Of course I’ll go skinny-dipping and share a cigarette … I’m on holiday!

Earlier this year I met a version of myself I absolutely loved. Her name? Fiji Lizzy and, honestly, I can’t wait to meet her again.

It was like she took over my body as soon as I was handed a generic seashell necklace. Fiji Lizzy was fun. She loved watersports and island hopping and was ready to drop everything for aqua aerobics at the resort pool at a moment’s notice because why the hell not? Nothing like a few waist-deep fist pumps to get into the holiday mood.

I love the people we become when we travel. The personalities we take on. The neuroses we let go. It’s not just Fiji Lizzy, I’m available in a variety of other versions that usually match up with the stamps in my passport. Croatia Lizzy likes shooting moonshine with old locals and sneaking into fancy hotel pools after hours. Japan Lizzy is forever hungry, no matter how much she eats and UK/Ireland Lizzy, quite simply, loves Guinness.

As soon as we step off the plane on an overseas holiday, hammer in the last peg on the tent or finally find the key for the Airbnb, I think we step out of our skin momentarily and say to our regular selves, “Listen up, you’re on pause. Don’t you dare come out here and whisper a word about being too busy, work dramas or the cost of living crisis. For the next seven days, we’re on holiday, okay? We can get back to your militant exercise regime, no carbs after 5pm and strict one-coffee-a-day policy when I’m back. But for now, holiday me is letting my hair down, and no, I’m not going to straighten it.”

Holiday me is a breath of fresh air, the life of the party or the woman on a table dancing – OK that hasn’t happened for a long time. It’s the person you dream about when you’re strapped to your desk ploughing through emails. It’s the person you’ve got as your screen saver looking out to turquoise blue waters with a cocktail in hand.

We live without constraint on holiday. Who cares about eating a huge bowl of pasta at 11pm after drinks along the river in Rome? So what if I put on an extra few kilos! I’ve clocked up 30,000 steps in my trusty Birkenstocks. I know, not even in proper walking shoes. I’d never disrespect my arches like that in real life.

Why is it that holiday me can drink a bottle of white wine and not even feel the faintest headache? Even a sniff of a house white during the workweek can give me a throbbing headache.

On holiday, I don’t avoid conversations with strangers – I start them. Literally everywhere – in hotel lifts, with restaurant wait staff and most definitely captive tourists in the pool. Please tell me about your day, and I’ll tell you about mine. I might even tell you one of my deepest darkest secrets, and it doesn’t matter because I’ll never see you again.