Summer holiday mental load: how to actually rest

Summer holidays don't lighten the mental load: they move it. The person who thinks of everything the rest of the year keeps anticipating, packing and handling meals and laundry on site, without the routines of home. To really rest, a couple has to share whole domains of the trip, not just carry the bags.

The holidays are meant to rest everyone… but do they really?

In a few weeks: summer. Suitcases, the beach or the mountains, long days without an alarm. On paper, two or three weeks to breathe. In reality, for many parents — and statistically, mostly for mothers — the holidays aren't a break from the mental load. They're another form of it.

According to the Ifop survey for Bons Plans Voyage New York (2,004 people in France, August 2023), 70% of women say they are tired at the end of their holidays, versus 57% of men, and 53% say they are stressed, versus 39% of men (Ifop for Bons Plans Voyage New York, 2023). This is no quirk of temperament: on holiday, the unequal sharing of tasks seen all year long doesn't fade — it often grows.

This isn't another guide on "how to pack well." It's an article about what plays out one level below: the mental suitcase of summer. The one you never see, never put in the trunk, and that weighs on you long before departure and long after the return.

Why holidays don't ease the mental load (they relocate it)

We often imagine that leaving means leaving everything behind. But the mental load isn't attached to a place — it's attached to a role. The parent who thinks of everything at home keeps thinking of everything on the beach. Except that at home, part of the logistics runs on autopilot: the fridge is stocked, the laundry has its place, the routines are set.

On holiday, that safety net disappears. Everything has to be reinvented in an unfamiliar place: where to shop, how to keep the children busy, where to do laundry, what to eat tonight. French sociologist Monique Haicault, who first framed the concept of mental load in 1984, described the simultaneous management, in one head, of several worlds that must be coordinated continuously (Haicault, 1984). Holidays don't suspend that juggling — they transport it into a setting where nothing is automatic anymore.

That's why a trip can be wonderful and exhausting for the same person. The visible rest (no office, no school) masks an invisible labor that never stops. To understand how this mechanism also works during shorter breaks, see our article on the mental load of school holidays.

The mental suitcase in three stages

The mental load of holidays doesn't fit into the moment of departure alone. It unfolds in three invisible stages, two of which almost always go unnoticed.

Stage 1 — Before: all the piloting that precedes departure

Long before the first suitcase, there's groundwork: choosing the dates, comparing and booking accommodation and transport, organizing July and August — and above all filling the childcare "gaps," those stretches when both parents aren't off at the same time and a solution has to be found for the children. In another Ifop survey, two in three women in a couple (66%) said they did more than their partner to organize the summer holidays; only 34% of men said the same about themselves (Ifop for Voyage avec Nous, 2022).

This stage is the most invisible of all. No one "sees" it happen, because it unfolds in your head, in the background, over weeks.

Stage 2 — During: the logistics that don't go on holiday

Once on site, the Ifop figures are unambiguous. Among couples who traveled with their children:

• The children's suitcase: packed by 71% of mothers, versus 12% of fathers.
• Daily laundry: handled by 72% of mothers, versus 13% of fathers.
• Meals during outings: managed by 53% of mothers, versus 17% of fathers.

Forgotten sunscreen, a comfort blanket left at home, a medication not to miss, dinner to improvise: these are micro-decisions stacking up, feet in the water or not. The mental background noise doesn't switch off just because the scenery changed.

Stage 3 — After: the return and back-to-school

The last stage is the most underestimated. Coming home isn't just arriving: it's packing the return suitcases, running the piled-up laundry, buying school supplies, finding childcare for the end of summer, and restarting every suspended routine. The mental load of back-to-school then adds to an already unequal fatigue — which partly explains why so many women start September in a more depleted physical and psychological state than their partner.

The perception trap: "but it's already shared!"

Here's perhaps the most telling figure from the 2023 Ifop survey. Among couples on holiday with their children, men were twice as likely (56%) as women (28%) to acknowledge that they rested more than their partner (Ifop, 2023). Rest wasn't experienced the same way on both sides, and that is rarely talked about.

This gap isn't (always) bad faith. It's mechanical: you see the execution, not the piloting. What's visible is the suitcase carried to the trunk. What's invisible is the week of thinking that preceded it — knowing what to pack, checking sizes that have changed, remembering the medication, anticipating the weather. As long as this piloting stays in one head, it's invisible to the other — and so, in their eyes, almost non-existent.

It's the exact same mechanism that means sharing tasks doesn't automatically relieve the mother the rest of the year (see our article Mental load in couples). The first step is never to "do less." It's to make visible what's already being carried.

Four levers for genuinely shared holidays

Lever 1 — List the mental suitcase together, before leaving

Sit down for an hour, together, and list every domain of a trip: dates, accommodation, transport, packing, health/pharmacy, meals, activities, return/back-to-school. The simple act of writing these domains down gets them out of your head and in front of the other person. It's the prerequisite for any sharing: you can't divide what's never been named.

Lever 2 — Assign whole domains, not isolated tasks

Once the list is done, assign each domain to a single person, responsible from start to finish. "You pilot transport" (book, check schedules, plan snacks, manage the trip there and back), not "you'll carry the bags." The nuance is invisible but decisive: handing over an execution doesn't free up the head; transferring a piloting does. To dig deeper into this logic, see our guide How to share household tasks.

Lever 3 — The golden rule: whoever doesn't pilot doesn't remind

If you hand the holiday pharmacy to your partner but remind them three times to remember the antihistamine, you haven't shared the load — you've added a layer of management. The protective rule: whoever owns a domain is fully responsible for it, consequences included. It's uncomfortable the first time. It's freeing afterwards.

Lever 4 — Name the imbalance without blaming

The perception gap is rarely fixed by reproach. It's fixed by making things visible. Rather than "you never do anything," try "here's everything I'm piloting for this trip — let's list it and split it." Our guide Talking to your partner about the mental load explains how to open this conversation without it turning into conflict.

And if you're traveling solo?

In a single-parent family, the equation is different: there's no one to transfer a domain to. So the priority isn't to divide (you mechanically can't) but to lighten upstream — choosing options where part of the logistics is already handled, accepting a lower bar on some domains, and calling on your wider circle (family, friends, other parents) without guilt. And above all, don't hand the piloting to your eldest: a child on holiday should stay a child. For concrete levers, see our solo mental load guide. If you're traveling with several families, our article organizing a multi-family trip without stress deals specifically with the "always the same person managing everything" problem, and our page on holidays without the mental load presents the tool built for those trips.

Where does Mental Loadless fit in?

Mental Loadless won't pack your suitcase for you — no app can. What it does is make the invisible mental suitcase visible: who anticipates, who decides, who checks, domain by domain. Rather than yet another shared task list (which leaves the piloting intact), the app lets you hand a whole domain to the other adult, anticipation and follow-up included. For multi-family trips, Vacation mode brings together the shared calendar, the shared shopping list and expenses with simplified settling up; creating a trip requires the Family plan, while joining one needs no subscription.

The point isn't to add one more app to monitor, but to get the piloting out of your head so it becomes shareable. When every domain has a clear owner, the holidays can finally rest both parents — not just one.

To go further before summer, see also our 7-day protocol to reduce your mental load and our foundational article What is the mental load?.

This summer, share the mental suitcase — not just the bags

Holidays only truly rest those who don't carry the entire piloting alone. As long as the mental suitcase fits in one head, the year's imbalance carries on at the beach — and the return begins with a different fatigue balance depending on who anticipated everything.

The good news is that this piloting can be named, divided and shared. This summer, before you even fill the first bag, take an hour to lay out the list of domains together. You may discover that the heaviest suitcase isn't the one that goes in the trunk.

Sources

1. Ifop for Bons Plans Voyage New York, "Pourquoi les femmes finissent leurs vacances d'été moins reposées que les hommes ?", 2023
2. Ifop for Voyage avec Nous, "Les couples et la charge mentale durant les voyages et les vacances", 2022
3. Haicault M., "La gestion ordinaire de la vie en deux", Sociologie du travail, 1984