At Staycations

The travel media is very excited about “stays” these days. Airlines and destinations are your advertisers, so maybe they’re getting new ad campaigns for home vacation services. If not, you can bet they’ll be re-releasing how great it is to spend Christmas in Buenos Aires in a few months. Anyway, the idea behind a vacation at home is that you take the week off from work, but … you stay home. With your family, friends, children, dog, neighbors … etc.

Anyone who’s been laid off from work for a week knows how ridiculous this idea is – you’re home, broke, and bored. Here’s how I imagine a typical house party looks like: You set up the pool in the backyard for the kids, take out a lawn chair, and the margarita mix. At 10 a.m. M., You have received four phone calls: three of them are work “emergencies” and one of them is your neighbor who asks you if, since you are at home and all that, you would not mind picking up your children from daycare. and watching over them until I get home at 5. The margaritas turn sour in your mouth and you go to the kitchen to help yourself. While you’re there, you realize that the remnants of the nice dinner you made for your family last night are still on the dishes in the sink, and you spend the next hour and a half doing dishes and cleaning. At the end of which, children run through the house, drenched, screaming for peanut butter sandwiches and a side of marshmallows. You suddenly realize that there is a reason you work full time, and it is only partly so that you can afford a roof over your head.

The main reason being touted for home vacations is to save money, of course. This is because we are all bankrupt. We’re bankrupt from spending more at the pumps, more at the grocery store, and more on our IRS forms (don’t be fooled by the refund check – that was your money to begin with and the government made interest on it before return it). For you!) We are bankrupt from plummeting home values, stranding our empty houses on the market for a whole year and losing money. And yet the financial impact of vacationing at home? Since you are already home and you have nothing new to entertain yourself, you will be prey to the advertisements and go shopping. However, unlike when you travel, you don’t have a limit to how many things you can buy or take home, so the next thing you know, there are piles of wood from Home Depot in your driveway, five “motivational” swimsuits. you in the closet and four video games to distract the kids, now that the neighbor’s 4-year-old threw up in the pool after daycare and ruined the fun for everyone.

For the green traveler, you may fool yourself into thinking that a home vacation is a great way to save fuel, and maybe it is, as long as you don’t have to run errands, buy wood, or pick up groceries. All I know is that you would probably save more energy and have a great time spending the week cycling through French vineyards or on a beach within walking distance of a hotel.

Employers love home vacations, because chances are high that you will be disturbed if you are at home, whereas if you are on a beach in Jamaica, you can just ignore the phone and pretend you just didn’t hear it. . If employers really wanted you to save money and gas, they would allow you to telecommute 4 or 5 days a week. My commute used to be almost an hour each way. Having an additional 8 hours of natural light each week would have been like a vacation in itself. Most working women say they would take a pay cut if it meant they could have 2 hours in the afternoon once a week, without children, to run errands.

Your environment has to change in order for you to enjoy a ‘get out of your head’ type of vacation. That may mean leaving home to visit a nearby city or moving to a place too remote for internet and cell phone service. Otherwise, staying in touch means work or other commitments can and will interrupt.

If you don’t agree with this article, you’re in luck. You are one of the resourceful people for whom boredom is never a problem and home is a constant source of fun, energy, and spiritual awakening. You have my envy, because most of us have a hard time getting away from everything without getting away from ourselves.

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