“Come on, get up. We’re on vacation. We didn’t come to lay around in the room all day.”

My dad said that every beach trip. If we were at the beach, we were expected to be out by the water, in the pool, walking the boardwalk, doing something. Sitting in the room watching TV or, in my case, playing Pokemon on a Gameboy? That wasn’t vacation. That was wasting it.

I heard that voice in my head this week. We took the boys to the beach for my oldest’s senior trip. He’s 17. His friends came along. My youngest, who’s 11, tagged along too. And within an hour of arriving, the Switch 2 was docked to the condo TV and Smash Bros was running.

My dad’s voice said: get them outside.

My voice said: let them play.

What Vacation Actually Looks Like Now

Here’s what a day at the beach looked like for us this week.

Morning: everybody sleeps in. No alarms. No schedule. That alone is a vacation for a family that runs on school buses and work standups.

Late morning: the boys head to the beach or the pool. They swim, mess around, do the things you’re supposed to do at the beach.

Afternoon: they come back to the condo, shower off, and fire up the Switch. Smash Bros tournaments. Mario Kart races. My youngest playing Pokemon on handheld while the older kids yell at each other about items. Beach Buggy Racing when they want something everybody can jump into.

I played a few rounds of Smash with them. Got into some Beach Buggy Racing. And at night, after everyone wound down, I pulled out my Steam Deck and played Slay the Spire 2 and Dead Cells while the condo got quiet.

Evening: we’d go out to eat, walk around, do the vacation things.

That mix of outside time, gaming, and just being together? That’s what vacation looks like for this family. And I wouldn’t change a minute of it.

The Shift

My dad wasn’t wrong. He grew up in a time when vacation meant doing things you couldn’t do at home. You drove hours to get to the beach, so you better be at the beach. The room was for sleeping. Everything else happened outside.

But here’s the thing that changed: gaming isn’t something my boys do instead of living. It’s part of how they live. It’s how they hang out with friends. It’s how they compete, cooperate, trash-talk, and bond. When my oldest and his buddies are playing Smash in the condo, they’re not avoiding vacation. They’re doing what they’d do if they were hanging out anywhere. They just happen to be doing it with sand in their hair and sunburn on their shoulders.

And honestly? My dad figured this out too. As he got older and the grandkids came along, the rules softened. He didn’t care what they were doing as long as they were enjoying it. He just wanted them to love vacation. The activity stopped mattering. The joy was the point.

That’s where I landed this week. The joy is the point.

The “You Could Do That at Home” Argument

Sure. They could play Smash Bros at home. I could play Slay the Spire at home. We could eat pizza and watch movies at home.

But at home, it’s squeezed between homework and bedtime. At home, my oldest is thinking about school and his friends are scattered across different schedules. At home, I’m checking Slack and thinking about Monday.

At the beach, the Smash tournament goes until it’s done. Nobody is watching the clock. Nobody has somewhere to be. The game is the same but the context is completely different. There’s no guilt attached to the downtime because downtime is the entire point.

My youngest sat on the couch playing Pokemon for two hours straight with zero interruption. No “time to wrap up” or “you’ve been on that long enough.” Just a kid, a game, and nowhere else to be. That’s a gift you can’t give him on a Tuesday night.

What I Did With My Downtime

After the boys went to bed or settled into their own thing, I grabbed my Steam Deck. Slay the Spire 2 runs are perfect for vacation. Pick it up, play a run, put it down. Dead Cells when I wanted something faster.

I also finished an audiobook and made some progress on Iron Gold. Reading on the balcony with the ocean in the background is exactly as good as it sounds.

No work. No code. No deploys. Just input. Stories, games, and salt air. I needed that more than I realized.

The Genuine Geek Take

Three generations of this family have gone to the beach. My dad wanted us outside. I let my boys play video games in the condo. And somehow we’re both right.

Because vacation isn’t about what you do. It’s about who you’re with and whether you’re actually present. My oldest is about to graduate. These trips with his friends, with his little brother tagging along, with his dad jumping into a round of Smash between beach runs. These are numbered. I know that. He probably doesn’t yet, but I do.

So no, I’m not going to tell him to put the controller down and go outside. He was outside all morning. Now he’s laughing with his friends on the couch and his brother is curled up with a Pokemon game and I’m watching all of it happen from the kitchen with a cup of coffee.

My dad would’ve loved this. He would’ve sat right next to me and watched them play.

We didn’t come here to play video games. But we didn’t come here not to, either.