the business operating during this quiet period and will shut down for one or two weeks.

For me, it’s heaven.

Yes, it may be the most expensive time to travel, and yes, everywhere I go will be crowded; however it means that out of the two week’s of break I only have to take around six days of formal leave from work.

So, never mind the family Christmas gatherings and the tradition of Boxing Day barbecues: it’s sayonara to the family and off I go.

I do love travelling during the Christmas and New Years break. Not only do I get to experience how other cultures celebrate (or not), I also get away with not having to turn up to a festive event that I don’t necessarily believe in.

Travelling has opened my eyes to cultures that don’t celebrate Christmas and other Christianity based festivals (I also, don’t stay at home for Easter either); I have learned to love the Songkran, Eid ul-Fitr and the Diwali just as much, and it is through seeing the different celebrations, different ways of worshipping the various gods have I got to love the world we live in.

So do I ever spend Christmas with the family? Well, yes, if it is somewhere that is not ‘home’. There was once that Mom, Dad and the sister decided to come to Fiji with us. We spent the Christmas together then.

That’s right. If it involves travelling, I am willing to do a family Christmas.

Otherwise, I think I already spend enough time with them during any other times that I think they can do without me for the few weeks a year.

Have you ever chosen travel over spending Christmas or other big holidays with the family? Tell us about it in the comments below!