Why there’s more to all-inclusive holidays than beach breaks

Just as my winter-worn skin started to become acclimatised to the piercing heat of the Mexican sun, a shadow cast over me. Peeling my eyes open, I saw the friendly face of one of the hotel’s waiters. “Would you like a drink, Miss?” he asked. My friend’s head perked up, “We’ll take two mojitos, please,” she replied. Five minutes later, with a mojito in our hands, bodies sun-soaked once again and the gently lapping waves providing the only soundtrack we needed, it felt as if we’d finally discovered paradise.

We were in Puerto Vallarta, on Mexico’s often-overlooked Pacific Coast, and it was the first time I’d ever been on an all-inclusive holiday. Prior to this, I’d spent years snubbing this route in favour of the do-it-yourself vacation, trying to understand why anyone would opt for the former. Now, spending our days pool- and beach-hopping, not having to think about where to eat next, what to do or how to navigate public transport to and from the airport, I finally understood the appeal: this is what it feels like to reach a Zen-level style of relaxation.

I’d seen the light and, as a late-in-the-day convert, all-inclusives quickly became my go-to for making the most of limited annual leave. While all-inclusives are often synonymous with beach holidays, I decided I wanted to try something different and a bit further afield. Landing in Livingstone, the Zambian city just near the country’s quadripoint with Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, we were swiftly picked up from the airport by our guide and taken across the border (which included a river crossing of the mighty Zambezi) to Botswana.

An all-inclusive simply makes sense for a safari-style holiday. Immediately after we arrived at our hotel in Botswana we sat down for some lunch before going on a sunset game drive. Clad in our khaki-green clothing (we very much leaned into the safari aesthetic), we spotted an elusive leopard a mere 20 minutes into our first drive in Chobe National Park. Our highly experienced driver/tracker spotted it sitting at the base of a tree, something that would have been invisible to the untrained eye and, as we sat and watched, it slowly slunk over until it decided to rest just in front of our windowless jeep.

Over the following days, with three nights spent in Botswana and three more back across the border in Zambia, we went on daily game drives or river cruises, spotting the ‘Big Five’ on the way. We saw buffalo grazing on the riverbed, lions dozing in the sun, elephants heading en masse to the river in the height of the day and, in Zambia, we saw the last ten remaining white rhinos in the country, which were protected from poachers round the clock. In Botswana, meals were to a backdrop of the Chobe River, and we’d see monkeys and warthogs playfully roaming the hotel grounds, while a chorus of hippos accompanied candlelit dinners in Zambia – experiences we simply wouldn’t have had in the same time frame if we’d opted for the self-organised route.

By this point, I was more than sold on an all-inclusive holiday. While planning a break is part of the joy of travelling, I found it an enormous relief to retire my Type A-style tendencies to organise every inch of a vacation and, instead, wake up each morning to a day of spontaneity stretching ahead of me. Now, each time I return from an all-inclusive, I find I’m well-rested and ready to jump back into the grind – rather than returning from DIY trips where you feel as if you need a holiday from your holiday. If only I’d discovered these delights sooner.