It’s 7.15 am on a Monday. The school run starts in 15 minutes and the house is in crisis mode. I forgot to do the Kibsons grocery order, which means that we have paltry snacks for the children and that lunch will be pasta with pesto that is dangerously close to its expiry date. As my wife rushes out the door for an important day at work, clutching a coffee but not her car keys, we hurriedly call our goodbyes and snatch a kiss before I bundle my daughters into the car. The dog hasn’t been walked. The hastily applied glue on our eldest daughter’s school project – a rabbit’s burrow made out of cardboard – hasn’t dried yet. My daughters haven’t brushed their hair, they are irritable and tired. I am irritable and tired. Even the car feels irritable and tired. I’m anxious about a stack of urgent work that must be done this morning between school drop-off and pick-up.

I turn on the ignition and hear the dreaded ding-a-ling sound that tells me the car is out of petrol. I hang my head and sigh. Like any big city, life in Dubai can be draining, especially if you have young children and hectic jobs. School runs, broken sleep, pressurised work projects, traffic jams, after-school clubs, play dates, life admin, and the uncanny way in which appointments and deadlines collide precisely when you’re at your breaking point –modern life can leave parents feeling overwhelmed, mentally numb, and physically exhausted. Finding five minutes to check in with your partner or enjoying the simple luxury of having a cup of tea while staring out the window feels impossible. Weekends offer brief respite but there is seemingly always a child’s noisy birthday party to attend on a Saturday morning. It’s not only parents who get burnt out, children do, too, and that means the whole family becomes fractious. Rather than leisurely, free-wheeling conversations that spark joy, a family often ends up engaging in meaningless snippets of disjointed dialogue, typified by parents yelling reminders to each other from different rooms about tasks to do in the coming day. Family burnout is real, and it can be damaging. The scientific journal Clinical Psychological Science states that burnt-out parents feel emotionally detached from their children, resulting in a loss of pleasure in parenting which is inevitably noticed by their children. They say travel broadens the mind. Well, it could be said that travel also calms the mind. Escaping the grind for a holiday is an excellent remedy for family burnout. Taking a trip together invites family members to enjoy shared experiences, eat new foods, and learn about different cultures. For children, it’s commonly believed that travel builds their confidence, sharpens their problem-solving skills, increases their resilience, and boosts their curiosity in the world around them.

A relaxing holiday – such as in a resort that offers both comfort and chances to explore – is a valuable opportunity for a family to reconnect as a unit. One such location that’s ideal for a family to recharge its collective battery is One&Only Le Saint Géran in Mauritius, which celebrated its 50th birthday last year. Set on a peaceful lagoon in the Indian Ocean off the south-east coast of Africa, the resort is a six-and-a-half-hour flight from Dubai. Since 1975, it has accrued its own character and feels charmingly lived-in. Lush, tropical greenery and tranquil water features – home to a trio of talkative ducks – immediately trigger pleasure sensors in the brain. A three-minute bike ride from the main resort are 52 private homes by One&Only that opened in 2025. Beautifully designed by a Mauritian architect to retain a connection to the island, the contemporary villas have their own pool, BBQ area, garden, outdoor shower, upstairs terrace and wellequipped kitchen. Guests can disconnect from modern life and live at their own pace or pop into the resort with its restaurants, beach bars, gym, Guerlain spa and stunning beaches before retreating home again.

Staying at One&Only Le Saint Géran feels like staying at someone’s home, which is largely thanks to the staff who offer an authentic Mauritian welcome from dawn to dusk. Guests might be wearing a Cartier watch, Hermès sandals and a Zimmermann dress but they don’t receive red carpet formality, just a friendly smile and a cheery greeting from the heart. Furthermore, there’s a strong sense that staff here understand how families operate on holiday. Children’s menus were presented immediately after sitting down and orders were quickly taken to prevent “hangry” kids losing their cool. One switched-on waiter at Riva, the resort’s beautiful Italian beachfront restaurant, suggested he bring a mini pizza right away for the kids to snack on before dinner in order to buy my wife and me precious time to enjoy our sundowners and prolong our evening. Bartenders delighted in mixing rainbow fruit juice cocktails with a wedge of fruit perched on the rim of the glass to make our children feel special.

High collecting coral on the shoreline, feasting on leisurely breakfasts with mountains of Mauritius mango, taking a kayak trip through the mangroves, splashing in the gentle waves, and sharing each other’s ice creams – these will become treasured family memories to be reminisced over for years to come. Like a sports team that takes a mid-season winter break, we returned to Dubai with renewed energy and an invigorating sense of togetherness, ready for the school run on Monday morning with a full tank of petrol. fives and big smiles were plentiful and as warm as the Mauritian breeze. At the One&Only Le Saint Géran we feel truly looked after by the staff. They anticipated our every move – but crucially without ever hovering – enabled us to focus on each other and create moments of genuine connection. Riding our bikes together around the resort’s quiet pathways, playing Uno at a beach bar in our sandy swimwear, collecting coral on the shoreline, feasting on leisurely breakfasts with mountains of Mauritius mango, taking a kayak trip through the mangroves, splashing in the gentle waves, and sharing each other’s ice creams – these will become treasured family memories to be reminisced over for years to come. Like a sports team that takes a mid-season winter break, we returned to Dubai with renewed energy and an invigorating sense of togetherness, ready for the school run on Monday morning with a full tank of petrol.

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