Ok, so your bank balance is nothing to write home about, and that dream vacation at the five star beach resort has to wait for a few million years or so, before you manage to save up enough for it. Or maybe you’re a tree hugging bleeding heart environmentalist, and you don’t want to leave a carbon paw on the face of the earth. Either way, doesn’t mean that you can’t take a vacation. You can enjoy all the comforts of a holiday right here at home…Something like that, anyway. Point is, you can create your own holiday resort in your backyard. How so?
Start by pitching a tent in your own backyard. now, it might sound a bit loony when you have a comfy house and all, but believe me, it’s worth it. If you know how to pitch a tent…If you don’t, click here. Well, now that we have that all squared away, let’s get down to business. You now have home base, and all you need is to recreate the atmospherics of being on a vacation. For starters, you an’t do any of the things you do everyday - Working, cooking, washing, etc. In fact, forget you even have a house. Pull out a state map, and make a note of every place, restaurant and attraction within easy driving distance. It becomes easier if you set a limit for driving distance, say 50 miles, or 75 miles, and then jot down everything worth visiting within the radius of that distance.
Lay out a travel plan which combines destinations with eating out at restaurants near to the attractions. If you find your schedule extended and the travel fascinating, you could consider giving up the comforts of your tent and sleeping over at a nearby B&B, in order to continue the travel a bit further away from homebase, without really busting your budget, or calling it a real vacation.
The key here is to look at your own town from a tourist’s point of view. Don’t look at the same barbershop, or the grocery store you go to every week. Look for, and explore, streets which you are not familiar with. Eat at diners and visit places - Theaters, museums, parks, hiking trails - that you have never seen before. Talk to people at the farmers’ market, visit rural areas, take pictures. When I was a kid, I used to cycle out way outside the city just to have a smoke. I used to sit under a tree next to a farm, and smoke away in peace, knowing I was safe. Over time, I got to know a few people in the vicinity of the farm, and the place became a favorite getaway for me, even after I grew up.
Point is, Just do things which you don’t do everyday. A vacation is all about forgetting the daily grind and enjoying your day. Whether you do it in a tent in your backyard with a rubber bathtub and a snorkel mask (all right…forget the mask), or in a Marriot suite in Maui, the intention is to give your mind and body a break, and a chance to forget all about the pending mortgage payments and the promotion denied to you. If you can do the same thing on the cheap 10 feet from your backdoor, why travel 2000 miles, spend an obscene amount, and leave a carbon footprint?