The increasing and annoying use of the word STAYCATION...

Gabrielle56 sorry, beg your pardon.

Gabrielle56, We had the home built, but I don't see that matters.

Norah, I don’t think that there is any need whatsoever for you to apologise

We had the home built, but I don't see that matters. It's actually no one's business but your own Norah and you owe Gabrielle56 neither an apology nor an explanation.

A few hours ago I put this very sentiment into room 101 on another forum before I’d even seen this one!

GrowingOldDisgracefully my mum used to say we were visiting Fender Park if we weren't going anywhere. Ourgate is very good, that's one I'll use ?

What term would you like to use instead that is so short and easy off the tongue?

Fleurpepper

What term would you like to use instead that is so short and easy off the tongue?

Holiday.

We used to have "Stop fortnight", all the mines closed and even if your father didn't work at one which mine didn't we holiday then to be with relations.
I'm not keen on Staycation you are not staying at home and it's using an American term vacation. To me British go on holiday not vacation.If we didn't go away we had "Runabout ",tickets on the railways. day trips using the trains.

'It used to mean staying at home and having 'holiday' from work and having day trips etc.'
This is what we've done. So, a true staycation. And a lovely time we've had too.

'Vacation' is widely used in this country (we coined it), but its us is mainly formal used for legal and University vacations between terms.

It is the assumptions behind the modern use of the word staycation' that niggle me. It is the assumption, that the word 'holiday' automaticcally means a holiday in a country other than Britain, and that now choosing to holiday in our own country, to visit the places that foreign tourists consider so desirable is somehow, a second best, so that we have to give it a special name, to make clear that it isn't a real holiday.

A holiday is a period away from home, given to enjoyment and it doesn't matter where you go, this country or another. A staycation is a holiday where you stay at home, but go out each day, or in weather like at present, just stay at home and lie in the garden. The most important thing is that you desist from your usual household chores, no cleaning, no useful activities( decorating,gardening etc) and keep cooking to aminimum.

I thought it meant staying at home, too. IMO a new word is needed - UKation? Perhaps not!

TBH for many who live in cities, going anywhere rural a few hours’ drive away can be almost like a completely different world. It certainly used to be for us, visiting friends in rural N Devon from where we lived in outer SW London.

RichmondPark’s reasons for going abroad are all very laudable, but for many years, esp. when dds still came with us, holidays were largely about warm sea and the water sports we enjoyed, including water skiing, snorkelling, and scuba diving (at least for them - I stuck to the snorkel) - all so much more enjoyable in lovely warm Vitamin Sea. Of course we did also enjoy all the many differences of another country too, but the above were our main reasons for choosing the particular location.

When I was young and you asked people where they were going on holiday the response was quite often 'Rome' - swiftly followed by ' - the streets'.

Meaning they weren't not going on holiday

Can't do with 'holibobs' - sounds so childish

I hadn’t heard the term before. Usually they just ask if you are going anywhere or got any trips planned here. ‘Just local’can be anywhere within Australia and can be thousands of kms away in tropical regions or the outback.

Perhaps we have to accpet the world has changed. Holidays when I was a kid was a few days in Wales, the Peak District or Skegness. Nowadays, many people consider going abroad to be a 'normal' holiday- and staying in the UK, less so. The word 'staycation' does not bother me, and to me, says what it means.

I am going to have to get used to it

www.thegrandyork.co.uk/whats-on/packages

Your holidays with your daughters sound perfect Witzend. Sometimes Vitamin Sea is all you need.

Just local’ can be anywhere within Australia and can be thousands of kms away in tropical regions or the outback.

?
"It's just up the road, mate, take the first left"
After 100k you find the first left.

JaneJudge

...to mean going on HOLIDAY in the UK

It used to mean staying at home and having 'holiday' from work and having day trips etc. HOW ON EARTH has it now meant going on AN ACTUAL HOLIDAY in THE UK

Since when has a holiday not been a HOLIDAY

grr

YES YES YES! I cannot more emphatically agree - it's been a real bugbear of mine over the last two or three years.

Prior to COVID I had never heard of a "staycation" to mean anything other than your second definition.

Then we had a pandemic. Travel was banned.

Then travel was opened up within the country but overseas travel was banned. Suddenly British holidays seemed to be inferior as that was the "only place you could go" and the word staycation morphed to mean going on holiday in the UK?!

I had to look it up in Wiki. Interestingly they have its origins as 2008.
But these comments just deserved to be copied
A closely related concept and term is nearcation, which is taking a vacation to a location relatively close to home.[20][21] "Nearcation" and "staycation" may be used interchangeably since the travel destination may be in the same metropolitan region in which one resides and it is unclear how far away a destination needs to be until it becomes no longer a "staycation".

Lake Superior State University added the word to its 2009 List of Banished Words. The citation noted that vacation is not synonymous with travel, and thus a separate term isn't necessary to describe a vacation during which one stays at home.[22]
So there!!!