Bring Home a New Skill
How a cookery class, pottery workshop or surfing lesson can become a memorable part of a holiday.
Learning something while you are away can give a holiday some particularly enjoyable moments: shaping dough beside someone who has made it for years, finding your balance on a surfboard or turning a piece of clay into something recognisable. A well-chosen lesson offers time with people who know their craft, a chance to try something unfamiliar and a skill you might enjoy using again at home.
10 Top Tips for Learning Something on Holiday
- Follow your curiosity. Choose something you would enjoy trying, whether that is making bread, taking photographs, working with clay or learning to surf.
- Check the starting level. Ask whether the session welcomes complete beginners and what you can reasonably expect to learn.
- Look closely at the teacher. Find someone with relevant experience and reviews that describe patient, helpful instruction.
- Find out how much you will do yourself. Ask how the session divides time between demonstrations, individual practice and shared activities.
- Check the practical details. Group size, teaching language, accessibility and dietary requirements can all affect your enjoyment.
- Calculate the full cost. Include transport, equipment and materials. For pottery, check whether firing and delivery are included.
- Choose suitable instruction for physical activities. Ask about qualifications, equipment, fitness or swimming requirements and arrangements when conditions change.
- Give the activity enough time. Allow for getting there, changing clothes and eating afterwards, particularly with outdoor lessons.
- Keep a few useful notes. Write down the details you want to remember and ask before photographing or recording your teacher.
- Choose one thing to practise at home. A single recipe or technique gives you somewhere straightforward to begin.
Choose Something You Want to Try
There is often a moment in a practical lesson when the demonstration turns out to have concealed quite a lot of skill. The instructor produces a neat bowl with a few movements of their hands. Your clay appears to be considering several possible shapes.
That awkward first attempt can be part of the enjoyment, especially when you have chosen something you are curious about and someone is there to help.
Start with what already catches your attention. Perhaps you always stop outside a pottery studio, admire photographs taken in ordinary streets or wonder how a particular dish is made. A holiday creates an opportunity to give that interest an afternoon.
Find an Interest to Follow. Talk to Coach Max about something you have wanted to try and how it could fit into the kind of break you enjoy.
Spend Time with Someone Who Knows
A lesson can introduce you to details of a place that become easier to understand through conversation and practice. A cook might explain why a local ingredient is prepared in a particular way. A potter can show you how a familiar shape is made and describe the work involved in finishing it.
Research into cookery classes in Italy’s Cinque Terre and nearby La Spezia examined 320 online reviews. Participation, enjoyment, local culture and learning were prominent themes in visitors’ accounts. The study reflects the experiences people chose to describe in reviews, with all the selectivity that involves.
You can encourage those conversations yourself. Ask how your teacher learnt, what they enjoy making and which part beginners tend to find difficult. There is usually plenty to discuss while everyone works.
Know What You Are Booking
Read the description closely enough to picture the session. A class might involve preparing a whole dish, sharing one workstation among several people or practising a single technique. Each can be enjoyable when it matches what you hoped to do.
Look for reviews that mention the teaching, time to practise and how questions were handled.
Send a short message if anything is unclear, especially about accessibility, food requirements or the language used.
For surfing and other outdoor activities, choose an appropriately qualified provider and explain your experience honestly. Surfing England lists accredited schools, while the RNLI advises people to stay within their ability and account for local conditions. Ask the school how it assesses beginners and what happens if the weather prevents the lesson.
Make the Day Comfortable. Coach Max can help you think through the time, budget and practical arrangements around an activity, so you can arrive ready to enjoy it.
Enjoy Being a Beginner
You may spend much of your working life doing things you already know how to do. A holiday lesson puts you in a different position: listening carefully, asking basic questions and trying again after somebody adjusts your technique.
Choose a small aim for the session. That might be learning to shape one type of pasta, understanding how to frame a photograph or becoming more comfortable handling a surfboard under instruction. Your teacher can help you judge what is realistic.
A 2022 study followed 507 adults in Japan across a winter holiday period. People reporting more experiences of learning and challenge also tended to report better wellbeing one month later. The researchers used questionnaires, which leaves cause and effect uncertain.
The immediate pleasure is easier to recognise. Something that was confusing at the beginning starts to make sense, and you get another chance to try it while help is close by.
Bring a Little of It Home
Before leaving, ask what would help you continue. A cook might suggest an ingredient substitution for your usual supermarket. A photography teacher could give you an exercise to try on a familiar walk. A pottery tutor may recommend the sort of local class that would suit your next attempt.
Record the particular detail you found useful. “Add the liquid gradually” may help more when you are back in your kitchen than a photograph of the finished dish.
Give yourself an easy opportunity to use what you learnt. Make the recipe while you still remember the demonstration, take your camera out for an hour or enquire about another supervised lesson.
You may discover an interest you want to pursue. You may simply enjoy making that dish occasionally and remembering the afternoon when somebody showed you how.
Keep Something You Enjoyed. Use a conversation with Coach Max to choose a small way of continuing at home, based on the part of the experience you liked most.
Weeks later, a friend might ask where you learnt to make lunch, or notice the bowl on the table.
You have a story to tell, including the patient teacher, the people beside you and the first attempt that looked rather different. By then, something you learnt on holiday has found a place in an ordinary day.