Are modern comforts erasing old holiday magic? Glenn Dwight

'We experienced the joy of taking people's money while playing Monopoly.' Unsplash / Maria Lin Kim

I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Wānaka recently.

And as my dog dragged me along the lakefront, helping me make new holiday memories, I couldn’t help but feel Newton’s laws at work.

Because just up the street, an equal and opposite force was quietly pulling at the past - a giant digger, methodically tearing down one of the last remaining old baches (crib, for those born in the South with a cheese roll in their mouth).

A weathered little place, barely holding on among the sleek new holiday homes with floor-to-ceiling windows and room for two boats.

I watched as the humble old place came down.

One of those special, scruffy little places that once defined the Kiwi summer holiday.

When I was young, holidays weren’t a luxurious extension of home. They were a departure.

We’d pile into the car - usually with a dog, a chilly bin, and a cousin or two wedged between sleeping bags - and head to my grandad’s bach in Raglan.

And I say bach in the truest sense of the word. Not a holiday home. Not a weekend retreat. A bach.

A bit wobbly, a bit musty, and absolutely perfect.

There was a multicoloured fly curtain in the doorway, which never worked but gave the illusion of effort.

The kitchen had a red Formica table with metal legs that squeaked if you leaned on them.

The cutlery drawer was an eclectic collection of knives that bent when you tried to butter bread, and forks that didn’t quite match anything.

Plates were chipped, and cups came from petrol station promotions.

The blankets were those orange and white wool ones designed less for warmth and more for developing a tolerance to itching.

The couch was sunken in the middle, and if you shifted the photo on the wall even slightly, you’d see its non-faded outline in the wallpaper.

The radio lived on top of the fridge. There was no TV. No phone. No internet. And not once did anyone suggest we were missing out.

We played games. We did jigsaws on the Formica table with mismatched chairs.

We built forts out of driftwood and found new ways to injure ourselves.

We put tents up out the back and slept in our togs (undies, if we were a distance from the beach).

And when it rained, we played Monopoly - a game that taught us that if you’re the banker, you can impose “fees,” to take people’s money, and that we were beautiful despite what our siblings said.

After all, we won second prize in the Community Chest beauty competition.

Now, we’ve got luxury.

Holiday homes with heat pumps and espresso machines.

We arrive and unpack like we’re moving in permanently.

There’s a giant flatscreen on the wall, and within minutes, the kids have logged into Netflix and the adults are checking work emails.

We go away, but everything comes with us - the screens, the routines, the distractions.

And look, I get it. It’s nice to be comfortable.

But do we really need to replicate our normal lives in our holiday ones?

For one week, can we not just let things be a bit… basic? A bit wobbly and wonderful?

Because I think that’s where the real magic lives.

Not in the décor or the view, but in the togetherness that happens when there’s nothing else to do.

When you actually talk to each other.

When you remember that burnt sausages and itchy blankets, and leaky windows can be the ingredients of a perfect holiday.

When you don’t Instagram your dinner, because it’s two-minute noodles and no one cares.

So, as I watched that little bach in Wānaka come down, I couldn’t help but feel we’re building over more than land.

We’re bulldozing the memories, the stories, the slight smell of old socks.

And I just hope that somewhere, in some quiet cul-de-sac, there’s still a place with a fly curtain, a squeaky Formica table, and a stack of jigsaws missing one piece.

Because that’s the kind of holiday I’ll always remember.

And maybe, just maybe, our kids deserve to remember them too.