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The most relaxing vacation you can take is going nowhere

215 points by prostoalex 8y ago

Theodores 8y ago
In the UK the idea of a paid holiday is a new idea, up until 1938 working men had no entitlement to such a thing. The trade unions were responsible for getting the change although initially the entitlement was for just one week of paid holiday. Eventually two weeks became the norm and then the E.U. laws harmonised the rules to whatever we have today. There was a need then for taking people's money off them to take them somewhere for this mandatory holiday fun. This provided quite a bonus to the railways and associated industries. Seaside towns in the UK are still littered with the leftover hotels and amusements that got borne into being before the airplane came along. Planes took the holidaymakers away to cheaper parts of the world where the strong pound meant that Spanish and Greek folk could wait on average Brits, accepting wages that nobody would work for in the UK. A lot of such tourism was living for cheap and having other people do the chores for you, not exactly the pinnacle of adventure. So ingrained is the notion of holiday that it really is mandatory. To stay at home and enjoy the home you have been working fifty weeks of the year to secure is anathema, total crazy talk that would mark you out as eccentric. Just because some trade union people fought for the right for paid holidays in eighty years ago is forgotten and not known by the working man, yet just because of this legislation the act of going on holiday is deemed mandatory. It is a win for capitalism and it means nobody is truly getting off the hamster wheel and enjoying the art of doing nothing. Even in this article - albeit American - there is still a lot of emphasis on doing inane stuff, loitering around local shops, putting effort into doing holiday things but in your back yard. We still seem afraid of an open ended commitment to unstructured self development, taking time out to do nothing. Times of nothingness are great for original thinking, creativity and learning, maybe some people just can't do it.
- baal80spam 8y ago
  That's a very interesting point of view!
- imnotlost 8y ago
  > Times of nothingness are great for original thinking, creativity and learning, maybe some people just can't do it. Nothing is scarier than some time alone with your thoughts. You may even feel something...
- notahacker 8y ago
  Pedantic point, but the unpaid holiday was around a lot longer in the UK. The mill towns all celebrated "wakes weeks", holiday periods ostensibly linked to religion but also undoubtedly a chance for mill owners to implement the sort of changes which could only be implemented when the machines weren't running. The seaside resorts (particularly the less upmarket and more northern ones) grew up in the nineteenth century to cater for that, particularly since different towns took their holidays in different weeks between June and September. Not least because the people that scrimped and saved to be able to afford rail fares, amusements and sticks of rock didn't have a great deal to enjoy back at home
- sorokod 8y ago
  Staycations (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staycation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staycation) are quite common now as the weak pound made traveling abroad too expensive for many people.
paublyrne 8y ago
I'm doing just this, this very week, a week during which by coincidence the European heatwave is peaking. I've lounged, read, strolled, and napped, and managed to get myself into a state of relaxation I haven't experienced in years...
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  I am working in the european tourism industry. I don't think I'll ever go on holidays again. Right now they are all gung-ho on `experiences` (hello Airbnb influence) and `transformation` tourism spiced up with personal development lingo. My colleagues label me the oddball when I tell them I'd rather spend my free time around my house and interacting with the community I live in rather than spend money on some trips and hotel rooms across Europe.
  - davnicwil 8y ago
    I've seen these experience things pushed hard by airbnb (in Europe) lately and I don't know what to think of them. Perhaps you could shed some light, being in the industry? Cynical part of me says that most would be empty tourist trap type things. The concept of paying for a completely set up, planned, 'experience' seems to sort of cancel out what an experience is and what is special and enjoyable about it. On the other hand, tours have existed forever, unique place-specific activities have existed forever, and I enjoy those when I do them. These things might be no different except done by 'regular people' instead of companies, and maybe a bit more diverse and creative, which in a way might actually really be more genuine and enjoyable.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      I think “experiences” are basically tours repackaged for a generation that has become used to extremely high levels of production value in all the forms of entertainment which they consume.
e40 8y ago
And it makes sense. It's hard to relax when you are exhausted from traveling. The best you can do is exhaust yourself getting to/from your destination, then relax while you are there. Any vacation with constant switching of locations is not about relaxing. It's about something else, and that might be what you want.
- kurthr 8y ago
  The counter example of this is that habits are hard to break when you stay in the same environment. If your habits are what prevent you from relaxing (dog forbid you work from home), then going somewhere else may be just what you need. A change of environment is just a way to escape yourself. Industrial scale resorts do strike me as a bit bizarre, but they are an industry fed by marketing and advertising. As you say, there are also the "bucket list" things people would like to see/do that end up as vacations, because that's the only time you could do them. These adventures may also help you relax when you return, because you have memories and stories to tell (or pictures to brag?)... because if you remember the perspective of your vacation, you may be able to relax a bit even when you're back working.
  - therein 8y ago
    > If your habits are what prevent you from relaxing (dog forbid you work from home) Your typo made me smile as that situation could be just as effective at making it hard to work from home.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Yes the most relaxing vacations I take are when I get away from my house and local environment, but do virtually nothing at my vacation destination. By nothing I mean just live in the local environment. Don't try to see all the things, or make a lot of plans in advance.
    - empath75 8y ago
      Yep. My favorite vacations were just staying in a guest house in a residential neighborhood in Kyoto or an Airbnb above a bakery in Paris and not really doing much but living life.
mmsimanga 8y ago
If you originally come from a small town and you lucky enough to have relatives still alive in your hometown then going back is also relaxing. Works for me. Reminds me that sometimes there just is no need to rush like we do in bigger cities.
bariswheel 8y ago
Unless you want to get away from your regular routine, this is partially true. Have tried both. Though it need to be said, staycations are underrated, especially in destination states like California.
- ovao 8y ago
  It’s relatively easy to split the difference in California as well. I live in L.A. and have done short weekend+ vacations to San Diego, Palm Springs and Malibu. Book a hotel room, drive 60-90 minutes and you’re winding up, essentially, in fairly different worlds, with just as much or nearly as much to explore. It’s a great way to have the ‘destination’ component of a vacation without all the logistics and headaches involved in vacation travel.
  - mturmon 8y ago
    This has been my approach as well. There's a lot of diverse stuff here. I recently spent a long weekend 7 miles away from my house, at the downtown Bonaventure hotel, just walking around DTLA and doing stuff I don't usually get to do. I left my car at home to be sure I wouldn't revert to my standard mode. When my kid was younger, we used to take the train down to San Diego for a week, or spend the week at a beach hotel in Santa Monica. That said, travel abroad and to the east coast is really an essential complement to those pleasures. It's good to keep perspective.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    There’s also Vegas nearby if you want a totally different scene. My wife and I would go to Vegas quite often before our child and had a wonderful time - almost rejuvenating to our relationship. Now that I think about it, feels odd to say you had a great time in Vegas with your wife haha.
- cardiffspaceman 8y ago
  I live in San Diego and have a list of tourist places that I haven't been since my arrival in '79. I have friends who live in Manhattan who have their lists of places they haven't been that "all tourists" have been to. Some Manhattan friends and I did a vacation together in San Diego, and I even stayed in the hotel they stayed in. That knocked a few things off my list of tourist sites.
Fricken 8y ago
When I travel I'm not doing it to relax, but to go on an adventure, to experience other worlds, push myself, and get outside my comfort zone. Otherwise, I totally agree. All the people who go on cruises or Mexican resort vacations so they can lay around and be pandered to, that never made any sense to me. I do that at home just fine, for a fraction of the cost and with none of the hassle.
- booleandilemma 8y ago
  You can’t share my-life-is-better-than-yours vacation selfies that way though.
  - qop 8y ago
    Do you find there are a lot of people in your circle that post those? My friends (I'm 54) are probably older and more boring than yours, but like if I open Facebook right now there will be grandbaby pictures, look what I did in my shed this weekend, and politics. That's pretty much the formula year round for my timeline. I strongly suspect that's a trend with younger people. I don't see my friends and coworkers experiencing the same type of satisfaction when posting something that I see younger users having. Hell, I'm glad I'm not the type of old person that doesn't know how to use Facebook. Just that is really enough satisfaction for me.
    - komali2 8y ago
      I'm 27 and my closest friends don't bother. For a while I thought I was missing something, but every time I try to participate in Instagram, I only feel like it reduces my enjoyment of a thing, because I gotta spend a couple seconds fucking with my phone to get a picture. It is great to take a couple story videos here and there though. I like looking at those months after.
      - PunchTornado 8y ago
        Tbh I think Instagram makes people more active and healthier. I'm pretty sure half my friends wouldn't do the things they do if they couldn't instagram it afterwards. Like going for a hike just to have your instagram content for the day.
ronilan 8y ago
True. But the most interesting one is not.
tlrobinson 8y ago
This is true if: 1. Your normal style of travel is to see and do everything, and not stay in one place longer than a few days, versus parking yourself at a beach/campsite/resort/etc and reading books for week. 2. You live somewhere relaxing, not a big noisy bustling city (or perhaps if you are particularly mindful). Even then, sometimes it's nice to get away from your usual scenery. When you've got 2 weeks of vacation a year it's easy to feel obligated to see all the things. If you have the opportunity to do some long term traveling I highly recommend it. It's a very different experience to absorb culture by osmosis vs force-feeding it to yourself.
denz_L 8y ago
Also it reduces your carbon footprint. Our ancestors didn't need to go on vacation on the other side of the globe. It should stay à luxury.
- everdev 8y ago
  There were many famous explorers and worldly leaders/intellectuals throughout history. As others have said, if you want to relax, it makes sense to start close to home. If you want to scratch that ancestral itch to explore then go travel.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    If you take a statistical approach to describing phenomena, then the parent’s point stands, despite the outliers you mention.
    - cncrnd 8y ago
      That's a hell of a way to say it wasn't as common back then.
      - toasterlovin 8y ago
        Thanks! I think distinguishing between statistical and absolute statements is important. It’s common for people to point to exceptions or outliers as a demonstration that a given statement is false, when the statement in question is statistical in nature, rather than an absolute. It often leads to misrepresentation and people talking past each other. For instance, it plays a pretty strong role in ongoing disagreements about gender roles, gender identity, etc.
        skinnymuch 8y ago
        Hah. So many arguments or debates have broken down to nonsense because of the pedantic tendency to call out someone’s statement that obviously wasn’t meant as an absolute but didn’t specifically say statistically likely or unlikely.
Roritharr 8y ago
My son is nearly two years old now, two months before he was born we had a 7 day vacation in a silent cabin in Norway. Since then nothing I've done with our family would fulfill my understanding of the term "relaxing". I really wonder how other parents do it. We've just been to the beach for a few days. I love spending time with my son & wife, but I really don't get "relaxed" by this, rather a feeling of fulfillment and contentness. It's no "charging my batteries" type of vacation that I've enjoyed before becoming a parent. What am I doing wrong?
- ams6110 8y ago
  You're not doing anything wrong. You're now a parent. Your life has changed forever.
  - Roritharr 8y ago
    I know that life changed, I'm just wondering what other parents are doing and what works for them. Asking here because working in tech we have similar freedoms that other people might not enjoy.
    - jkahn 8y ago
      My kids are 5 and 2. Nothing really seems to recharge the batteries. Aside from some chill time while they are in bed. It starts to get less intense closer to 3, but nowhere near what it’s like without kids. We went on a 5 day beach vacation recently and set our expectations low - it was great, but also exhausting.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      We fly in my wife’s retired parents for a week in the winter and go off to someplace warm as a couple. We take the whole family to a four-generation, ~20 person in one large house lake vacation a week in the summer. With enough people, you get some downtime (and some doubled-up-upon time). We really like the winter week away, but the summer vacation with the large family is more fun and differently semi-relaxing. Things also get easier and more interesting as they become self-cleaning, self-loading, and self-entertaining (when they can read). Until age 5 and especially 3 and younger is intense. It lightens up some. Your life as a parent needs to be only partially about your kids. You need to keep and nurture your adult relationship as well. It’s not ALL about the kids. We also make it a point to split housework and give each other “time off” to do hobbies, go to the gym, go out with friends, play sports, etc while the other adult has the kids. Keep a shared Google calendar to coordinate things. It’s a series of small things, integrated over a long time.
everdev 8y ago
Jobs that afford expendable income to be able to travel are rarely physically exhausting. Most vacations are mental "breaks" from work. We don't need to be still to relax. Just like exercising the right amount can actually boost your energy, simulating your brain in the right amount can help provide a break from your work. For most people, exiting a new place on a leisurely schedule can be just the right amount of simulation to feel relaxing.
innomatics 8y ago
I would staycation a lot more but bringing up a number of children, who fortunately have daily lives that closely resemble the description of activities in the article, generally requires some adventure to relieve them from the mundaneness of hanging at home or around the hood. Going somewhere serene and quiet, and staying put there is my first choice. But finding and getting to and from these places, especially during school holidays, takes some effort and planning. Last summer we drove for 8 hours to a camp spot (not unusual for families to do here in Australia).
User23 8y ago
Whether this is true depends entirely on where you live and what your living circumstances are.
bitL 8y ago
I don't know... I traveled around the world for >1.5 year, staying at one country/city for a ~month, and it was the most relaxing time of my life. And I worked full-time, happily remotely, on stuff that was bleeding edge with proper deliveries. It's amazing to work hard on something, then walk out to a completely different culture and plug in part of the brain that is not used at work. That also led to many unexpected creative collaborations as well as starting a company with a person I met at the opposite end of the world.
scarface74 8y ago
My wife and I take at least one staycation a year just for a change of scenery. We will take an Uber to another part of our metro area, stay at a hotel for two or three days and we won't do anything spectacular. Go out to eat and drink, maybe go to a show or just do nothing. We don't have a bucket list, no pressure to "do" anything, etc.
- fermienrico 8y ago
  I never understood the concept of staying in a hotel in the same town. I travel a lot on business and to me, Hotels are not relaxing as much as my own house. Relaxing vacation for me is to go to a remote place away from your own town, get a cabin and totally unwind. I never understood staycations especially hotel-staycations.
  - graeme 8y ago
    It seems like hotels are work for you. Likewise, I don't expect a forest ranger would relax in a cabin. The point of hotel or airbnb is same town is to have staycation but avoid seeing the stuff that requires chores in your home environment.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    It depends on your idea of "your town". My family lives, works, and plays in the 'burbs. We never have any reason to go in town. Staying in town is a change of scenery. We don't have to drive (take Uber) and we don't have to go through the expense and hassle of an airport.
EtherealEntity 8y ago
No, just no. I'm going to stay at home, think about the projects I need to do around the house and how much my spare activities are going to cost. The best vacation is an all-inclusive resort. I budget for the booking/flight. I get to see a new place in the world and once I'm there I basically eat/drink/sleep whenever I want to, it's the best.
- koala_man 8y ago
  I don't follow this reasoning at all. Will the projects not need doing if you go away? Is the flight/resort cheaper than the activities you'd do at home? Can you not eat/drink/sleep when you want when you're home?
  - thisacctforreal 8y ago
    It's about the stress of delegating time and money. With an all inclusive resort the questions "do I really need this?" or "maybe I should be doing something else" don't come up.
    - guidoism 8y ago
      I wonder what it would cost to hire a maid and butler for your home for a week. Hmmm. I might just need to try that on our next staycation
      - ajhurliman 8y ago
        Even this is work, though. Hiring help is almost as bad as doing it yourself; they need to be endlessly managed between when they'll arrive/ depart, the scope of work, particularities about how to do the work, etc.
    - thirdsun 8y ago
      I get your point and can relate, but it's an issue that you can control entirely. You already know that those questions shouldn't come up during your vacation, regardless of if you're at home or far away at the beach. So simply don't let them - it's that easy.
blubb-fish 8y ago
I can travel in my mind by reading and meditating. Actual traveling is mostly just an excuse to distract oneself from exploring one's own inner unknown territory. I never gained anything by visiting a new place b/c at the end of the day everything is pretty much the same. Of course it is exciting and I also totally enjoy it - but real growth is not dependent on that at all.
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KozmoNau7 8y ago
My best vacations have been planned in only the loosest sense, ie. choose a hotel or BnB, book the flight, maybe rent a car at the airport if necessary, done. Then explore whatever feels interesting, eat good food, soak up the experience. I've done the Scottish Highlands, Malaga and southern Germany (3 times) like this, and it's been amazing every time.
lettergram 8y ago
I think everyone vacations for a different reason. For instance, I'm leaving on a two week vacation around Ireland Monday. Sure staying at home would have been "less stressful" - in the sense I have less to worry about, but I'm not taking a vacation to reduce risk. I think life is about experiences. I've worked in different roles, lived in different places, traveled around, because that's what I enjoy. By moving around and seeing different walks of life, you learn to empathize and understand others. You come back to work with a different perspective. In fact, I view stress itself as a perspective problem. I will be more relaxed on my vacation (even though I'm traveling with my 6 month old son) because I simply won't worry about the mundane. It's going to be good food, company, and sights. I see no reason it would be less stressful at home. Now, I have also taken "staycations" - and I love them as well, often I get stuff done around the house, or just chill on my bed all day. It's a different flavor, but I don't find it any less stressful or more enjoyable. I think, in part, it's what ever you (and those around you) view as relaxing and vacations.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Exactly. I take a pretty wide variety of trips though I tend to avoid the beach resort thing. I’ll sometimes stay at home over the holidays, sometimes group adventure travel, by myself or with some else in cities, countryside, camping, etc. it really varies and that’s just one person.
- kaycebasques 8y ago
  > I think life is about experiences. I'm going to hijack this quote to discuss an incredibly unpopular idea (among my generation, at least) that I've been kicking around lately. I encountered the exact idea in a book recently, so I'll just let the book explain it: > Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can 'experience' the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about 'how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life'. > Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better. > Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. Their marriage has given birth to the infinite 'market of experiences', on which the modern tourism industry is founded. The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor India a country --- they are both experiences, the consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfill our human potential, and make us happier... --- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, p. 115-6 I looked at my Mom's generation and was majorly put off by their general obsession with material possessions. Fight Club profoundly moved me when I first saw it, partly for this reason. So I told myself that I'd spend my money on experiences. Only recently, after having the good fortune to be able to travel around the world a bit, have I come to the different opinion that it's still consumerism. Instagram culture made this very clear. Even my love of reading is a form of consumerism. It was a bit of a shock to see that passage in Sapiens, because for all of my supposed individualism, I realized that this is probably a widespread trend among my generation (I was born late 80s) and that I wasn't as unique, contrarian, and individualistic as I had imagined myself to be. I'm still a rebel without a cause, so now I'm focusing my efforts on creating. Painting. Writing. Starting a business. Programming stuff, with the sole purpose of fun and expression. Creating feels like more of a qualitative shift away from consumerism. Don't really have a name for it, though. Creatorism? Creationism...? ;) But who knows, 5 years from now maybe I'll realize that my creationist phase was as much of a herd mindset as my romantic consumerist phase.
elchief 8y ago
I quit my job knowing a better one was coming down the pipe soon. Had 10 weeks off. I did nothing except sleep, read, exercise. It was glorious
uiri 8y ago
I think the article makes it clear that the author does not like to travel too far from home. They don't like dealing with foreign languages nor foreign cultures. They want to be near friends and family (people they know). Beyond the apparent dislike for travel, the article reflects a view that vacationing in another country is an exercise in crossing items of a list or showing off on social media. That misses the mark by quite a bit. The point of visiting a foreign place is not to escape your home and yourself, but to learn more about yourself, the world and your place in it. There are ways to decry escapism without suggesting people close themselves off to new places and new experiences.
sakopov 8y ago
I quit my job, sold all my shit and thru hiked El Camino de Santiago 5 years ago. After about a week I had no idea what day of the week I was on. It was a glorious and totally boundary-breaking experience. I have never been so at peace with myself. And I've never looked at life the same way. My vacations have largely consisted of getting lost in the wilderness (I live in Colorado) or another country/culture ever since. It's like a detox for my mind. I don't think I could ever enjoy a staycation.
FrozenVoid 8y ago
I agree with the premise(vacation is stressful and expensive), but staying at home doesn't provide the sense of isolation/independence from outside world that tourists seek. There are ways to do this at home though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank Vacations just replace stress X with stress Y.
matiasfernandez 8y ago
Correction: The most relaxing vacation you can take is telling everyone you're heading to Mexico and then going nowhere.
irrational 8y ago
The most relaxing vacation I have ever been on is a cruise. At least the days when we were not in port. When you are at sea and literally cannot go anywhere because you are on a boat there was no expectation or feeling of needing to be "doing something". You could just wander around, take a nap, stare out at the water, eat, read a book, play a game, etc. So incredibly relaxing. I'd love to go on a cruise that just went from point A to point B without going into port anywhere until it was time to exit the boat. That would be incredibly relaxing I imagine.
tluyben2 8y ago
I did staycations for 10 years and now I am doing 10 years of going as far as I can; I vastly prefer the latter. At home we inevitably end up doing things that do not, for my definition anyway, belong in a vacation. And the stress thing of vacation goes away if you just do not plan anything upfront besides getting the tickets. We sometimes end up just walking through nature or city instead visiting 100 places hurriedly with some guide. And that is fine; for me vacation means that I do what I like; I do not need to see anything for that sometimes.
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Fire-Dragon-DoL 8y ago
I agree, best holidays is a bunch of days at home without doing anything related to work. If you want to push this further you can order food every dinner. But really, nothing restores me more than 3 days home with my wife playing a bunch of videogames/boardgames and going out for dinner

215 points by prostoalex 8y ago

In the UK the idea of a paid holiday is a new idea, up until 1938 working men had no entitlement to such a thing. The trade unions were responsible for getting the change although initially the entitlement was for just one week of paid holiday. Eventually two weeks became the norm and then the E.U. laws harmonised the rules to whatever we have today. There was a need then for taking people's money off them to take them somewhere for this mandatory holiday fun. This provided quite a bonus to the railways and associated industries. Seaside towns in the UK are still littered with the leftover hotels and amusements that got borne into being before the airplane came along. Planes took the holidaymakers away to cheaper parts of the world where the strong pound meant that Spanish and Greek folk could wait on average Brits, accepting wages that nobody would work for in the UK. A lot of such tourism was living for cheap and having other people do the chores for you, not exactly the pinnacle of adventure. So ingrained is the notion of holiday that it really is mandatory. To stay at home and enjoy the home you have been working fifty weeks of the year to secure is anathema, total crazy talk that would mark you out as eccentric. Just because some trade union people fought for the right for paid holidays in eighty years ago is forgotten and not known by the working man, yet just because of this legislation the act of going on holiday is deemed mandatory. It is a win for capitalism and it means nobody is truly getting off the hamster wheel and enjoying the art of doing nothing. Even in this article - albeit American - there is still a lot of emphasis on doing inane stuff, loitering around local shops, putting effort into doing holiday things but in your back yard. We still seem afraid of an open ended commitment to unstructured self development, taking time out to do nothing. Times of nothingness are great for original thinking, creativity and learning, maybe some people just can't do it.

baal80spam 8y ago
That's a very interesting point of view!
imnotlost 8y ago
> Times of nothingness are great for original thinking, creativity and learning, maybe some people just can't do it. Nothing is scarier than some time alone with your thoughts. You may even feel something...
notahacker 8y ago
Pedantic point, but the unpaid holiday was around a lot longer in the UK. The mill towns all celebrated "wakes weeks", holiday periods ostensibly linked to religion but also undoubtedly a chance for mill owners to implement the sort of changes which could only be implemented when the machines weren't running. The seaside resorts (particularly the less upmarket and more northern ones) grew up in the nineteenth century to cater for that, particularly since different towns took their holidays in different weeks between June and September. Not least because the people that scrimped and saved to be able to afford rail fares, amusements and sticks of rock didn't have a great deal to enjoy back at home
sorokod 8y ago
Staycations (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staycation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staycation) are quite common now as the weak pound made traveling abroad too expensive for many people.

paublyrne 8y ago

I'm doing just this, this very week, a week during which by coincidence the European heatwave is peaking. I've lounged, read, strolled, and napped, and managed to get myself into a state of relaxation I haven't experienced in years...

johnchristopher 8y ago
I am working in the european tourism industry. I don't think I'll ever go on holidays again. Right now they are all gung-ho on `experiences` (hello Airbnb influence) and `transformation` tourism spiced up with personal development lingo. My colleagues label me the oddball when I tell them I'd rather spend my free time around my house and interacting with the community I live in rather than spend money on some trips and hotel rooms across Europe.
- davnicwil 8y ago
  I've seen these experience things pushed hard by airbnb (in Europe) lately and I don't know what to think of them. Perhaps you could shed some light, being in the industry? Cynical part of me says that most would be empty tourist trap type things. The concept of paying for a completely set up, planned, 'experience' seems to sort of cancel out what an experience is and what is special and enjoyable about it. On the other hand, tours have existed forever, unique place-specific activities have existed forever, and I enjoy those when I do them. These things might be no different except done by 'regular people' instead of companies, and maybe a bit more diverse and creative, which in a way might actually really be more genuine and enjoyable.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    I think “experiences” are basically tours repackaged for a generation that has become used to extremely high levels of production value in all the forms of entertainment which they consume.

e40 8y ago

And it makes sense. It's hard to relax when you are exhausted from traveling. The best you can do is exhaust yourself getting to/from your destination, then relax while you are there. Any vacation with constant switching of locations is not about relaxing. It's about something else, and that might be what you want.

kurthr 8y ago
The counter example of this is that habits are hard to break when you stay in the same environment. If your habits are what prevent you from relaxing (dog forbid you work from home), then going somewhere else may be just what you need. A change of environment is just a way to escape yourself. Industrial scale resorts do strike me as a bit bizarre, but they are an industry fed by marketing and advertising. As you say, there are also the "bucket list" things people would like to see/do that end up as vacations, because that's the only time you could do them. These adventures may also help you relax when you return, because you have memories and stories to tell (or pictures to brag?)... because if you remember the perspective of your vacation, you may be able to relax a bit even when you're back working.
- therein 8y ago
  > If your habits are what prevent you from relaxing (dog forbid you work from home) Your typo made me smile as that situation could be just as effective at making it hard to work from home.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Yes the most relaxing vacations I take are when I get away from my house and local environment, but do virtually nothing at my vacation destination. By nothing I mean just live in the local environment. Don't try to see all the things, or make a lot of plans in advance.
  - empath75 8y ago
    Yep. My favorite vacations were just staying in a guest house in a residential neighborhood in Kyoto or an Airbnb above a bakery in Paris and not really doing much but living life.

mmsimanga 8y ago

If you originally come from a small town and you lucky enough to have relatives still alive in your hometown then going back is also relaxing. Works for me. Reminds me that sometimes there just is no need to rush like we do in bigger cities.

bariswheel 8y ago

Unless you want to get away from your regular routine, this is partially true. Have tried both. Though it need to be said, staycations are underrated, especially in destination states like California.

ovao 8y ago
It’s relatively easy to split the difference in California as well. I live in L.A. and have done short weekend+ vacations to San Diego, Palm Springs and Malibu. Book a hotel room, drive 60-90 minutes and you’re winding up, essentially, in fairly different worlds, with just as much or nearly as much to explore. It’s a great way to have the ‘destination’ component of a vacation without all the logistics and headaches involved in vacation travel.
- mturmon 8y ago
  This has been my approach as well. There's a lot of diverse stuff here. I recently spent a long weekend 7 miles away from my house, at the downtown Bonaventure hotel, just walking around DTLA and doing stuff I don't usually get to do. I left my car at home to be sure I wouldn't revert to my standard mode. When my kid was younger, we used to take the train down to San Diego for a week, or spend the week at a beach hotel in Santa Monica. That said, travel abroad and to the east coast is really an essential complement to those pleasures. It's good to keep perspective.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  There’s also Vegas nearby if you want a totally different scene. My wife and I would go to Vegas quite often before our child and had a wonderful time - almost rejuvenating to our relationship. Now that I think about it, feels odd to say you had a great time in Vegas with your wife haha.
cardiffspaceman 8y ago
I live in San Diego and have a list of tourist places that I haven't been since my arrival in '79. I have friends who live in Manhattan who have their lists of places they haven't been that "all tourists" have been to. Some Manhattan friends and I did a vacation together in San Diego, and I even stayed in the hotel they stayed in. That knocked a few things off my list of tourist sites.

Fricken 8y ago

When I travel I'm not doing it to relax, but to go on an adventure, to experience other worlds, push myself, and get outside my comfort zone. Otherwise, I totally agree. All the people who go on cruises or Mexican resort vacations so they can lay around and be pandered to, that never made any sense to me. I do that at home just fine, for a fraction of the cost and with none of the hassle.

booleandilemma 8y ago
You can’t share my-life-is-better-than-yours vacation selfies that way though.
- qop 8y ago
  Do you find there are a lot of people in your circle that post those? My friends (I'm 54) are probably older and more boring than yours, but like if I open Facebook right now there will be grandbaby pictures, look what I did in my shed this weekend, and politics. That's pretty much the formula year round for my timeline. I strongly suspect that's a trend with younger people. I don't see my friends and coworkers experiencing the same type of satisfaction when posting something that I see younger users having. Hell, I'm glad I'm not the type of old person that doesn't know how to use Facebook. Just that is really enough satisfaction for me.
  - komali2 8y ago
    I'm 27 and my closest friends don't bother. For a while I thought I was missing something, but every time I try to participate in Instagram, I only feel like it reduces my enjoyment of a thing, because I gotta spend a couple seconds fucking with my phone to get a picture. It is great to take a couple story videos here and there though. I like looking at those months after.
    - PunchTornado 8y ago
      Tbh I think Instagram makes people more active and healthier. I'm pretty sure half my friends wouldn't do the things they do if they couldn't instagram it afterwards. Like going for a hike just to have your instagram content for the day.

ronilan 8y ago

True. But the most interesting one is not.

tlrobinson 8y ago

This is true if: 1. Your normal style of travel is to see and do everything, and not stay in one place longer than a few days, versus parking yourself at a beach/campsite/resort/etc and reading books for week. 2. You live somewhere relaxing, not a big noisy bustling city (or perhaps if you are particularly mindful). Even then, sometimes it's nice to get away from your usual scenery. When you've got 2 weeks of vacation a year it's easy to feel obligated to see all the things. If you have the opportunity to do some long term traveling I highly recommend it. It's a very different experience to absorb culture by osmosis vs force-feeding it to yourself.

denz_L 8y ago

Also it reduces your carbon footprint. Our ancestors didn't need to go on vacation on the other side of the globe. It should stay à luxury.

everdev 8y ago
There were many famous explorers and worldly leaders/intellectuals throughout history. As others have said, if you want to relax, it makes sense to start close to home. If you want to scratch that ancestral itch to explore then go travel.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  If you take a statistical approach to describing phenomena, then the parent’s point stands, despite the outliers you mention.
  - cncrnd 8y ago
    That's a hell of a way to say it wasn't as common back then.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      Thanks! I think distinguishing between statistical and absolute statements is important. It’s common for people to point to exceptions or outliers as a demonstration that a given statement is false, when the statement in question is statistical in nature, rather than an absolute. It often leads to misrepresentation and people talking past each other. For instance, it plays a pretty strong role in ongoing disagreements about gender roles, gender identity, etc.
      - skinnymuch 8y ago
        Hah. So many arguments or debates have broken down to nonsense because of the pedantic tendency to call out someone’s statement that obviously wasn’t meant as an absolute but didn’t specifically say statistically likely or unlikely.

Roritharr 8y ago

My son is nearly two years old now, two months before he was born we had a 7 day vacation in a silent cabin in Norway. Since then nothing I've done with our family would fulfill my understanding of the term "relaxing". I really wonder how other parents do it. We've just been to the beach for a few days. I love spending time with my son & wife, but I really don't get "relaxed" by this, rather a feeling of fulfillment and contentness. It's no "charging my batteries" type of vacation that I've enjoyed before becoming a parent. What am I doing wrong?

ams6110 8y ago
You're not doing anything wrong. You're now a parent. Your life has changed forever.
- Roritharr 8y ago
  I know that life changed, I'm just wondering what other parents are doing and what works for them. Asking here because working in tech we have similar freedoms that other people might not enjoy.
  - jkahn 8y ago
    My kids are 5 and 2. Nothing really seems to recharge the batteries. Aside from some chill time while they are in bed. It starts to get less intense closer to 3, but nowhere near what it’s like without kids. We went on a 5 day beach vacation recently and set our expectations low - it was great, but also exhausting.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    We fly in my wife’s retired parents for a week in the winter and go off to someplace warm as a couple. We take the whole family to a four-generation, ~20 person in one large house lake vacation a week in the summer. With enough people, you get some downtime (and some doubled-up-upon time). We really like the winter week away, but the summer vacation with the large family is more fun and differently semi-relaxing. Things also get easier and more interesting as they become self-cleaning, self-loading, and self-entertaining (when they can read). Until age 5 and especially 3 and younger is intense. It lightens up some. Your life as a parent needs to be only partially about your kids. You need to keep and nurture your adult relationship as well. It’s not ALL about the kids. We also make it a point to split housework and give each other “time off” to do hobbies, go to the gym, go out with friends, play sports, etc while the other adult has the kids. Keep a shared Google calendar to coordinate things. It’s a series of small things, integrated over a long time.

everdev 8y ago

Jobs that afford expendable income to be able to travel are rarely physically exhausting. Most vacations are mental "breaks" from work. We don't need to be still to relax. Just like exercising the right amount can actually boost your energy, simulating your brain in the right amount can help provide a break from your work. For most people, exiting a new place on a leisurely schedule can be just the right amount of simulation to feel relaxing.

innomatics 8y ago

I would staycation a lot more but bringing up a number of children, who fortunately have daily lives that closely resemble the description of activities in the article, generally requires some adventure to relieve them from the mundaneness of hanging at home or around the hood. Going somewhere serene and quiet, and staying put there is my first choice. But finding and getting to and from these places, especially during school holidays, takes some effort and planning. Last summer we drove for 8 hours to a camp spot (not unusual for families to do here in Australia).

User23 8y ago

Whether this is true depends entirely on where you live and what your living circumstances are.

bitL 8y ago

I don't know... I traveled around the world for >1.5 year, staying at one country/city for a ~month, and it was the most relaxing time of my life. And I worked full-time, happily remotely, on stuff that was bleeding edge with proper deliveries. It's amazing to work hard on something, then walk out to a completely different culture and plug in part of the brain that is not used at work. That also led to many unexpected creative collaborations as well as starting a company with a person I met at the opposite end of the world.

scarface74 8y ago

My wife and I take at least one staycation a year just for a change of scenery. We will take an Uber to another part of our metro area, stay at a hotel for two or three days and we won't do anything spectacular. Go out to eat and drink, maybe go to a show or just do nothing. We don't have a bucket list, no pressure to "do" anything, etc.

fermienrico 8y ago
I never understood the concept of staying in a hotel in the same town. I travel a lot on business and to me, Hotels are not relaxing as much as my own house. Relaxing vacation for me is to go to a remote place away from your own town, get a cabin and totally unwind. I never understood staycations especially hotel-staycations.
- graeme 8y ago
  It seems like hotels are work for you. Likewise, I don't expect a forest ranger would relax in a cabin. The point of hotel or airbnb is same town is to have staycation but avoid seeing the stuff that requires chores in your home environment.
- scarface74 8y ago
  It depends on your idea of "your town". My family lives, works, and plays in the 'burbs. We never have any reason to go in town. Staying in town is a change of scenery. We don't have to drive (take Uber) and we don't have to go through the expense and hassle of an airport.

EtherealEntity 8y ago

No, just no. I'm going to stay at home, think about the projects I need to do around the house and how much my spare activities are going to cost. The best vacation is an all-inclusive resort. I budget for the booking/flight. I get to see a new place in the world and once I'm there I basically eat/drink/sleep whenever I want to, it's the best.

koala_man 8y ago
I don't follow this reasoning at all. Will the projects not need doing if you go away? Is the flight/resort cheaper than the activities you'd do at home? Can you not eat/drink/sleep when you want when you're home?
- thisacctforreal 8y ago
  It's about the stress of delegating time and money. With an all inclusive resort the questions "do I really need this?" or "maybe I should be doing something else" don't come up.
  - guidoism 8y ago
    I wonder what it would cost to hire a maid and butler for your home for a week. Hmmm. I might just need to try that on our next staycation
    - ajhurliman 8y ago
      Even this is work, though. Hiring help is almost as bad as doing it yourself; they need to be endlessly managed between when they'll arrive/ depart, the scope of work, particularities about how to do the work, etc.
  - thirdsun 8y ago
    I get your point and can relate, but it's an issue that you can control entirely. You already know that those questions shouldn't come up during your vacation, regardless of if you're at home or far away at the beach. So simply don't let them - it's that easy.

blubb-fish 8y ago

I can travel in my mind by reading and meditating. Actual traveling is mostly just an excuse to distract oneself from exploring one's own inner unknown territory. I never gained anything by visiting a new place b/c at the end of the day everything is pretty much the same. Of course it is exciting and I also totally enjoy it - but real growth is not dependent on that at all.

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KozmoNau7 8y ago

My best vacations have been planned in only the loosest sense, ie. choose a hotel or BnB, book the flight, maybe rent a car at the airport if necessary, done. Then explore whatever feels interesting, eat good food, soak up the experience. I've done the Scottish Highlands, Malaga and southern Germany (3 times) like this, and it's been amazing every time.

lettergram 8y ago

I think everyone vacations for a different reason. For instance, I'm leaving on a two week vacation around Ireland Monday. Sure staying at home would have been "less stressful" - in the sense I have less to worry about, but I'm not taking a vacation to reduce risk. I think life is about experiences. I've worked in different roles, lived in different places, traveled around, because that's what I enjoy. By moving around and seeing different walks of life, you learn to empathize and understand others. You come back to work with a different perspective. In fact, I view stress itself as a perspective problem. I will be more relaxed on my vacation (even though I'm traveling with my 6 month old son) because I simply won't worry about the mundane. It's going to be good food, company, and sights. I see no reason it would be less stressful at home. Now, I have also taken "staycations" - and I love them as well, often I get stuff done around the house, or just chill on my bed all day. It's a different flavor, but I don't find it any less stressful or more enjoyable. I think, in part, it's what ever you (and those around you) view as relaxing and vacations.

ghaff 8y ago
Exactly. I take a pretty wide variety of trips though I tend to avoid the beach resort thing. I’ll sometimes stay at home over the holidays, sometimes group adventure travel, by myself or with some else in cities, countryside, camping, etc. it really varies and that’s just one person.
kaycebasques 8y ago
> I think life is about experiences. I'm going to hijack this quote to discuss an incredibly unpopular idea (among my generation, at least) that I've been kicking around lately. I encountered the exact idea in a book recently, so I'll just let the book explain it: > Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can 'experience' the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about 'how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life'. > Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better. > Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. Their marriage has given birth to the infinite 'market of experiences', on which the modern tourism industry is founded. The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor India a country --- they are both experiences, the consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfill our human potential, and make us happier... --- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, p. 115-6 I looked at my Mom's generation and was majorly put off by their general obsession with material possessions. Fight Club profoundly moved me when I first saw it, partly for this reason. So I told myself that I'd spend my money on experiences. Only recently, after having the good fortune to be able to travel around the world a bit, have I come to the different opinion that it's still consumerism. Instagram culture made this very clear. Even my love of reading is a form of consumerism. It was a bit of a shock to see that passage in Sapiens, because for all of my supposed individualism, I realized that this is probably a widespread trend among my generation (I was born late 80s) and that I wasn't as unique, contrarian, and individualistic as I had imagined myself to be. I'm still a rebel without a cause, so now I'm focusing my efforts on creating. Painting. Writing. Starting a business. Programming stuff, with the sole purpose of fun and expression. Creating feels like more of a qualitative shift away from consumerism. Don't really have a name for it, though. Creatorism? Creationism...? ;) But who knows, 5 years from now maybe I'll realize that my creationist phase was as much of a herd mindset as my romantic consumerist phase.

elchief 8y ago

I quit my job knowing a better one was coming down the pipe soon. Had 10 weeks off. I did nothing except sleep, read, exercise. It was glorious

uiri 8y ago

I think the article makes it clear that the author does not like to travel too far from home. They don't like dealing with foreign languages nor foreign cultures. They want to be near friends and family (people they know). Beyond the apparent dislike for travel, the article reflects a view that vacationing in another country is an exercise in crossing items of a list or showing off on social media. That misses the mark by quite a bit. The point of visiting a foreign place is not to escape your home and yourself, but to learn more about yourself, the world and your place in it. There are ways to decry escapism without suggesting people close themselves off to new places and new experiences.

sakopov 8y ago

I quit my job, sold all my shit and thru hiked El Camino de Santiago 5 years ago. After about a week I had no idea what day of the week I was on. It was a glorious and totally boundary-breaking experience. I have never been so at peace with myself. And I've never looked at life the same way. My vacations have largely consisted of getting lost in the wilderness (I live in Colorado) or another country/culture ever since. It's like a detox for my mind. I don't think I could ever enjoy a staycation.

FrozenVoid 8y ago

I agree with the premise(vacation is stressful and expensive), but staying at home doesn't provide the sense of isolation/independence from outside world that tourists seek. There are ways to do this at home though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank Vacations just replace stress X with stress Y.

matiasfernandez 8y ago

Correction: The most relaxing vacation you can take is telling everyone you're heading to Mexico and then going nowhere.

irrational 8y ago

The most relaxing vacation I have ever been on is a cruise. At least the days when we were not in port. When you are at sea and literally cannot go anywhere because you are on a boat there was no expectation or feeling of needing to be "doing something". You could just wander around, take a nap, stare out at the water, eat, read a book, play a game, etc. So incredibly relaxing. I'd love to go on a cruise that just went from point A to point B without going into port anywhere until it was time to exit the boat. That would be incredibly relaxing I imagine.

tluyben2 8y ago

I did staycations for 10 years and now I am doing 10 years of going as far as I can; I vastly prefer the latter. At home we inevitably end up doing things that do not, for my definition anyway, belong in a vacation. And the stress thing of vacation goes away if you just do not plan anything upfront besides getting the tickets. We sometimes end up just walking through nature or city instead visiting 100 places hurriedly with some guide. And that is fine; for me vacation means that I do what I like; I do not need to see anything for that sometimes.

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Fire-Dragon-DoL 8y ago

I agree, best holidays is a bunch of days at home without doing anything related to work. If you want to push this further you can order food every dinner. But really, nothing restores me more than 3 days home with my wife playing a bunch of videogames/boardgames and going out for dinner