How to Vacation Without Leaving Home

Vacation costs, especially transportation, are soaring—whether the destination is reached by driving or flying. One option for cutting vacation costs is to stay home—but to still treat that week off work like a vacation. The advantages are many. Not only will you save money, but you may even have the pleasant surprise that spending time in your own town—or your own back yard—can provide a lot of fun.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Take a vicarious vacation. Choose somewhere that would, in your mind, constitute a dream vacation: Hawaii, Australia, Tokyo or wherever. Ask your local librarian to help you in two ways. First, order DVD’s, both movies that take place in your chosen vacation spot and documentaries made about it. Come up with book titles or fictional stories then take place in your vacation spot and non-fiction books, especially travelogues, but also books which tell about the history and culture of the place you’d like to visit.
2. Be a kid again—easy to do if you’re a parent, but go ahead even if you have no kids of your own. Indulge yourself in summertime activities that you never thought you’d left behind long ago. Play with toys like yoyo’s, Silly Puttty, a slinky, remote-controlled cars, draw with crayons and markers and more.
3. Plan to not plan your meals. Just let things happen as they will. Don’t worry about food—either what it will be or when you will eat it--for an entire week. Order up a pizza when you’re hungry or pick up some take-out. If you live in an area where that’s not a possibility, go to the supermarket the week before your “vacation” and buy yourself a basket filled with already prepared or frozen foods.
4. Indulge your passion for reading, watching ESPN, working crossword or jigsaw puzzles, listening to loud music, playing computer games, scrapbooking, or any other activity which you ration out—or don’t indulge in at all the rest of the year. It’s your vacation, and it’s ok to use up your time in any way you choose.
5. See people you never get a chance to catch up with. Don’t plan any elaborate dinner parties; just arrange for casual get-togethers. Meet an old neighbor for coffee, ask the cousin you never see to meet you for lunch or invite a few friends over for a back yard BBQ.
6. Don’t be afraid of doing nothing at all. It’s not as sinful as some in our society would make it out to be. Take a vacation from the computer, the phone, the fax machine. Allow yourself the ultimate recreation—literally re-creating yourself--by allowing some time for thought, reflection, and the great pleasure of following no schedule at all.