A vacation is defined as leisure time away from work devoted to rest or pleasure. If you want me to finish this hub in a couple of sentences, I'd say that the best vacation spot is in your mind - A mental state of vacation, if you will. No missed flights, no Montezuma's Revenge, no reservation sanfus, and best of all - Its totally free! The rest of it is just window dressing - Where you go, what you do and who you do it with. Photo by chad davis via Flickr (Creative Commons)

But... that still doesn't literally answer your question about the best vacation spot, so I'm going to use democracy, statistics and math to answer your question. Which is the best vacation spot in the world? Times Square, New York City, NY. Why? Because Times Square is the destination which gets the most number of visitors, bar none, in the world. A Forbes Traveler report says that 80% of the 44 million visitors who visit New York spend some time in Times Square. Which means that 35,200,000 visitors visit Times Square each year.

Now you need to take note, before you start complaining, that I'm not saying that Times Square is the best place on earth for a visitor. In fact, if anything, its a crowded tourist trap, with costly stores and even costlier restaurants. There's a lot of things to do in New York which are much better and offer more value for money to visitors, let alone if you include the whole world. But this is what the statistics say. Times Square is the single most visited 'tourist attraction' in the world.

Important thing is to forget about daily routines and work, and just enjoy the moment. Travel companies have even come up with terminology for these things, like staycations (stay at home vacations) and nakations (naked vacations aka a vacation at a clothing optional resort) and voluntourism (where you volunteer for some social work in addition to the sight-seeing).

Ultimately, what it comes down to is this - What exactly is your own definition of downtime? Do you like sports (skiing, water sports, riding, mountaineering, etc.), or maybe you'd like a quiet getaway in a picturesque location, or you live in a small town, and you want to experience the sizzling heat and nightlife of a big metropolis?

A vacation for someone in New York City would be to getaway from the maddening crowds and the traffic and the concrete jungle. On the other hand, a vacation for someone who lives in upstate New York might be to come to New York City and enjoy the hum and the speed of the Big Apple. And this is if we're talking about vacations close by. If you open your horizons wider, you can go for anything from the Beijing Olympics to the Taj Mahal to an African safari. Or you can buy an inflatable rubber pool, put a tent and a BBQ grill in your backyard, buy all the beer in town, call some friends or relatives over and have a humdinger of a party.

So what's the best vacation spot in the world? Its either Times Square or its inside your head. Your choice.