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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
TryingNotToPanicOverCovid · 05/02/2021 19:59

Word not work!

Updatemate · 05/02/2021 20:10

Yanbu. It seems like last year it moved from home to a country

This.

Staycation is staying at home but not working and doing day trips.

A holiday is staying somewhere other than your own home and doing holiday things. Could be abroad or in your home country/ country of residence.

Pukkatea · 05/02/2021 20:30

Nobody said a staycation was a worse holiday? It's just a word, if you find it so offensive you might just have a massive chip on your shoulder.

Literally never heard it in any context other than a home country holiday and the papers have definitely been using it that way for years.

stevalnamechanger · 05/02/2021 20:49

It's always been a holiday in home country to me

TryingNotToPanicOverCovid · 05/02/2021 21:21

Its that people think the word "holiday" need the qualifier "stay" other than just vacation.

If I was going on holiday to cornwall I wouldnt call it a staycation but a holiday. If I go on holiday abroad there isnt a special word for that - Id go on holiday to australia or to paris or to cornwall. You only need the qualifier "staycation" if you aren't really calling it a holiday, as a few on this thread have said!

Obviously others differ 🙄

misskatamari · 05/02/2021 21:35

Yanbu. It's what I understood it to mean to. Makes sense. You're staying home but making it a holiday, so having days out, meals out, getting take seats etc. Going on holiday in the UK is...err...going on holiday!

Maybe it's as I've never really gone abroad much, even growing up. I guess if people are used to that then I do understand why the word has been co-opted to mean a UK holiday, but yeah, it grates me a bit too.

Original poster
cheeseismydownfall · 05/02/2021 22:30

For those of you saying that staying at home is just annual leave - surely the point of the term 'staycation' is to differentiate what you are doing from all the other reasons you might take annual leave - childcare, DIY, study etc

OP posts:
PurpleDaisies · 05/02/2021 22:31

That is one potential use of the term “staycation”. As others have said, it can also mean a holiday in your own country.

partyatthepalace · 05/02/2021 22:45

I’ve only heard the term about a holiday in the Uk. Originally bitchy remarks about the Camerons, as I recall.

If I was staying at home, I’d say I was staying at home.

M0rT · 05/02/2021 23:11

We used to staycation in our 20's, a few friends would stay with one friend (all living nearby) and treat it as if away for the weekend.
So no doing the shopping or cooking/cleaning.
Go out for the day to touristy sites, go for dinner or get takeaway and go out at night to a gig or the pub etc.
It was great fun and now you've reminded me I'm going to organise it if possible this summer, so thanks. Smile
But your right, it's now changed to meaning holiday in your own country, the politicians here (Ireland) have already started plugging it for this summer... warning people we may not be able to fly so get booking our "staycations"....

Iknowwhatudidlastsummer · 05/02/2021 23:18

Does it really matter?

Staycation means a UK holiday to me.
Staying in my house is neither a holiday nor a staycation.

Ameliablue · 05/02/2021 23:20

I think the problem is that it is a relatively new term whereas holidaying in the UK is an age old tradition

higgledypiggledyhen · 05/02/2021 23:32

Staycation means fo holiday in the uk away
From home

Staying at home whilst on annual leave means Covid 19 lock down

toconclude · 06/02/2021 00:37

@ellenpartridge

It has meant a UK holiday for years!
Not to me. I don't say staycation because I resist needless neologisms. It's a pottering holiday. Day trips and museums.
Lazypuppy · 06/02/2021 00:49

To me staycation is a uk holiday

Staying at home home snd just having a week annual leave isn't a holiday to me.

A holiday for me means staying somewhere else

Blackhawkdown2020 · 06/02/2021 02:27

This reply has been withdrawn

Message from MNHQ: This post has been withdrawn

ChestnutStuffing · 06/02/2021 03:05

Yes, it's staying home.

As far as this idea that staying home is just staying home, the whole point of the concept, and word, was that you could stay in your home and still do the fun things you would do on vacation - related to this that many people have done fewer of those things in their own area then in the places they usually vacation. You live in an area your whole life and never go to the museum or some place the tourists usually visit. Etc.

As har as having a holiday in your own country - that is what a lot of people do for every holiday, and not that long ago any other sort of holiday was quite rare.

The idea that it's not a real holiday or vacation to stay in your own country reminds me of the people complaining last Spring that they "needed" to go out of the country for a holiday because somehow their families couldn't function without the break. Which is entitled horse-shit.

icedgem85 · 06/02/2021 08:30

I’ve always thought it meant having a sort of holiday in the UK, like going to center parcs or Great Yarmouth instead of flying somewhere for a proper beach holiday somewhere sunny with great food! I would happily take any kind of holiday right now, even your other definition of staycation!

hammeringinmyhead · 06/02/2021 08:47

@Lazypuppy

To me staycation is a uk holiday

Staying at home home snd just having a week annual leave isn't a holiday to me.

A holiday for me means staying somewhere else

That's because "holiday" and "staycation" don't mean the same thing!
ProfYaffle · 06/02/2021 08:54

Agree op, 'staycation' is what my Nan used to call 'going out for days'. As in;
"Oh you're off work for a week, are you going away?"
"no, just going out for days"

Actual holidays were when the caravan got brought out. We once stayed in a guest house in Blackpool for a week which was unimaginably fancy. We had special commemorative photos taken at the breakfast table.

PurpleDaisies · 06/02/2021 08:55

That's because "holiday" and "staycation" don't mean the same thing!

A staycation is a type of holiday. It can me home, but also a holiday in your owe country as all those dictionaries say.

Ive had this email from Secret Escapes this morning...

AIBU to think that a staycation involves actually staying at home?
Iknowwhatudidlastsummer · 06/02/2021 09:11

I don't think I've ever heard anyone using the word "staycation".

If someone is staying home, they always say they are "doing nothing" .

But if you ask people if they are planning a holiday, the answer is either "yes, we are xxx (abroad)", or "no, we are just going to ...(home country)"

So staycation in the home country makes more sense, people I speak with never call staying here a real holiday.

There's nothing judgmental here, I never hear people saying they are "just flying" somewhere, but they always "just stay here" in the country.

TryingNotToPanicOverCovid · 06/02/2021 09:13

Thats because a staycation isnt "doing nothing". A staycation is going on local day trips/eating out etc.

MistleTOEboughski · 06/02/2021 09:19

It means whatever you want it to mean. It's a made up word.

Iknowwhatudidlastsummer · 06/02/2021 09:23

@TryingNotToPanicOverCovid

Thats because a staycation isnt "doing nothing". A staycation is going on local day trips/eating out etc.
but that's what people do anyway, evenings, weekends or the odd day off.

So I should have said don't do anything "special" or any different than they do the rest of the year.

No one has to enjoy travelling, but staying home for others feels absolutely nothing like a holiday, so isn't one.

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