Summer is winding down, and you want to go on vacation, but the travel costs would break your budget. How about a staycation? Plan a stay-at-home vacation and avoid the hassle and cost of travel. Here are some suggestions from DCH Toyota of Oxnard for how to make the most of your stay-at-home vacation:
- Become a tourist in your own town. Do those things that your friends and relatives do when they come to town. If you don’t have friends or relatives (that visit), look in the newspaper, on the internet, or in those free magazines they have at the grocery store.
- Dress like a tourist. Get out the video camera. Take pictures wherever you go. Eat crappy food. Ask people for directions. Don’t bring a map. Pull three or four u-turns to get where you need to go.
- Decorate your house. The dollar store has really cheesy decorations. Buy them. Hang them up.
- Get together with the family. If they don’t shoot you for telling them you’re doing a stay-at-home vacation instead of a trip to Tahiti, choose at least one fun idea for each day along with a few backups.
- Go to parks, lakes, mountains, or any other outdoor recreational area. One of the main purposes of a vacation is to spend quality time with the people you care about. A day at the park, assuming it’s not hailing, is inexpensive and fun. Be sure to bring plenty of outdoor games, food, and the family pet.
- Hanging at home can be fun. Set up a tent in the back yard. Play football with the kids. Jump on the bed. Take a nap. Take a nap while jumping on the bed.
- Visit relatives. You’ve been putting off that visit to Aunt Gertie for 13 years. Your kids really want to meet her, and now would be the perfect time. You can also spend a day with relatives you see frequently. Plan a barbecue or a day at the beach with them.
- Hire a babysitter and take a kid-cation.
- Dine out. You saved a bundle you could have spent on a hotel and transportation. Use some of it to eat out. Let each family member choose a restaurant each night. If dining out is too expensive, cook special meals at home.
- Hire someone to clean your house. Pretend you’re at a fancy (or not so fancy) hotel and have a maid clean up midweek. Hire a neighbor kid to mow the lawn and take out the trash.
- Visit museums, zoos, aquariums, water parks, baseball games, city festivals, and family fun centers. In short, do all those things you do on vacation that you could do at home but usually don’t.
- Finally, here’s the most important part of a stay-cation: don’t work. Turn off the cell phone. Disconnect the lap top. Don’t answer the phone. After all, you’re on vacation.
