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I have mixed feelings about staycations.
Sometimes they’re the perfect choice if you’re exhausted and/or don’t have the budget to travel elsewhere.
They can be a nice, relaxing way to recharge under those circumstances. There is definitely something to be said for keeping things low key and thrifty.
On the other hand, there’s the temptation to treat a staycation like any other time of the year and not make any fun memories during them at all.
This happened to my spouse and I years ago. We didn’t have the funds to travel anywhere that time, and I totally understood and accepted that.
The problem was that we didn’t do much stuff that was out of the ordinary for us during our staycation from what I can recall. I still washed the dishes and did the grocery shopping, (most of the) cooking, and laundry. We still ate out at the inexpensive fast food restaurants we’d normally visit if I’m not cooking that night for whatever reason.
Other than not working, it was completely like any other week. We didn’t try any new places from what I can recall, and I only remember going to one free place that I’d previously enjoyed. The rest of the time was spent watching tv and wandering around a local mall. (No offence meant to people who think that sounds like the perfect vacation, by the way! To each their own. It’s simply not my cup of tea.)
These days I’m more assertive about staycations. Yes, I’ll stick to whatever the budget is for the week, but I am going to break my daily routines and go to some nice dairy-free bakeries, parks I don’t get to visit very often, or free local events at the bare minimum! My spouse doesn’t have to accompany me, and I certainly won’t fill every day with long lists of places to visit or anything like that. A couple of hours every other day or so to spend on stuff I really love to do is enough to make me happy. That leaves plenty of time for walking around the mall, watching tv, or doing nothing in particular, too. 😉
I simply need more from a vacation than doing the same things we always do and then going home to do chores. That’s not my idea of a good time.
Staycations can be a wonderful option if you treat your local community as if you’re a tourist there and go to places you normally don’t visit (or places you’ve visited before and already know are perfect for your tastes!)
They can also be disappointing, at least from my perspective, if you stick to the same old routines every day and don’t branch out at all.
So much depends on how you plan ahead for them and how much effort everyone puts into the experience.