Why are vacations necessary, what are the psychodynamics of vacation, and what constitutes a 'good' vacation? The author considers these three questions. Vacations provide a release from cultural demands and enable one to reduce the demands and restrictions of reality to a minimum. The pleasure principle plays a more active role, with opportunities for various sublimated pregenital instinctual gratifications under conditions of permissiveness. Those with rigid superegos find it difficult to take or enjoy vacations; not to work and to have pleasure are dangerous. The ego is, on vacation, in a state of partial regression, somewhat similar to the situation in sleep. Nevertheless, the temporary freedom from the demands of reality enables the ego to utilize the freed energy in a synthetic reparative fashion.