BLOG 214: Staycation!

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is not to arrive -it is to experience.” – Robert Louis Stevenson 

After working in the travel business for more years than I could ever own up to, I have seen a fair chunk of this planet of ours.

I've seen a Bedoin sit outside his tent (while waving his iphone in the air looking for a better signal), I've seen the best disco lights on earth - the Aurora Borealis  (the cosmic natural feat of intense colours dancing in ribbons across the night sky), I've seen grown men scream "Santa is REAL" after meeting Mr Claus in a wood shack in a forest in Lapland, I've seen the tallgrass prairies from the back of a 16 hand horse (the only way to see Oklahoma), I've watched the sun sizzle into the sea on island so tropical that one would expect Friday and Crusoe to fetch me a coconut any second. I've seen the waterfalls, the snows, the sands, the lakes, the oceans, and the glittering skylines of so many places one would imagine that the little island on which I live must pale in to insignificance. 

So not the case. 

I do love to travel.  The old adage that it opens not just the eyes but the heart and mind is true.  But there is a truer adage, and that is "You can't dance abroad till you dance at home". Going to other places sure does give you a wider view of how others live (providing you spend time with the locals and get amongst it - locking yourself away in a 5* all inclusive resort is NOT travel - that my dear readers is going on HOLIDAY). Yes, going to other places does give you a broader view and helps you see the real value (or not) of where you came from - but sometimes investigating where you live gives you the broadest view of all. 

This year began like it usually does (with me on a plane). Lovely to go somewhere different, another culture, another language, another take on architecture, another landscape, another map of human existence so outside my day to day. The locals were friendly and keen to show me how they 'do-it' and yes... I loved my trip. However, usually by now  (as this is the 8th month of the year) - I would have a few more flights scheduled (despite the fact I left the travel business in favour of this scribbling gig some four years ago!) . No . Instead of hurtling myself about courteously of  an Airbus A330, I have been indulging in the current fashion for staycationing. 

Now for those who are unaware of this recent phenomenon I will explain (and I say recent with my tongue FIRMLY in my cheek as the phenomenon is truly only a repeat of what everyone did quite happily before jet travel made the world a smaller, cheaper and more accessible place). Staycationing is vacationing without leaving your country's borders. 

Initially this was met by the residents of the island known as Great Britain in a very lukewarm fashion. After all, we are a well traveled nation. Not for us the desperate numbers that some English speaking nations exhibit when it comes to Passport Ownership. Second only to a birth certificate, the most owned documentation for your average Peter or Jane is a licence to travel. 

More Brits have passports than driving licenses, and by the tender age of just 14 months old most Britons have left our Island (even if just for a day) to check out somewhere 'foreign'. Of course our geography helps immensely - when in Kent one is just 22 miles from France and when in East Anglia a strong wind will have you in Holland in two shakes of a lambs tail! NOT to check out our near neighbours France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Eire is plainly speaking, geographically rude.  I won't even start talking about the delights of our next door but two neighbours (in the south of Europe) who have the climate we adore but could never live with daily (Espana anyone?).  

To say we weren't keen on the idea of spending our precious vacation time 'at home' would be a massive understatement. 

But things is what they is. 

Money is tight all round. We are in the grips of a mighty recession and as cheap as it is to go bother our near neighbours with our union jack shorts and loud voices -it IS cheaper to stay at home. 

Funny enough, although jet travel has only really been with us enmasse since 1966 (Laker Airways anyone?!!!) - we have as a nation completely forgotten what there is to do here. If you stop the average English person and ask them  how many counties are there in the UK... they just would not know. Sadly most could tell you how many states comprise the new nation over the pond, some could even name all 50... but less than 1 in 100 could tell you how many counties comprise the constituent sovereignty of England.  (One would expect more from the other constituent sovereignties of Great Britain, but then Scotland and Wales are smaller and less populate). 

So do you know? 

No worries - I had to look it up too! (They do like to change their names a lot and merge borders... who knew Middlesex and Avon are no more... well obviously they are there geographically but they have been 'eaten' by Greater London and Somerset respectively). So the grand tally is (according to the last census) is 48. 

For the record these are Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, City of London, Cornwall, County Durham, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, East Riding of Yorkshire, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Greater London, Greater Manchester, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Norfolk, North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Somerset, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Tyne and Wear, Warwickshire, West Midlands, West Sussex, West Yorkshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire. 

Now really - how did we reckon that there was no where to go? Can any of us with our hand on our hearts say we have worn out all the attractions within those 48 counties? And before the whinge about the weather starts... a recent study published back in March this year showed that based on the hours of sunshine some places in the UK get... we'd defo get more vitamin D if we gave the jet planes a miss and had loads of rural weekend breaks right here in Blighty!

And it's not just the sunshine, some areas of the UK are really punching above their weight for delivering a dream vacation! Yeah really...Mid Suffolk,  South Cambridgeshire,  East Hertfordshire, Uttlesford, Mid Sussex, Mid Bedfordshire, The Chilterns,. St. Edmundsbury, West Berkshire,  South Norfolk,  Waverley, The Vale of White Horse,Babergh,  Harborough, Huntingdonshire, The Broads, West and also South Oxfordshire, East Dorset, South Northamptonshire, North Wiltshire,  Aylesbury Vale, Suffolk Coastal Areas, Test Valley, Wealden, Rushcliffe, Castle Morpeth, Tonbridge and Malling, The Cotswolds, and Tewkesbury being just some of the places that delivered on the best Global Tourism Experience list for 2011  (all featured in the top 30 knocking out places that would take many hundreds of pounds and up to 24hrs by plane to get to from here!)  - sorry Bali!

So where have I been poodling about to so far this year... well having given my passport a rest since spring, I've weekended on the Suffolk Coast (okay no great decision required there... London by Sea is the pet name for Brighton)!, But it was awesome and until you've taken a glider lesson over the Sussex Downs... you should be quiet cause it blew helicoptering over the Grand Canyon AWAY!. 

Then of course there was the majesty of the World Heritage Site that is The Jurassic Coast - aka Dorset to you and me! You don't have be a dinosaur hunter to love the place, the beaches are world class, the weather is always as good as it gets in Blighty and  the 'Anchor Towns' of Exeter, Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch know how to make a guest feel special. 

Then there was The North Atlantic Coastal Surf Capital of Great Brtain  -Restormel  County in West Cornwall which is home to Newquay, St Austell  and some of the best tourist experiences in Europe. 

Sounding all a little Seasidey?....Oh I can leave a beach behind you know! 

I used to think it was always GRIM up north... (though Yorkshire knocked that out of me years ago)...however if you keep going north (till you bump into that wall the Romans built) - Newcastle is ready to blow you away with spectacular sandstone Georgian architecture, fabulously friendly people and a 'shedload' of inspirational places to explore. 

In a couple of weeks I'm off to a county that doesn't exist any more... Avon. The city of Bristol (somewhere I always drive right through and never stop) is in fact the city of bridges, balloons, boats, Brunel and Banksy.  This time I'm stopping! WHO KNEW??? 

Suddenly staycationing seems like great sense! Instead of spending just one fortnight in one far away place - these comparatively localised short breaks every few weeks has made this summer one of the best ever!

And that is the thing about 'dancing at home'. 

Without crossing a single country border, there IS so much to see and do right here. We have a many and varied landscape, we have fascinating regional cultures and challenging regional food! (No need to go to Delhi to get the belly - LOL!!) And I can tell you - as one who has just this moment returned from 'The Toon"  - if you love to hear another language being spoken to give you that "I don't think this is Oz anymore Toto" feeling... we defo have regional dialects that will have you flipping the phrasebook as if you were bordering the Anderman Sea rather than just Whitely Bay! 

'Dancing abroad' defo has its charm, no mistake - I will always adore international travel - but you really get more out of it if you have at least tried to 'dance at home' - I certainly have!

Come on! Give it a go.... stay at home this summer! You just may discover why it is 11,795,000  overseas people came here for their holidays last year.  

I really DO think they are on to something! 

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