Staycation ideas
This summer is the summer to turn your eyes homeward when thinking of a vacation. Gas costs too much to drive anywhere, and flights are way out the budget, so why not staycation this year?
Here are ten cost-saving ideas you can do right in your own home town this summer:
1. Have your house cleaned by someone else and take the day to relax together.
2. Do something you’ve never done before, like skinny-dipping in a lake. Come on, you know you’ve always wanted to do that. Here’s your chance to spice up your life and get one list item checked off your bucket list to boot.
write an anonymous postcard
3. Drive around the neighborhood and find one or two favorite curb appeal ideas. Write an anonymous postcard to the owners of the house telling them how much you like their curb appeal idea.
4. Read a foreign movie. You’re not afraid to go to Europe and bumble through attempted communication with the locals, so why are you afraid of a foreign movie? So what if you have to read it? There are so many good movies that aren’t made by Hollywood! Here’s one of my favorite foreign language movies: The Chorus (in French). Rent it the day you have your house cleaned by someone else and expand your mind’s borders.
Make these glasses
5. Make a pair of these funny glasses and go downtown on a hoity toidy night and just mill around with the glasses on. Sit on a bench and wave at passersby. You’ll make a few friends in the process.
6. Get a massage. Both of you, of course. It’ll get you in the mood for skinny-dipping.
7. Check out your local Chamber of Commerce for hotel deals or call hotels directly and ask if they have any deals for locals this summer. Pick up a tourist package from the Chamber and visit somewhere you haven’t been to yet in your home town. Check the local community theater for any plays, etc.
8. Buy something extravagant off Craigslist and/or list something extravagant FOR FREE on Craigslist (don’t put your phone number on it) and ask for a 100-word essay contest to be sent to your email.
9. Take a homeless person to dinner.
10. Have a picnic in your town’s most popular park. Take lots of pillows. Lounge. Take photos. Drink wine.
11. With your savings from not taking a go-cation, create an outside space in your back (or front) yard for ongoing staycations. You can buy a niceoutdoor canopy
Oh these are GREAT ideas! Another you can add to your list, readers who want a truly magical night are almost guaranteed one from August 9th to the 14th! The Perseids meteor shower heightens during those nights. Truly, magical!
I’m glad you mentioned that, Savvy. I was going to add “visit your local observatory,” but thought that may not be available everywhere. A meteor shower you can watch in your own yard (well, preferably somewhere away from the noise of city lights).