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

I don't care whether it is used for holidaying from one's own home, or from elsewhere within one's home country.

To me, it can, logically, mean either. However, I simply dislike the word!

Yes, of course you are right Jane
It’s been going on for quite a while, but I think it’s misuse proliferated during the pandemic.
I haven’t been abroad for nearly 20 years.
And as you know, my next holiday will hardly be far flung!
I’ve also just had a whinge elsewhere about the misuse of the term Room 101.

Don’t get me started on ‘Annual Leave’ either.

(I know it has been discussed before).

When my DH and I first got together we joined the National Trust. In one week visiting Trust houses in and around London we managed to recoup the subscription and we had a great time.

Holidays when I was a child were either days out when we lived in Dorset or staying with relative in S Wales and sometimes GPs near Hampton Court. All of which we enjoyed.

RichmondPark1

Where I come from taking time off work but staying at home is called 'Going to OurGate'.

Staycation is a cockentrice of a word from the same sickening genre as Brangelina and Brexit.

Yes, we're going to Argate this year!

Yes, it annoys me too. A staycation to me means a break from usual responsibilities while remaining at the home base with or without day trips. As well as being inaccurate to describe a holiday away from home in the UK it is often used in a second best sort of way.

I agree that it means staying at home for your vacation. I know it is now being used as a domestic vacation rather than international in advertising, but anyone I know that has used the term meant it as staying at home and doing day trips.

As an aside, we use the term holiday as marked celebratory day off, like Easter or Labour Day, and vacation as time off from work.

To me, a staycation is time spent at home at holiday time. A holiday is a break anywhere in the world.

When I was a child people often couldn’t afford to go away for a holiday and the usual response to “Are you going away for your holidays this year?” was “We’re just going to have days out” which would mean a few day trips, often by coach (excursion buses) to the likes of North Berwick, Spittal or my favourite destination on the front of the bus - “Mystery” - in other words a Mystery Tour.
(Going abroad was very unusual, and seen as a bit “posh” )

cockentrice What a wonderful word that is Richmond! So much more fulsome and loaded with meaning that the measly "staycation"!

I moan about the use of staycation (or should that be shout at the tv!) Really annoys me when they just mean having a holiday in the UK

Mind you now I've seen 'holistay'... that really is awful!!

Wikipedia agrees with you JaneJudge.

"A staycation (a portmanteau of "stay" and "vacation"), or holistay (a portmanteau of "holiday" and "stay"), is a period in which an individual or family stays home and participates in leisure activities within day trip distance of their home and does not require overnight accommodation."

ARGH I'd never heard of 'holistay'. Going to have to pour myself a sherry now.

Where I come from taking time off work but staying at home is called 'Going to OurGate'.

Staycation is a cockentrice of a word from the same sickening genre as Brangelina and Brexit.

JaneJudge I agree with you, including your second post.

There is an assumption about it that suggests that staying in the UK for a holiday is something really weird, even though millions of people do that every year.

I think a staycation is a brilliant idea. It is amazing how much there can be to see within 50 miles of your home and it is a shame that more people don't do it. I did it in my young and impecunious days. I had a bedsit in Chalk Farm in north London, and I planned to go out to different suburbs of London every day and visit several places close to each other. I took a sandwich lunch and bought something quick and easy for supper. I had one of my best holiday's ever.

We have a holiday home up North on the sea, I call that a staycation, not leaving the UK.

I think it’s easier than saying ‘we are holidaying in the U.K.’

Could just say 'We're not going abroad'...

I do get JJ's point, though. A 'holiday' is time off from work or time off from the usual routine. It's not just a week in the Algarve or where ever.

Perhaps climate change and the need to cut down on flying all over the world might help to revive some of our dying resorts and generate some income for local economies...

(I'll have a little chunter to myself about that horrible word, 'staycation'. It's very ugly and derives from 'vacation', a word the British never/rarely use)

oh they keep saying it on the news/weather

I just think going on holiday is going on holiday and where you are going is part of a longer conversation.

Just thought - is this a Political thing? As it’s under News and Politics.

I think it’s easier than saying ‘we are holidaying in the U.K.’

It doesn’t mean we are staying at home and going out for day trips.

I don’t have a problem with it.