Excerpted from The Great American Staycation (Copyright © 2009 by Matt Wixon. Reprinted by permission of Adams Media.)
Rule #1: A Staycation Must Be Treated as a Real Vacation
Just because you're not getting on that cruise trip, you still need to do the same mental checkout of the real world that typical vacations entail. That means turning off your cell phone and not checking your e-mail each day. It means getting all the household chores done before the start of your staycation. It means not thinking, "If we leave the show just before the curtain falls, then we can beat traffic, I'll be in bed before midnight, and can get up early tomorrow to mow the lawn."
For any vacation, a staycation or something grander, you have to unplug. Unplug from work, from your chores, from the daily compulsion to get things done.
Rule #2: Plan Ahead
Plan ahead and you won't be disappointed, embarrassed in front of your kids, or led away in handcuffs.
For example, many art museums are closed on Mondays and so are some restaurants. Factory tours, which are a fun idea, usually aren't available every day. Same goes for a sunset cruise you want to take. If you want to attend some sporting events during your staycation, and then realize too late that the team is on a two-week road trip, you're out of luck.
As with any vacation, if you wing it, you're probably going to fly into a wall. So do some research on the Internet, buy tickets ahead of time, and find out what you can and can't do.
Before the vacation begins, have each member of the family make a list of what he or she wants to do during the staycation. Then sketch out what you want to do on each of your vacation days. That allows you to prioritize and see how everything will fit together. You can always make changes later.
