Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Staycation vs. Spousecation

Image result for travel images

I used to travel.  A lot.  Nearly always for business as I was District Sales Manager for a furniture company, then later as a Regional VP for Macy's, and finally as Marketing Manager for Homes and Land magazine.  The first job required nearly constant travel, at least 1/2 the time.  The second only sporadically, but fairly regularly.  The last, one week every month.  I will have to say that I never loved travelling or being away from home, but you accept that when you take the job.  Interspersed with these jobs were others that did not require any or little travel.  You can normalize your life then, doing stuff on a regular basis, taking classes, having a schedule.

Is there a trend towards doing "staycations"?  You know, when you just stay home and do stuff you would on a vacation like eating out, movies, seeing local stuff for the first time.  Personally, I am finding that staying home is like a vacation to me.  All my "stuff" is here, tv has all my favorites, I sleep in a comfortable bed, I get to play poker and see friends, fish, stay up late.  Somehow all of that seems to be interrupted when I vacation.  Not to mention the extra expense.

Another trend I see is what I am going to call the "spousecation".  This happens when one of the couple takes a trip without the other one.  It happens to me fairly often when I go to Vegas to play poker (spouse invited but does not want to go), visits to family (sometimes she is with me, sometimes not), her visit to sister in New York (don't get me started on why I don't like to travel to NY), poker trips to Eastern Washington, Pendleton, visits to Seattle ( Usually I am on board, but sometimes not). So, lots of different reasons for the spousecation.  Currently my oldest daughter is visiting friends in France and Italy by herself.  While that is o.k. with me and her family, it is a long time to be gone from teenagers at home.  Not sure I would have been up for that.  Anyway, travel is a sometimes necessary evil as I get older and find it more and more challenging.


1 comment:

7 Dewey said...

I'm into staycations mainly because I can't afford to go anywhere - LOL. In the last 5 years I've really only gone to the coast (once), Pendleton for poker (3-4 times) and Seattle for baseball games (a few times). I love to travel and see new stuff but I probably won't do much anymore due to age and badly out of shape body.

Spousecations are cool too. Once my husband decided he wanted to spend a week in Portland for a photography convention - gag me - so I took the girls to Disneyland. We both claimed we had the most fun. Sometimes it's important to take vacations from the people we love before we kill them - ha!

On a side note, I'm not playing any more poker (or 99% no poker) for the rest of the year including the seniors event in Pendleton, which I really wanted to play but oh well. It is what it is. I need to save my money for some car repair and other junk, so unless someone wants to sponsor me, I'm out. I need a vacation (LOL) from poker.