A staycation is NOT a holiday in the UK, FFS!

[FunTimes2020]

I know I am NOT being unreasonable

Staycation is staying at home
Ukcation - a holiday in UK.

I seriously consider boycotting companies that use the term staycation for a holiday in UK.

For equality there should also be NonUKcation. 👍

I thought it was a UK word but apparently

Merriam-Webster cites the earliest use in the Cincinnati Enquirer, July 18, 1944.

I'm sure I heard it in UK childhood - it was when we did odd days out and DPs had time off work rather than a UK holiday - we never went abroad.

I don't like fact it' starting to mean a UK hoilday - but words do change meaning and it seem rife in UK media circles.

Staycations are shit, I don't care if they're in your home or somewhere else in the UK. The weather is inevitably crap at least half the time, the journey there is hell as every fucker leaves at the same time as you and if you going somewhere lovely like Snowden you (we) have the fucking M5 to contend with or in Cornwall you have the tiny shitty Cornish roads. Accommodation will be thousands or absolutely crappy and the food will be exactly the same as at home but more expensive because you at a holiday destination. If you're 'proper' staycationing and going to theme parks you're going to spend the majority of the day queuing hours for a two minute ride that if you blinked you'd have missed or you'll be crammed onto a beach that you had a hell of a time finding parking for with an icy cold sea and a million other people leaving their litter and plastic crap everywhere.

The Uk is lovely for a weekend break if you can book last minute knowing the weather will be good, anything longer and just about anywhere abroad is better and cheaper IMO.

I agree OP.

The vast majority of the holidays in my life have been spent in cottages/self-catering in the UK- they have been proper holidays, that don't need to be referred to in any other way!

One year, we had to have a Staycation- we stayed in our house and went for day trips around the local area.

I think 'staycation' tends to be used by more affluent people who cannot accept that anything other than a fortnight in Barbados constitutes a holiday!

Staycations are shit, I don't care if they're in your home or somewhere else in the UK.

I've had great holidays - all bar one in the UK and the weathers mostly been fine or typical bristish summer which is fine for me.

Staycations - as in home and days out not so keen on TBH. I disliked them when a child as though we'd go quite far in our day trips my parents often found we'd end up spending to much which clearly stressed them and the other days weren't full of activties with our parents and we weren't allowed TV - so were very dull.

We've had to do similar with our kids this year and last due to covid - we're around doing things with the kids and odd days out but it's not as exciting for any of us - though they can watch TV and films and play games which is an improvement on my childhood staycations.

I think 'staycation' tends to be used by more affluent people who cannot accept that anything other than a fortnight in Barbados constitutes a holiday!

yes - this I think is the issue UK hoildays are seen as lesser by a section of the more affluent population.

I don't class weekends away in the UK or hotels/caravan trips in this country as a holiday. Just nice things to do. To me a holiday is abroad.
Staycation is a trip in this country, and staying home/day trips is what we do every weekend and doesn't need a name.

I assume the word has migrated from the US (because it is a hybrid of stay and vacation). It absolutely means staying home but doing the types of things you might do if you were somewhere else on holiday. If you stay somewhere other than your home then that is a holiday (or vacation), not a staycation!

I think some people are slightly missing the point here! Just because something isn't your own personal preference for a nice holiday doesn't stop it qualifying as a fully legitimate holiday choice.

I have no interest myself in travelling in a plane for hours and sitting on a boring, too-hot beach in St Lucia or the Seychelles - to me that wouldn't be a great holiday at all - yet a bona fide holiday indeed it is, and one that I realise would be an absolute dream of a holiday for many, many people.

[quote Henrywilldoit]@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I don't feel that way because I've always been a bit quietly smug about holidaying in the UK. I certainly don't see it as lesser or worse than going abroad.

I find it rather amusing that now people who have only ever had a week in the sun in Spain are suddenly appreciating how beautiful Cornwall is.

So I don't get upset or feel that the word staycation is playing down my choices.[/quote]
I agree, this country is beautiful. We actually have some of the best beaches in the world we just don’t have the weather.

I posted a few photos on Twitter and random people (not from U.K.) wouldn’t have it that it was a British beach, so much ignorance!

DP and I were talking about this recently. When we went to Cornwall last year it was baking and the photos I took, looks like the Caribbean! We love going to Spain and Greece on holiday but take away the sun and the beaches are not better than ours, they are shallow and long, not the great sprawling deep beaches we have here in places like Pembrokeshire and Cornwall.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll - you are truly the voice of reason on this thread...

Having real holidays abroad doesn't necessarily mean that you never go anywhere in the uk though.

Not everybody is going abroad every single bank holiday weekend for example, and when you add family and friends weddings that's quite a few weekends a year to go to Cornwall, Wales, Lake District, Devon....

Nice enough places for a few days here and there, but it's never the same feeling as a going away for a real holiday.

Lol at 'real holidays abroad'! You have to laugh....

@isthisareverse Are you making a point of being as obnoxious as possible?

Just showing that it goes both ways. The fake superiority over people who don't visit the UK is boring too. Choosing holidays abroad over staycation doesn't mean you never venture in your own country.

I disagree. I have had my summer holiday in this country this year as was forced to and it utterly endorses why we always bugger off abroad in the summer. We had fun because we were determined to and we threw money at it but it’s bloody freezing here and even if in a different bit of England it’s still England - same people shops and vibe. Christ I am craving France Italy or Germany and will not be having a summer STAYCATION again if I can help it. The bloody wind!!!

Here you go. This should settle it.

@BrieAndChilli

Yup; throughout the rest Anglosphere it means spending your holiday in your own home. In the UK, and particularly post-Covid, it has also been misused as a way to promote holidays within the UK.

It's a misuse that would probably only work, to any extent, in geographically very small countries.

Just showing that it goes both ways. The fake superiority over people who don't visit the UK is boring too. Choosing holidays abroad over staycation doesn't mean you never venture in your own country.

Who's being superior, though except for those referring to foreign holidays 'real' holidays? If you go away for a fortnight in Florida, Marseille or Phuket or wherever, that's a holiday. If you go away to Skye, Antrim or Bude, that's also a holiday. In fact, you could go away for a break in Paisley or Baghdad - wouldn't be most people's dream holiday destinations, but that wouldn't stop such a visit being an actual genuine holiday, in every sense of the word - unless you happen to live in or very close to Paisley or Baghdad and stay in your own regular home for the overnights.

It's not a competition: nobody is denying that abroad holidays are very much holidays.

I think 'staycation' tends to be used by more affluent people who cannot accept that anything other than a fortnight in Barbados constitutes a holiday!

This! All my holidays as a child were spent in the UK, as were my schoolfriends’ holidays, and of course they were holidays. Some people had Holidays Abroad, but that was only for posh people!

How the other half lives, eh!

Guess I’m not so much a Mumsnetter as a Scumsnetter!

UK holiday is staycation. It's a shit uk holiday in Devon/ bournemouth that you settle for when your budgets too tight for spain.

@DeflatedGinDrinker

UK holiday is staycation. It's a shit uk holiday in Devon/ bournemouth that you settle for when your budgets too tight for spain.

Please carry on thinking this. The fewer people like you holidaying in our beautiful countryside and tainting our glorious beaches the better!

@IVflytrap

A staycation is staying at home, but doing holiday type activities in your local area.

A holiday in the UK is a holiday.

But staying at home, even if you are doing ‘holiday type things’ is not an approximation of a holiday, it’s just being at home. So if a staycation is not a vacation where you stay in your home country - what is it? Because if I was staying in my own home I would never describe myself as doing anything other than being at home.

What a load of rubbish. Staycation is a batty expression which has just come into use recently. If its unclear what it means we should all stop using it. People used to say we're not going away this year just having days out. Everyone knew what they meant.