Why Canadians are taking ‘skillcations’ – and where to find one that works for you | Canada Voices

Trading in a sight-seeing itinerary for a class syllabus may not be every Canadian’s idea of a dream vacation, but for Jessica Yao it’s been a welcome change.

For the past several years, the 37-year-old has been using her time off from her municipal job in Toronto to take week-long ceramics courses hours north of the city at Fleming College’s Haliburton campus – which hosts dozens of different introductory and intermediate week-long courses, including ones focused on painting, fibre arts and stained glass.

While there, Yao clocks in a full shift’s worth of hours at the pottery wheel at the lakeside campus, and then she says all that’s left to do is “eat, sleep, and swim.” Yao says the built-in structure means she’s “forced to slow down.”

“When I’m abroad, I have to pack everything in, walking 20- to 30,000 steps a day, you end up being so tired … but when I’m in Haliburton, that’s the most relaxed I feel.”

The way Yao has been approaching travel is part of a larger trend, dubbed the “skillcation” or “hobbycation.” According to the Hilton’s 2026 Trend Report, 72 per cent of travellers expressed a desire to take time off to explore a personal passion or hobby, while Condé Nast Traveler has highlighted the rise of craft-led travel internationally this year. From skate training camps to cultural learning intensives – schools, organizations and artisans across Canada are offering immersive, multiday experiences where adults gain new skills and perfect existing hobbies. And some are using precious paid time off to do it.

“Those people always amaze me,” Tom Fidgen says. “For someone to go, ‘this is kind of a passion and I am going to just put my life aside and dive into something for a week or four weeks’ … I admire them.”

Fidgen is the owner of The Unplugged Woodshop based in Cape Breton, N.S., where he teaches week- and month-long hand tool woodcarving intensives.

“When you are at your woodcarving bench for six days,” says Fidgen, “come Wednesday, people are like, ‘Man, I didn’t even know I had muscles there.’ ”

Fidgen is hosting woodworking courses this August and September. He says people from Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and New Brunswick are signed up, along with Americans who plan to travel from New York and Washington.

But who exactly wants a vacation featuring aching arms, a sweaty studio and sawdust?

“It runs the gamut,” Fidgen says. His students tend to be 30 years old and up, and often work desk jobs. Fidgen thinks the physical aspect of woodcarving is a big draw.

For people working on screens, says Fidgen, “there’s nothing they can touch and I think inherently just as humans, we like to make stuff.”

Across the country, dozens of learning experiences like these are on offer. A number of pottery studios across Canada run retreats similar to the one Yao attended, like those hosted by Branching Out Ceramics in Atlin, B.C., and Wild Cove Pottery in Port Union, N.L. For those looking to wear their creations home, clothing brand and studio Cedar and Vine teach people to make capsule wardrobes at their sewing retreats in Weyburn, Sask.

But skillcations aren’t just for those looking for self-made souvenirs.

“When you go to a place year after year, you make friends.”

Lorraine Ashdown, a United Church Minister who lives on Bowen Island in B.C., has spent time nearly every summer for the last decade at NimbleFingers, which offers week-long bluegrass and old-time music workshops.

“It’s just joyful and fun and challenging,” says the 65-year-old of the classes she takes in Sorrento, B.C.

In between music lessons, Ashdown jams out on her guitar and performs with friends new and old. But while she may be on vacation, she’s there to work hard.

“If you want to get your money’s worth and come away with something to hold onto to practice for the rest of the year, then you’ve got to really dive in and really focus.”

Over the years, Ashdown says that dedication to improving her skills has been rewarding. “I can have little breakthroughs and little a-ha moments, and, ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that last year, but now I get it.’ ”

There are music camps like NimbleFingers in Eastern Canada, too, including AlgomaTrad Family Camp, which invites people to learn and play traditional music together.

But some skillcationers are seeking more intangible lessons – such as learning how to completely unplug.

“When I was experiencing burnout, the solutions that people gave me didn’t really help,” says Adil Dhalla, a social entrepreneur and artist based in Toronto.

“I would go on vacation,” says Dhalla, “but I would still kind of check my work, or I would have this anxiety about coming back to a full inbox and a full schedule of meetings.”

Dhalla was struggling to recharge even when he wasn’t working, and his self-proclaimed phone addiction wasn’t helping.

“Somebody was like, ‘Well, what about four days without your phone?’ And I was like, ‘I will do extra work to create that environment.’ ”

Dhalla co-founded Camp Reset in 2015 to do just that. The four-day “digital detox adult summer camp” prioritizes “rest, care and all the things that technology can distract us from.” While learning to be fully present offline, campers are invited to play sports, swim, take part in arts and crafts and just relax in nature with no other distractions.

Even though a multiday break is unlikely to transform participants’ relationships to their devices, Dhalla says the camp’s focus on presence has reverberations.

“One weekend intervention has the potential to make [people] aware that there is something off, and it may also validate and affirm that [they] can do something about it,” Dhalla says. “It gives you a taste of what’s possible.”

Canadians like Yao and Ashdown are eager to continue building their vacations around skill-building and hobby immersion – but they know that a vacation spent trying to improve and produce, or being told what or how to do something, is not for everyone.

“Some people I told [about my vacation] at work, they’re like ‘Oh my God, that sounds like a job,’ ” recalls Yao, laughing. “Yeah, to you, but at least it’s a job I’m choosing!”

Fidgen echoes this, saying that, for his students, “[It’s about] doing the right work, work that they could potentially learn to love.”

And while skillcationers may be missing out on a trip spent lounging by the water or traversing a new city, they are enjoying a luxury few of us regularly experience: extended periods of creative, deep focus.

“I highly recommend it,” says Ashdown of her music skillcations. “The dividends of [this] kind of vacation for me, personally, are way higher than a beach or a cruise.”

If you go

While skillcations can be an affordable travel alternative, when you factor in things like room and board, some trips can get just as expensive as going abroad.

The ceramics course Jessica Yao took cost nearly $600. But that price didn’t include the Ontario cottage country cabin she rented nearby, her groceries for the week or the gas she used driving there and back.

A week of woodcarving in Belle Côte, Cape Breton with Tom Fidgen is priced at about $1,495. That fee doesn’t include room or board, however Fidgen helps students book nearby.

NimbleFingers workshops in Sorrento, B.C. (about an hour’s drive from Kamloops, five hours from Vancouver) start at $650 for registration. Lorraine Ashdown estimates she spent $1,500 for her trip, including the registration fee, accommodation and meals.

In Ontario, Camp Reset takes place at Camp Walden in southeast Ontario, the fee for the three-night, four day includes accommodation, meals and programming. Rates start at $935 (more for cabins) and cheaper rates available for those who need financial assistance.