A Penny Saved

We took a vacation the other week, or as my wife likes to say “staycation.” It’s the first time we have tried staying at home for a vacation. We planned this back in December, before gas prices started their uphill climb. I would like to say that it was brilliant planning and foresight that led us to do this before it became a recent “trend.” Unfortunately it was just dumb luck (which proves as I like to say–no amount of planning beats dumb luck!). We live close to several tourist destinations so we thought we would try being tourist ourselves for a week. It was fun. It’s funny how you take for granted things that are close by that other people travel hours to see. The children loved it, and I must admit it was nice being in my own bed every night. Some of the good points about staying at home for vacation:

• Seeing the local sights that you normally just drive by
• Being in your own bed at night
• No long driving and hearing “Are we there yet?”
• Nice slow pace, can start and end your day whenever you want

To make sure we stayed in vacation mode we did not leave the answering machine on - we hate coming back to messages. We also made sure we did not get into normal mode - no cutting grass, no cleaning, etc. Also, to make sure that it was a vacation for my wife, breakfast and lunch were fun yet simple meals (yum-donuts!), and we ate out every evening (which we could afford to do because there were no hotel bills).

Overall it was a fun experience. I still like getting away, but for a change of pace it was nice. Anyone else have thoughts on stay at home vacations or tips to make it fun?