The term is of recent use but the staycation is certainly not a modern-day/covid-days invention.
This word, which first appeared at the beginning of the 21st century, it is formed by stay [at home] and vacation, means doing only local activities or day trips in the surroundings areas but, in this past year, has also sadly become synonym to vacationing at home.
To be honest, I truly hate that word and, like many other people, I’m so fed up and stressed out by this situation that I’m also periodically ‘seeing’ – on Skype – a therapist. Let’s be honest: psychological problems are on the rise and this lockdown feels every day more like being locked up in jail.
Travel plans for 2021 are being scaled down due to the criticality of the global situation, but finding out what's around the corner can prove to be an opportunity. Or so my therapist says.
First she told me that holidays are always an opportunity even when they are spent at home or close by and then she told me that planning a future ‘dream trip’ is beneficial for our well-being even if we do not have a departure date yet.
If this year the holidays will be, by choice or by necessity, done at home or in the proximity of our homes, we can look at what appears to be a limitation from another point of view, which allows us to think about the advantages, aim at the quality of the experience and make the most of it.
She told me that nevertheless we should buy the postcards of the places of our stay and send them: even just starting in search of a postage stamp and letterbox can become a little adventure since they are no longer so common.
As a second step we shall report our experiences and activities in a notebook or a journal: remembering places, smells, sensations is a way to relive it and give it importance in our lives.
She told me we can also choose to do nothing and stay at home or rent a holiday home nearby (perhaps bigger and better than ours) to listen to music all day, have a drink and relax!
Even just evoking a real holiday feeling is fine: there are no fixed rules for a perfect staycation, the important thing is, always and in any case live it in a way that is meaningful to us.
She suggested me to write down a few ‘pros’ of a ‘staycation’ in my opinion so I tried to give it a shot:
PROS OF A STAYCATION
1. It is a new way of relating to places close to us in order to establish perhaps a greater sense of connection with local realities that perhaps we have always neglected or not considered.
2. It is a way to save money by reducing travel time and expenses.
3. It is environmentally-friendly and it can be seen as a contribution to the environment: less travel, less carbon emissions.
It is also true that a holiday is a state of mind rather than a destination and it is a time to allow ourselves to feel free and temporarily detached from the usual routine.
She then told me to think about my ideal trip by creating a detailed travel plan in advance. On the web I could find lots of information in tourist portals, specialized blogs, municipal sites and some social media pages.
I haven’t yet decided my destination also because I’d like to see how thing go although she told me to let me imagination go.
One can dream!! (see image below, my reading to daydream right now)
