Staycation: Affordable Summer Vacations from Home

With the uncertain economic footing of out society and the expenses of traveling and lodging, more and more Americans are forgoing the traditional annual vacation in this year. Rather than canceling vacations all together or using a break from work to just rattle about the home, a relatively new trend is taking hold with budget conscious couples and families in the form of the staycation. A staycation is a vacation based from home in which the couple or family returns home each night, saving considerable money on lodging and travel expenses in the process. Some of these savings can be spent on other luxuries during the staycation, such as dining or entertainment, or the money can simply remain in the household's general budget for a rainy day.

The most important thing to planning a successful staycation is ensuring that it doesn't just end up feeling like a string of average day trips. One idea that can help is having everybody agree on a theme for the staycation, such as nature, adventure or photography. While one day of your staycation might be spent at the beach and the next in the forest, you can apply your staycation theme to link them all together. Using our examples, your party might come home from the beach with sea shells, surfing/bodyboading war stories or pictures of the boardwalk and people on the shore, while they will return from the forest the next day with memories of a seriously challenging but rewarding hike or some great wildlife photography.

Another idea to make your staycation as memorable as any other vacation is to ensure that you do not feel like you are giving up anything by coming home every night. One way of doing this is to do something special with some of the money that you are saving on lodging, air travel and excessive gas expenses. For instance, you might rent a really nice car on the last day or two of your staycation, such a smoking hot sports car or classic luxury automobile. Another way to keep coming home each night from interrupting your vacation is to agree on some house rules for when you are at home, like "no working," "no email," etc. For more tips on how house rules like these can help make a staycation work, check out my article on the subject located here on Associated Content.

If you're new to the idea of staycations, ask around or take a look online. The concept is so open ended that nearly everyone has some interesting tweak to their own personal vacation based from home.