How to Talk about Your Last Vacation in English

Talking about your last vacation is a good topic to prove how much you have learned about the simple past.

In this lesson, you are going to learn how to talk about your last vacation in English.

A basic question and answer about this topic are:

  • Where? who with? How long?
  • I went to Hawaii with my family for a couple of weeks
  • Where? who with? How long?
  • I went to Spain with my friends for a couple of weeks
  • Where? who with? How long?
  • I went to Italy with my girlfriend for a month

As you can see, both of those sentences use verbs in the past.



Questions about your Last Vacation

Not let’s take a look at some other questions, these questions will help you think about your last vacation.

The first set is basic questions that usually require some basic details to be answered:

  1. Where did you go?
  2. When did you go?
  3. Who did you go with?
  4. How did you get there?
  5. What did you do during the day?
  6. What did you do at night?
  7. What did you eat?
  8. Did you enjoy your last vacation?
  9. Where did you stay?
  10. How much money did you spend on your last vacation?

These are some questions that require a few more details to be answered

  1. Did you have any bad experiences on your last vacation?
  2. Did you make new friends on your last vacation?
  3. What places did you visit during your stay?
  4. How long were you there?
  5. Did you buy any souvenirs?
  6. Where would you like to go next?
  7. Would you recommend that place that you visited? why or why not?

All of those questions are really helpful when you have an oral test.


My Last Vacation Examples

These are five examples of people describing their last vacations.

Pay Careful attention to verbs in the past form since you will see lots of them. You will also see verbs in the present in some instances.

The verbs in the past forms will be in bold so it is easier for you to remember them.

Don’t think that those examples are hard to create, you just need to create simple sentences and in some instances provide more details.


My Last Vacation Example #1 

Last year, I had the chance the amusement park, Zarcero, and  Ciudad Quesada in a day. I went with my daughter, my wife, and some friends.

We woke up early that day and our friends drove us to the amusement park, my daughter enjoyed the many rides available, we ate pizza and we left around three.

Then we headed to San Carlos, on the way to San Carlos we stopped by the catholic church and took some pictures of ourselves in the gardens. 

We got to San Carlos around 5:00 PM, we had dinner there, picked some people up, and headed home.


My Last Vacation Example #2

Last year I spent my vacation at the beach. I traveled with some friends of mine. We arrived at the beach at 8:00 AM, we immediately went swimming then we made some sandwiches for lunch.

After lunch, we went running and we left the beach before 6:00 PM.

We drove back to the hotel and we had dinner there. Around 9, we called our friends and we met outside a dance club because we wanted to dance.

We spent like three hours in the club and we got back to the hotel.


My Last Vacation Example #3

Last year, I went to Cartagena with my family and my best friend Luis. We visited my cousins Mayra and Alejandra. I hadn’t met them before, so I was really excited to meet them.

My first impression of them it was very good, they are friendly and fun. We went to visit many places but my favorite place was Barú island.

That island is amazing, it looks like a paradise, I took many pictures of every single we did.

The food was excellent. We ate shrimp rice and a shrimp cocktail. I had a great time with my family. We spent three amazing days in Cartagena.


My Last Vacation Example #4

Hello. I’d like to share with everybody the great time that I had on my last vacation. I went to Conchal Beach with my friends. We stayed at a small hotel right in front of the beach.

The first day we were there we took surfing lessons, my friends and I had so much fun hanging out at the beach.

There was another beach nearby, probably a five-minute walk and you are in Brasilito beach. We watched the sunset and we set a fire at night.

We spent most of the three days on the beach and we usually went to a club at night located in a place called Tamarindo. There is a beach in Tamarindo too.  It was one of the most special times I’ve had in my life.


My Last Vacation Example #5

My last holiday was a five-day trip to Guatemala I know Guatemala well because I lived there when I was a missionary more than ten years ago.

Instead of staying in a hotel, I stayed with one of my old friends. It was so much fun.

I wanted to visit all the places I lived, so I visited Baja Verapaz. It has changed a lot. I also went to the supermarket near my old house. 

We did some touristy things too. We went to Tikal. Nature is amazing up there. We walked across the historic monuments.


Questions about My Last Vacation in English

These are some questions and answers about my last vacation in English

  • Where did you go?
  • I went to Coco Beach
  • When did you go?
  • I went to Samara Last week
  • Who did you go with?
  • I went to a resort with my parents
  • How did you get there?
  • We rented a car
  • What did you do during the day?
  • I went surfing with my friends
  • What did you do at night?
  • We visited the clubs and the casinos
  • What did you eat?
  • We ate different types of meat

Key Vocabulary

These are some important words that you can use when talking about vacations in English

Long Weekend: Saturday and Sunday with at least one extra day added, either Friday or Monday.

Hang out: to spend a lot of time in a place or with someone

Sightseeing: The activity of visiting interesting places, especially by people on holiday


Your Last Vacation Exercise

Test how much you know the past form of most common verbs to describe your past vacations


Manuel Campos, English Professor

Manuel Campos

I am Jose Manuel, English professor and creator of EnglishPost.org, a blog whose mission is to share lessons for those who want to learn and improve their English