How To Plan A Staycation

If you are here then you more than likely Googled ‘family staycation ideas’. There are a lot of discussion over the ethics of travel and quite frankly I am not sure how I feel about it. Obviously there is an issue with the fuel consumed to get to a place or the increased resource used, e.g. water that is used by tourists. On the flip side there are many locations, in particular those countries out of Western world that rely heavily on tourism to support their economy implementing conservation and education programmes that would not be affordable without that tourism.

The majority of staycations refer to holiday cottages in your own country and in the UK many of those breaks are really expensive and you may well be paying well over a grand for lousy weather. With that in mind why not stay in your own house? Wait hear me out there are advantages.

The advantages of staying in your own home over a self-catering rental:

• You don’t have an epic car journey to deal with. Growing up my mother did not drive so we found self-catering hard as we could not take lots of food and games etc with us for those inevitable rainy days.

• You have everything you might need at home. Many times I have turned up at a self-catering cottage and found that there were very few dishes to cook in. Or tiny pans that stick making cooking a meal very hard. So I have now started packing big dishes for past bakes etc – yet more stuff to pack, un pack, re pack and sort when we get home.

• As a parent a self-catering holiday cottage can feel just as exhausting as home. You are essentially doing all the stuff you do at home, cooking, washing up, cleaning but in extreme circumstances. If you are at home for your staycation you can get take out with the money you have saved or pre prepare meals and leave them in your freezer so you are actually taking a bit of time out yourself.

• You avoid the post-holiday carnage. The right lets un pack a car/bags etc quickly before getting back to work tomorrow. It never quite works out and the day before you go back to work utterly exhausts you before you return to work far less refreshed than you should be considering you have just been on holiday.

How Do You Have A Family Staycation At Home & Stay Sane?

1. Prepare Your Home – For me, and I imagine a lot of people part of the joy of being away is being free of housework. Make a list of all the big jobs that you can realistic get out of the way. If you have been meaning to do; clearing the worktop, sorting through the clothes pile on the bedroom floor. This can be a great motivator to get those niggly things done, and if you can feel free to just hide some of that stuff if you can. Obviously there will be a degree of cleaning and tidying up to do as you go along, we always go self-catering so that is something we are used to. To make the tidying as painless as possible Kimberly from Swoonworthy wrote a great post on easy speedy cleaning. Trust me these tips keep your home Insta ready.

2. Create Pockets Of Luxury – I am in the middle of a huge and long home renovation so it is safe to say 70% of my house is building site. What does that mean? Well apart from having baby wipes by certain doors for emergency feet wiping because little children do not respect the fact we have a three slipper system during the renovation, it also means my home is all about pockets of serenity and beauty. We are not all blessed with amazing instagram worthy homes but we can all create areas of luxury. Treat yourself to some nice candles or new bed linen. Buy a really nice dressing gown or some really nice bath/beauty products. Even buying these treats will still be cheaper than a holiday. Looking for tips on how to create a lux hotel feel in your bedroom try this post.

If you want 10 further family staycation ideas then read the rest of my advice in an article I wrote for AO Life, link below.

Family Staycation Ideas

 

Take Care and Happy Holiday xo