Design your dream vacation at home. Consider a vacation with no packing, no airports, no stress and less environmental impact.
A staycation is an economical and environmental alternative to a conventional vacation of travel. It’s a vacation spent experiencing the great things that home and close to home provide.
There are lots of reasons to stacation: financial limitations, the challenges of travel with children, or the time and stress of “planes, trains and automobiles.” There are environmental upsides as well.
Travel has a big impact on the environment. According to the International Ecotourism Society, air travel accounts for about 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Jet emissions are released high in the atmosphere, having a more severe impact on global warming.
Instead of flying or driving hundreds or thousands of miles to some distant locale, a staycation might consist of enjoying local restaurants and sights, pitching a tent in your own backyard, or taking leisurely day trips to local parks and botanical gardens. Use your staycation to relax, refresh and reconnect to the natural world.
Get a guidebook, or use the internet to research places of interest in your area that you may have overlooked. Make a survey of destinations within half an hour, or an hour of your home, by car, bus or train. Local natural history museums, observatories, planetariums, zoos, parks, trails, botanical gardens and aquariums all connect you to the natural world close to home. State parks offer opportunities for camping, hiking, biking, and viewing wilderness.
The trick to a successful staycation is creating the environment and parameters of a traditional vacation, so that you truly feel like you’ve had a vacation, not just gotten a lot of work done around the house, or watched a lot of television.
Stop rushing, slow down to a more natural pace. Do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do at home. Spend time in nature. Consider getting up before dawn and going to a local wood or other wild place just to hear the amazing orchestra of birdsong at dawn. Take long walks at the beach or in a forest. Bring some of these new, reconnecting practices back from your staycation and maintain the improved sense of well being that the reconnection to nature provided.
