To think that this isnt a "road trip"?

[PyongyangKipperbang]

Colleague talking about how she is going on a road trip next month and will be gone two weeks. I ask which part of the UK she is travelling around and she is driving to South Devon, staying in a cottage for two weeks and driving back.

Thats just going on holiday isnt it?!

When did any long (or even not so long!) journey start being called a road trip?

This, 100%

I'd call it 'driving to Devon'.

I'd also wouldn't call it a road trip if you were driving to a destination that takes a few days to get to, unless you were deliberately stopping at places for sightseeing rather than just stopping there to break up the journey.

Kissing bums hanging out of windows sounds about right for a classic road trip

A thousand years before showers were invented. 🤮

This is not how I or anyone I know uses the word “staycation”. It definitely means holidaying in one’s own country to us.

It makes it sound like a poor substitute for a real holiday. When I was a child it was very unusual for anyone I knew to go on a foreign holiday but it wasn't a 'staycation'. They just had a holiday in Devon or Yorkshire or wherever.

Those of you grumbling about "staycation". Oxford English Dictionary online actually defines it both ways, as a holiday in your own home OR in your home country.

Exactly this!

I don’t know why it’s so grating when people misuse these terms but it is! According to some people, therefore, this colleague’s trip would be both a staycation and a road trip - when it is neither!

I agree OP - a road trip has to involve a certain amount of driving from location to location- staying at different places on the way. Otherwise as you say it’s just a holiday!

She’s going on holiday. Not a road trip.

Back in my day (because I'm a dinosaur), that would have been called 'going to Devon'

Presumably no one used the word “staycation” when you were a child either. It became popular when people started holidaying overseas to describe holidays that were not overseas, especially among people who had a combination of overseas and domestic holidays. Nothing to do with one being a poor substitute for the other. During the Covid years I had a number of fantastic staycations that I still rave about (particularly Scilly Isles).

And yet here you are commenting........🤔😂

Seriously, do you only ever say something if it's of 'National Importance' or do you, like the rest of us, mull over small questions and thoughts during your day? 🙄

It’s one of those words that has moved on from original meaning.

I live in London, if my friends and I drive to Manchester we’d call it a road trip - even if it’s just motorway after motorway and a few stop offs at service stations. Think there’s a tongue in cheek element - no one thinks they are doing route 66.

Naw, the original Road Trip saga was The Odyssey.

Speculating completely, but I imagine she said road trip because she is just driving there and not flying?

I think definition of a road trip is just a journey made by road (may have googled this 😂)

She’s going on holiday to Devon.

I'm in the US, and to me a road trip is a vacation in and of itself, or a journey across country where your destination is a few days away, and you stay overnight (in a motel or whatever) one or more nights - a combined road trip and vacation.

A road trip is a month travelling Route 66, or a week on the NC500, or spending a month doing the east coast of Australia, not 2 weeks in a holiday cottage in Devon - that's just your hollibobs and no, I don't usually use the term but it seems quite apt for 2 weeks in a cottage in Devon.

Road trip: a journey by car or van split over multiple days where the journey itself is intrinsic to the experience and not simply a means to an end.

Road trip- trip with overnight stays in multiple places on the route, moving on daily
Staycation- staying in your own home with day trips
Holiday- going away from home either within same country or going abroad for more than a couple of nights.

Staycation first became commonly used in the US in 2008 during the financial crisis. People stayed at home and did day trips instead of going on holiday because it was cheaper. It re-emerged during covid when people couldn't go away on holiday.

Going on holiday would’ve covered it.

Exactly 💯

Difficult to argue with that.

I’m afraid your question is of insufficient consequence to merit my consideration.