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

[FunTimes2020]

I know I am NOT being unreasonable

It’s just easier to say and catchy so it’s caught on this year

Because going on holiday Is such a mouthful!

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This really irritates me as well. Clearly a staycation means having time off work but staying at home

Why does this bother people? We almost always holiday in the UK and I'm not offended by people calling this a staycation.

Staycation isn't even a real word so what does it matter? It's on a par with holibobs though not nearly as annoying.

I think a better term for a holiday where you stay in your own country would be a holistay - what are your thoughts on that??

A better term for a holiday where you stay in your own country is 'a holiday'. HTH.

But it would be nice to have a word for taking holiday while staying in your own home - any suggestions? Holihome? Homecation? (those are awful so hopefully someone can do better).

I grew up by the seaside, so we sometimes had 'holidays at home'. It really doesn't need a separate word.

@LookItsMeAgain

It has been adapted and adopted to mean staying in your own country rather than flying or sailing or cruising around another one.

I think a better term for a holiday where you stay in your own country would be a holistay - what are your thoughts on that??

Why should there be a term for holidaying in your own country. I went to Wales this year, it was a proper holiday staying in a forest in the middle of nowhere, completely different to where i live., going to places i cant from home Next week i have a week off and we will be staying at home and going out for days but coming home each night, its a break from work but not proper holiday thats a staycation

This phrase was coined in the US years ago. It has nothing to do with vacationing. It’s time off work and you are staying at home and not going anywhere. I cringe when I hear it. Just wrong 🤦‍♀️

Staycation is a dreadful term, and it first became popular in this country after the last recession when we all were suppose to not be able to afford to go on holiday and so stayed at home and did holiday things (no need to pay accomodation costs so a lot cheaper).

Anyway long before that I always thought it was
UK = holiday
Abroad = travelling
So you can only have a holiday if it's in the UK. I went on holidays regularly in Scotland (I am Scottish) as a child but didn't go abroad until I went interrailing/travelling round Europe as a student.

@ErrolTheDragon

I think a better term for a holiday where you stay in your own country would be a holistay - what are your thoughts on that??

A better term for a holiday where you stay in your own country is 'a holiday'. HTH.

LOL! Ok, fair enough

@bruffin - Do you live in Wales? Just wondering if you actually had a holiday by travelling to a different country (Wales is a different country to England) or if you stayed in your own country. Just wondering is all.

Seems like language has evolved, but gone in different directions for different groups? My sil is very much in the staycation as UK holiday camp and I think sees it as not as good and wants to make it sound better. We regularly camp in the UK and to us it doesn't seem like a new thing that needs a new name. She was very sad when she had to go to a quite fancy New Forest holiday place for a week instead of Greece. We had a week off last year but slept in our normal beds in out house and went out to places and referred to that in a sort of jokey way as a "staycation". I'm not snobby about language and generally like the idea that it changes over time and you get new words etc but always feel like using " " for "staycation" and "glamping" - they seem like made up words for some reason.

@AnnaSW1

Language evolves. It's what it means now

But it isn't unreasonable to be annoyed when that evolving destroys the underlying languahe

Staying - remaining
Vacating - leaving

Staycation - staying at home

Vacation - leaving home to go elsewhere

And that's before you get to the deliberate downplaying of the UK as a holidy destination. That can destroy livelihoods - and it is the overseas travel industry that fuels this (and the terribly modish holiday writers of course).

I staycate regularly - short, planned breaks when DH and I are home at the same time, to places nearby. We may travel some distance but will be sleeping at home..

I go on holiday once a year, in the UK

I don’t understand why it's so important.

I don't think l care about this. Not even sure why l'm bothering to comment.

Britain is bored

Journalism has decided it is a staycation but threads on here suggest the majority don't like it! To me a staycation is staying home a holiday in the UK is still a holiday!

I'm dying on this hill too - thank you OP

Agree. Staycation is taking annual leave and not booking accom elsewhere and instead visiting attractions and restaurants in your own area as you would on holidays.

Going for a week in Cornwall when you live in Milton Keynes is a HOLIDAY.

Good morning fellow hill-dwellers!

Holiday - a word used by normal people. Eg. Are you going anywhere on holiday in the summer/at Easter/next week? Yes, we are going to Norfolk/Klosters/Barbados. Or no, we are decorating/having days out/visiting relations.

Staycation - a word used by twats.

Agree OP. I said this on another thread recently. How is leaving your house and going to a hotel, cottage, Airbnb, Centreparcs not a holiday?!?

Looking at dictionaries it can be either a holiday at home or a holiday in your home country, depending on the dictionary. Do there you have it no one is right or wrong!

But those are two distinctive terms. I could say that I sometimes travel north (from the Midlands) to Glasgow and that I sometimes travel south to Glasgow from the same place - I can say both of those, but only one of them is actually correct (unless I'm bizarrely going 'the long way' around the world via Antarctica and the Arctic).

Dictionaries are descriptive and not prescriptive, so they simply report on how people use words and terms, even if they are using them wrongly - if enough people do so. Look at 'dice' and 'pence' as very commonly (but incorrectly) used as if they were singular words.

Not even just dictionaries: even a lot of 'official' bodies will, for example, assume that a month = four weeks exactly. GP surgeries will prescribe 56 tablets, to be taken daily, and then deny a repeat request 8 weeks later as 'too early' as two complete calendar months haven't yet passed.

Loving how people are assuming that OP is constantly frothing and gnashing her teeth in abject despair at this cruel, painful, rank injustice, when she's made it clear that she merely finds it rather irksome

And yes, those asking why it really matters: the answer is that it doesn't overly; but it's part and parcel of minimising many people's lives, experiences and (often) considered choices as somehow less valid than those of more privileged people, with liberal use of 'just' or 'only':

Do you have your own home?
"Well, it's only a council house."

Are your kids looking forward to starting their new school?
"Well, it's just the local state school."

What's your occupation?
"Well, I'm only a cleaner, really."

Are you going on holiday this year?
"Well, we're just having a week in Pembrokeshire."

I go on Business trips, both in the UK and abroad (at least, before COVID-19), and I take vacations, both in the UK and abroad (same - before COVID-19).
If I’m not staying overnight in my own bed, I’m either on a Business trip or on Vacation.
If I’m sleeping in my own bed of a night while taking vacation leave time off work, that’s a “Staycation”, whether I’ve chosen to have recreational days out or I’m doing home improvements or I’m helping out friends and family by giving them my time...
I think the shift in meaning has only come about because a large majority of people who would normally spend all of their vacation time abroad are now staying in the UK (but away from home) for their vacation for the first or second time, and have muddled up the original meaning of this very new term, but I suppose it will now mean both, now that it has been adopted so freely!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Looking at dictionaries it can be either a holiday at home or a holiday in your home country, depending on the dictionary. Do there you have it no one is right or wrong!

But those are two distinctive terms. I could say that I sometimes travel north (from the Midlands) to Glasgow and that I sometimes travel south to Glasgow from the same place - I can say both of those, but only one of them is actually correct (unless I'm bizarrely going 'the long way' around the world via Antarctica and the Arctic).

Dictionaries are descriptive and not prescriptive, so they simply report on how people use words and terms, even if they are using them wrongly - if enough people do so. Look at 'dice' and 'pence' as very commonly (but incorrectly) used as if they were singular words.

Not even just dictionaries: even a lot of 'official' bodies will, for example, assume that a month = four weeks exactly. GP surgeries will prescribe 56 tablets, to be taken daily, and then deny a repeat request 8 weeks later as 'too early' as two complete calendar months haven't yet passed.

Loving how people are assuming that OP is constantly frothing and gnashing her teeth in abject despair at this cruel, painful, rank injustice, when she's made it clear that she merely finds it rather irksome

Nicely put - although I would point out that if you kept travelling south from the Midlands, once you reached the South Pole, you would have to start travelling north whichever way you went from there.

FFS am I going to have to find another euphemism for drinking in the garden then?

We were talking about this long before everyone couldn't go abroad.

Sick of hearing "Ooh isn't the UK a beautiful place if you get the weather?"

Yes it is. Not arsed about the weather.

@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.