Why staying at home is better than you may think

source: beehiveblog.net

 Want to spoil your wallet and your nerves? ‘Staycation’ is the solution.

Sitting in your desk chair 350 days a year, there is probably one thing you think of constantly: holidays. It’s these two weeks that make up for days of getting up early and spending eight hours at the office. It’s possibly also the main reason many people still work in boring jobs for low wages. Of course, you want to spend your well-deserved vacation the best way you can.

Vacations Suck

At the close of the school year, every student’s brain enters into“countdown mode”.  Despite every teacher’s attempt to tie us down with dooming exam dates, reports, presentations, etc . , we’ve got only one thing on our minds: SUMMER.

“What are your plans?”

“Will you be in the city?”

“We should hang out.”

It’s been so since the beginning of time, well probably not, but the one thing that I’ve learned in my 22 years of age is that summer actually sucks.

...meanwhile in Balconia

Image: Anna Marek

No, the title does not refer to the Balkans, but merely to the utopia of spending the perfect holiday on your balcony. “Utopia” is the Greek word for “no place” and sounds like “eutopia”, which means “good place”. Wouldn’t it be nice to combine these two and create the perfect hideout? No holiday is perfect, unless you make it happen. And what place would be better to prove this than your own home, where no one would expect you to spend your holiday (which, you see, makes a “no place” a “good place”)? The Utopia of Balconia!

Five Dogs, Ten Books and Me

With the financial crisis and its aftermath still haunting the people in Europe and the United States, staycations seem to have become very popular again. Enter the term into Google and you will get a dazzling amount of pages offering strategies to improve your holiday at home. Staying at home, however, has been en vogue for lesser reasons in the not-so-distant past. At least in Germany. I’m talking, of course, about the summer of 2003; then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder cancelled his summer vacation after the Italian state secretary for tourism insulted the scores of German tourists that flock to Italy every year. Not only was this incident widely debated in the German media (and not only in the yellow press, even Die Süddeutsche, one of the most respected German broadsheets, featured an article on the issue), it also inspired comedian Elmar Brandt to come up with a song called “Zuhause” that combined German lyrics fitted to the chancellor’s vacation-cancellation with the music for the song “Azzuro” (the song Germans associated with Italy). Soon, the discussion shifted to whether Germans should emulate their Chancellor and stay at home as well.

It is a truth universally acknowledged… that vacations are way better than staycations. Or not.

Admittedly, just as everybody else would if asked to decide which is better, vacation or staycation, I’d say “vacation”. At first. Because generally speaking, I really do prefer vacations to staycations. Just because I’m interested in getting to know new customs, new people, new cultures. There are instances, however, when all I crave for is a staycation – just staying at home and doing everything my heart desires. Right now, I’ve reached a point when a vacation seems like so much stress that I’ve made up my mind to take a staycation this summer – at least in July.

I’m the Queen of My Own Wading Pool

Every year, my mum stops at the door, glances at me and asks me one last time: "Are you absolutely sure that you don’t want to come with us? It’s only a week and a half!" "Yes, Mum. I’ll be alright. Don’t worry", I always answer robotically. Every year, she tries to convince me to go to Italy, but every year she fails. She sighs, closes the door behind her and there is silence. Finally.

My Salzburg Staycations

 

 
I’m a traveler. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy staying at home sometimes just relaxing: barbecuing in the backyard, sunbathing on Balcony Island and twiddling my thumbs. But generally, I like to spend my holidays abroad. Whenever I have time off from university, I want to see something and experience something new – break out of my daily rut. This year, I’ve been on staycation twice, though; and no, I haven’t been bumming around at home. In the purest sense of the word, I have spent my time here in Salzburg the same way I would have on vacation.