Live Healthy, Take a Vacation

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This is The Savvy Traveler, I'm Rudy Maxa. I've felt certain of it for years, but now there's an academic study that proves it. An article published in "Psychosomatic Medicine" says there's a statistical correlation between the number of vacations people take and their risk of death.

It's the weekend! For goodness sake, stop proof reading that final report for your boss! Review last quarter's numbers on Monday. Take a hike. Here's why you should:

A psychologist at the State University of New York at Oswego monitored the vacation habits of more than 12,000 men for 14 years. Those who did not take vacations suffered the highest death rate and highest incident of heart disease! Those who did play hooky reduced their overall death rate by 21 percent and their risk of death from heart disease by 32 percent.

If you're 18 years old, those numbers might not be impressive. But take it from a sort-of-old guy, I'll take a 32 percent advantage anywhere I can find one. Around The Savvy Traveler offices we have a saying that goes "America deserves a vacation." Now it turns out medical science says we don't just deserve one, we need one. So relax and come along as we visit a place where you don't have to do anything but sit and watch... the barbed wire?

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