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AIBU?

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Original poster

AIBU to think that a staycation involves actually staying at home?

171 replies

cheeseismydownfall · 05/02/2021 12:28

I have always thought that a staycation is when you take leave from work and stay at home, in your house, taking day trips and generally trying to create a holiday vibe by doing the sort of things that you might normally only do on holiday.

Recently though I have seen it used to mean any holiday in the UK. Surely this is just a regular holiday?!

OP posts:
Original poster
cheeseismydownfall · 05/02/2021 12:53

From Wikipedia:

A staycation (a portmanteau of "stay" and "vacation"), or holistay (a portmanteau of "holiday" and "stay"), is a period in which an individual or family stays home and participates in leisure activities within day trip distance of their home and does not require overnight accommodation.

OP posts:
luxxlisbon · 05/02/2021 12:54

I've always known it to mean a holiday within the UK/ nearby.

Abraxan · 05/02/2021 12:54

Prefer last summer I'd only really heard it used to mean staying at home but having day trips/being on holiday from work, etc

Last summer I noticed a lot of people, the government and media started using it more meaning to holiday within the UK.

It really does seem the meaning has changed to me. I never went a road as a child but we had a holiday every year within England. It was never called a staycation. It was called being on holiday.

MindGrapes · 05/02/2021 12:54

I would never be offended by it. I'd just think the person using "staycation" instead of "holiday" to refer to an actual holiday (that didn't require going abroad) thought that it wasn't a "holiday" otherwise they wouldn't have made the distinction.
"I'm going on holiday to Cornwall" vs "I'm having a staycation in Cornwall".

Biker47 · 05/02/2021 12:56

With the age of being able to go abroad for not a lot of money, I take staycation to mean holidaying somewhere in this country and not abroad, I don't take it to mean time off work spent solely in your house.

PurpleDaisies · 05/02/2021 12:56

I don't take it to mean time off work spent solely in your house.

That’s just self isolation isn’t it?!

Onlinedilema · 05/02/2021 12:58

To me it means staying at home.
A holiday is anywhere other than your own home. No distance limit. So a holiday in your own country is still a holiday.

Spidey66 · 05/02/2021 12:58

To me it means staying home and visiting tourist attractions in your local area. Llike I'm a Londoner, a staycation would mean visiting the sights, art galleries, theatres (precovid) maybe going on a day trip to Windsor or Brighton.

A UK holiday is a holiday.

tigger1001 · 05/02/2021 13:00

For me it means being off work but not going away on holiday. If you are on holiday in the uk, to me you are on holiday and not on "staycation".

Language does evolve but in this case it does seem like people are placing a higher value on abroad holidays and going away in the uk is something you do when you can't go abroad.

hammeringinmyhead · 05/02/2021 13:00

I really do not believe that someone who lives in New York who flies to Colorado to go skiing would call that a "staycation" and not "vacation".

YANBU.

chestnutmares · 05/02/2021 13:00

Yep, staycation is when you stay at/near home. Not taking a holiday in your own country. If I live in Yorkshire but book a week in Cornwall, that's a holiday! We almost always take our holidays in the UK.

atgnat · 05/02/2021 13:05

Well, it comes from the US (hence being 'staycation' not 'stoliday') and I'm pretty sure Americans don't call vacationing within the US a staycation, given that could mean someone from NY vacationing in LA is 'staying' rather than going somewhere (a six-hour flight...)

If it's come to mean anything else other than staying at home and treating it like a holiday or at least booking a hotel in your own city, it's evidence of the word's evolution, but it definitely used to mean (less than 10 years ago) a break where you stay at home/in your city and see it with a fresh perspective. But to me it makes zero sense to consider a holding in the UK as a staycation. As someone else has said, it feels snobby and like a holiday in the UK can't be considered a real holiday.

handsforfeet · 05/02/2021 13:05

YES! it annoys me so much when people use it to mean holidays in the UK. That's just a holiday. It is basically saying that holiday is this country is something other (ie lesser than going abroad) than a holiday.

WingBingo · 05/02/2021 13:06

Me too @chestnutmares. usually an amazing house in a new area to explore. Definitely a holiday and not staycation to us.

Counts as a real holiday to us. It is a bit silly to say it’s not a real holiday, it’s just geography.

hammeringinmyhead · 05/02/2021 13:06

Also, it comes from "vacating" your home, hence the "stay" replacing it meaning... not vacating.

pigsDOfly · 05/02/2021 13:08

I've always understood it to mean staying at home but acting as if you're on holiday: day trips, sunbathing in the garden and so on.

Surely, if you're going away anywhere, whether that's in your own country or abroad, and staying somewhere other than in your own house, you're not 'staying', so how can it be a staycation? You're away from home and it's a holiday.

When people talk about going away on business within the same country they don't stay I'm 'staybusinessing' or 'stayworking', they say I'm going away on business, or going away for work.

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 05/02/2021 13:09

I consider the trip we had to the Peak District las Feb, and our camping trip in the Summer as holidays. And the dozens of similar trips over the past years. When we lived abroad, we sometimes travelled to the UK to do these trips... So technically we weren't staying in the same country.

The in between bit between holiday and staying at home would be staying with family... For example when normally we visit my childhood home in London, we do 'touristy' things with the children, and some 'homey' things like I would take my mother to the big shopping centre.

Personally I don't think it makes sense to use to mean staying in the UK or your home country, but people are different.

ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia · 05/02/2021 13:26

It’s just a holiday without air miles and so a holiday with minimal travel.

flyingant · 05/02/2021 13:30

I live in a big city and here, staycation means taking yourself off to a fancy hotel in said city.

Butterymuffin · 05/02/2021 13:31

It means staying at home, but has now evolved to mean UK holiday, annoyingly, as pp have said. So all the posters saying 'it's meant UK holiday for years / always!' are wrong. HTH Smile

flyingant · 05/02/2021 13:38

The dictionary definition seems to suggest that it can mean either staying in our own home or country: www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/staycation

onlyreadingneverposting8 · 05/02/2021 13:38

When it was first used as a phrase it meant saying at home and doing holiday type things without going away. So you might do a day trip to a museum or camp in the garden but not spending a night away from home. It seems to have evolved to mean not leaving the country.

Abraxan · 05/02/2021 13:40

@PurpleDaisies

I don't take it to mean time off work spent solely in your house.

That’s just self isolation isn’t it?!

A staycation used to be, in my experience anyway, staying local - so sleep at home, but have day trips and get out and about each day, as if on holiday.

So not like self isolation.

Dh and I have a week off over half term. Every other year we'd be away on holiday - usually abroad, very occasionally within the UK. But definitely a holiday and not a staycation!

This half term I'm not even sure it could be called a Staycation. True, we won't be working (I'm currently wfh full time and dh is wfh part time) generally but it's not like we can get out and about on the normal times of day trips, just for the odd local walk or maybe to the supermarket. So not a staycation.it'll be pretty much staying home and trying to avoid doing work despite there not really being much else to do anyway.

shitinmyhandsandclap · 05/02/2021 13:40

I've always thought it meant staying in the country you live in rather than staying at home

Abraxan · 05/02/2021 13:45

Wikipedia has it as being stay at home but act as if on holiday.

A staycation (a portmanteau of "stay" and "vacation"), or holistay (a portmanteau of "holiday" and "stay"), is a period in which an individual or family stays home and participates in leisure activities within day trip distance of their home and does not require overnight accommodation.[1] Common activities of a staycation include use of a backyard pool, visits to local parks and museums, and attendance at local festivals and amusement parks. Some staycationers also like to follow a set of rules, such as setting a start and end date, planning ahead, and avoiding routine, with the goal of creating the feel of a traditional vacation.

Etymologyedit]
The word staycation is a portmanteau of stay (meaning stay-at-home) and vacation.[11][12] The terms "holistay" and "daycation" are also sometimes used.[4]

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