Stay-Cations
I dislike the word coinage of staycation, but it turns out my family was taking staycations for years before the word was coined. Some of them have been simple meals, as small as having a picnic on a blanket on the living room floor (with plastic ants for ambiance) and as elaborate as an Italian dinner complete with checkered tablecloths, Italian music playing in the background, candles in wine jugs, dimmed lights, and travel posters of Italy on the walls. One of our favorites ever was not actually meant to be a staycation, it was a dry run for a camping trip.
We had a new baby and we hadn't been camping in a couple years, and, having moved 9 months before the baby was born, we hadn't been camping since that out-0f-state move. We were planning to go camping near the beach with friends, but we wanted to make sure we had everything we needed. So we made a list of all the things we needed, I did the pre-prep on the meals we'd eat (we didn't have a camping stove, but made all our meals over the campfire). My husband dug a small pit in our backyard, removed our bar-b-que grill from its legs and set it in the hole in the ground to be our campfire. We set up the tent and brought all our camping gear outside and spent two or three days and two nights camping out in our own backyard.
We turned off the phones and told people we were on vacation. We could go inside to use the bathroom. If we found anything vital we'd forgotten, we could run in to get it, but we had to add it to our list of camping supplies for the 'real' trip. Because it was just in the backyard we 'cheated' a bit, and my dear husband dragged a mattress off of one of the beds and put it in the tent for me. We couldn't have any electronic devices, no computers, iPods, radios, television, tape deck, no cell phones.
We played games in the backyard, tag, hide-n-seek, and had scavenger hunts (find me a leaf with five lobes, find me a lady bug, find me a sign of the season, find me a katydid case....). We told stories around the 'campfire.' We read aloud. We reconnected with each other. Instead of it being a dry run for a camping trip, it was the best camping trip we ever had.
Ever since then, every couple of years or so, we unplug all the electronics, disconnect the phones, and spend a day or two just hanging out with each other, reconnecting. It's the most valuable vacation time we have, and it doesn't cost a cent.
related posts:
- We Took a Stay-Cation before Staycations Were Cool And it was one of the best vacations we ever...
- Cheerful Frugality Cooks From Afar Just a quick post from sunny vacation! At Like Merchant...
- Cheerful Frugality Seeks Value In these depressing economic days, I always appreciate a little...
- Non-chain Travel: Looking For Local Last week we took a rare fishing break. We researched the town via Google,...
- No Bills To Be Paid Crossing the Texas border, images of the wedding week flooded...
2 Responses to “Stay-Cations”
February 19th, 2010 at 11:49 am
OK. Now my kids want to know how the dry run went. Was it a success, and did you follow up with real camping trip?
Or did you decide that camping with infants and very small children is a nightmare, never to be intentionally embarked upon?
The offspring have been begging us for a camping trip for years, and I keep having flashbacks my mom’s account of camping with 6 or 7 children under 10, including toddling twins. They came home just 3 days into an 8 day trip.
February 19th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
First: we call it vacationing in “balconia” (never heard of “staycations” before, but people here don’t speak English often…).
Second: camping with young kids is the bestest you can do!
Third: (Kim) although history has a habit of repeating itself, I would go for it!
Thank you, Deputy Headmistress for sharing this… wonder what my husband will say at breakfast tomorrow when I suggest we take our tent with us when we go on vacation this year?
Leave a Comment