Staycation

The holidays are upon us now and many of us get to savor a little time off from work. While you may desperately want to get-away, an expensive, extended vacation may not be in the budget right now. What could be in the budget is an all out staycation. You stay in your own home and vacation as local tourists.

The first step for anyone is to treat a staycation as a vacation. That means no house projects (unless they are intentionally scheduled into the time off), no work, just a schedule of fun and relaxing activities. I have written several times before about various frugal activities to do locally. Always on the look-out for fun activities to do locally, with and without kids, my own family has a list of possible outings to do during our upcoming staycation. Included on the list: be San Francisco tourists, right down to the cable car ride, visit Angel Island, spend a day in the Marin Headlands, have a picnic at China Camp, and perhaps take a trip out to Alcatraz.

For our upcoming staycation, we are venturing just outside of Oakland, visiting places we don't get to see much of, even though we live here, yet spending our overnights in the (free) comfort of our own home. We are looking forward to spending some time together, frugally and simply.

For more ideas of where to go locally while on staycation, sign up for The Weekend Sherpa, a lovely weekly newsletter providing information on local entertainment, close enough to Oakland for a perfect little get-away.