The other day a press release came in from a travel company that recently did a survey about the so-called “staycation”.  The results of the survey made the company come to the conclusion that a “Staycation sucks”.

Obviously these people don’t live in our beautiful coastal area.  Here we call a vacation just that, a vacation. We have no reason to leave and go very far because we live where others come to vacation.  Everything is already here, beaches, ocean, beautiful nature, exciting adventures, shopping, restaurants, entertainment and much more.  So to be forced to spend your vacation on the coast – honestly, it’s not punishment.  We do it all the time!

The whole “Staycation Sucks” is actually a fun, and inventive promotion for selling last minute travel. This is what LastMinuteTravel.com found out in the survey:

“…seven out of 10 people (73 percent ) would prefer a vacation to a staycation, but end up planning staycations because they believe it costs less (72 percent).”

We wondered what kind of questions they asked the American people in the survey.

Would you like to vacation at a nice resort where you get delicious food cooked to order every day and fancy drinks with umbrellas served by beautiful waitresses in bikinis by the pool? Or do you prefer a staycation?

Barking up the wrong tree
Personally, we always hated the term “Staycation”.  Maybe because it sounds very similar to a command you would bark to a dog.  “Stay, Buster – don’t you even think about going on vacation in the neighbor’s backyard!”

While doing research about the origins of the word, we found that according to Wikipedia one of the possible originators might have been a comedian appropriately named Butt.

Brent Butt is the very talented Canadian comedian from the comedy TV series Corner Gas.

Somehow this word became immensely popular in the media in May 2008, right before vacation season.  Soon public relations people and everyone else jumped on the bandwagon, and now not a day goes by without another press release or other with the title “Staycations” shows up in our inbox.

It is clear the word is here to stay. Believe it or not, “Staycation” was even added to the 2009 version of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

How could this happen, why “Staycations”?  Mercury News had found the answer.

“John Morse, president and publisher of the Springfield-based dictionary publisher, said staycations have become so popular the dictionary could not ignore them.”
Mercury News

We tend to agree with LastMinuteTravel.com – staycations suck, and a majority of the U.S. population apparently agrees.

So stop the madness.  Instead of a dreaded staycation we suggest a vacation or weekend getaway on the coast of South Carolina, Georgia or Northeast Florida.  Become a Coastal Companion instead of a miserable staycationer. When you visit our coast it is always all vacation!