STAYCATIONS Are Not That Bad After All

 

For the longest time, I used to frown on those STAYCATIONS with cynical snide remarks LIKE:  That's NOT the quality way!  WHY spend $$$$$ just within the city?  WHY settle for less WHEN we can have much better than that?  BUT alas, I'm now EATING MY WORDS because recently, we hied off for a short STAYCATION and invited along our family friend [Mom & daugther] and we realized that that was the best decision we made to date📘📙📗

Surely everyone will agree we all need that kind of collective vacation, some serious self-care.  Between work stress, family stress and health stress, WHERE does that lead us to?  Taking a multi-week vacation to a far-flung destination may NOT be in the cards anytime soon.  NOT to mention our 2-week Japan holiday, to me, it's NOT just 2-weeks because that was 'half a year' in the making.  I was crawling through sites finding good flight and hotel deals, and booking [initially] just to keep my options open💙💛💚

You might suspect me to be exagerrating that that Japan holiday was 'half a year' in the making?  Frankly, lemme share this.  I had less than 10 flight bookings then cancellations ONCE I found a much better offer.  With hotels, as we were staying across 5 cities in Japan, probably I aggregated around 50+/- hotel bookings [both direct hotel portal bookings, via Agoda and Booking.com as well].  With direct hotel bookings, even if I was interested for the first time with a particular hotel chain, I registered with their rewards programs with the hope that I can leverage on membership benefits.  So, that led me to finally book [with finality with NIKKO hotels].  With our flight bookings, I believe we got the best deal as I leveraged on that 'juicy offer from ANA Airlines for that 'free extra domestic flight', which to me, was HUGE in terms of $$$$$😁😁😁

Some insightful sharings here with regard our recent STAYCATION:

• We literally enjoyed every minute together with our family friends [yes we had 2 connected rooms].  Even our daughters [WHO were best friends] over-extended their swimming time such that by the time we had to go for dinner, all the restaurants in the nearby mall were closing.  So, we had to drive out and scour through [WHICH was a blessing in disguise as well, we ended up literally in a 'JOY RIDE']

Our takeaway:  WHILE there is NO guarantee that STAYCATIONs will surely be as enjoyble as WHEN you go on a cross-continent holiday, everything boils down to spending things in a QUALITY, both the time, $$$$$$$ and most importantly, LIVING THE MOMENT, enjoying the PRESENT.  And of course you have to be CREATIVE enough.  As we only have 24 hours in a day, would you believe, in our most recent STAYCATION, everyone [including my 78-year old father-in-law] hit the sack past 1am come next day?  Never belittle STAYCATIONS dude because STAYCATIONS ARE NOT BAD AFTER ALL😡😡😡