July 4th Staycation

With the holiday weekend approaching, many may be planning to leave their cities to go explore someplace new. If you live in a large city, you are probably familiar with the effects holidays have on traffic congestion. The impending gridlock of traffic has a tremendous impact on the plans I make during holidays. In life, I tend to be a very calm individual; however, the drivers of Seattle cause me to have a senseless reaction to congested traffic. In order to prevent my road rage from manifesting into a shouting match on the road or intentional tailgating, I have decided to spend most of my holiday weekend as a staycation in Seattle.

Staycations are vacations spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions. Since I am still doing my 52-Hike Challenge, I plan to get up super early, hike with friends, and beat all the other hikers to the trailheads. Then, spend the rest of the weekend exploring my beloved Seattle.

I recently read an article on how to make the most of your staycation, and here are some ideas if you are planning your on own staycation:

1. Shake It Up: Stay up late, sleep late, eat at slightly different times--as you would when you're on vacation. This is helpful because you want to create an environment that gets you out of your normal routine.
2. Give Your Home That Hotel Feeling: What makes a vacation a vacation? You don't have make your bed, you don't clean, and you do very little cooking. Therefore, take some of the money you're saving and hire a cleaning service to come midweek to make everything shine and sparkle so you can have that coming-home-to-a-clean-house happiness. For a special touch, put out all of those things reserved for guests, like the fancy set of hand towels and soap. Buy yourself a plush white cotton or terry robe. Also, sleep on ultra-high-thread-count sheets. Save yourself a few nights of cooking and cleaning by eating out or ordering in. On other nights, give yourself permission to rely on inexpensive prepared food with little cleanup.
3. Play Tourist: Pretend you have out-of-town guests and you want to show them what's great about where you live. Venture out every day for a new activity--visit a museum, tour a local historic spot--that you wouldn't do on a regular weekend. Another idea for seeing your city in a whole new way, take a walking or biking tour.
4. Put the World on Hold: Gather up all the clocks in your house and stash them in a dresser drawer, and leave them there for the whole day. Also, turn off the ringers on your phones and mute the answering machine. Check messages only when you want to, keeping in mind that "not at all" is always an option. In addition, make sure you do an "out of the office" message for your email, and power down your computer. Lastly, skip the news and maybe even stop the mail for a week; the bills will still be there when your vacation is over.
5. Have Fun: Indulge in a vacation-reading binge. Tackle a classic you never got around to in college, or if that feels too much like homework, try a summer blockbuster. Or you could have your own three-day film festival. Pick a theme--Road Trip movies or The Five Biggest Tearjerkers. Once you have found the movies in your Netflix Queue, make sure you have a supply of your favorite movie snacks

Cheers to your upcoming vacation or staycation memories!