Songfacts®:

• This feel-good song is about having fun. Thomas Rhett explained: "Clearly, with lyrics like 'Billabong bikini' and 'Solo cup amplifier,' the song is about having a good time, whether you actually are on vacation - like we are in the video - or just kicking back in a kiddie pool in your backyard."
• The song's music video was filmed in July 2015 during a Hawaii vacation that Rhett and his wife Lauren took on the island paradise. It was shot on an iPhone and a GoPro.
• The track has a likeness to War's 1975 hit "Low Rider," although Rhett and his co-writers didn't recognize the resemblance until after the penning of the song. "When we took it in the studio and cut it, we were like, 'This definitely sounds like 'Low Rider,'" he explained to USA Today.
  
  As a result, the "Low Rider" writers were added into the songwriting credits. "Never in a million years would I have thought the guys in War would have been co-writers on a Thomas Rhett record," said Rhett.
• Thomas Rhett explained the song to the Las Vegas Review Journal: "It's basically like, you know, you're at work and you're kind of daydreaming about, you know, getting off at 5 o'clock, and even though you might be somewhere in the Heartland or somewhere where it's cold, you know, we're going to get out there and we're going to party just like we're on vacation," he said. "We're going to pretend like we're sitting under a palm tree drinking a Red Stripe, and we're going to pretend like we've got all of our friends here, just being idiots."
• This song was released as the fourth single from Tangled Up. "'Vacation' is the perfect follow-up [to "T-Shirt"] to me because it's becoming one of my favorite songs to play live. It's all about letting loose and having fun, wherever you are, and that's what we want people to do at our shows," Rhett said. "And hopefully, if you are stuck in traffic or on your way to work, this song will take you to that place for a few minutes, too."
• Rhett wrote the song with Sean Douglas and Joe Spargur. The same trio also penned his hit single "Die a Happy Man."