Travel: Mims Davies says staycations are 'the way to do it'

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Susanna Reid told GMB’s viewers this morning that she got some backlash when she said she went on a staycation to Cornwall. She said: “Went to gorgeous Cornwall. Got told off for calling it a staycation. It’s not a staycation, Ben.” Ben Shephard agreed, and Britons are taking to social media to agree too.

A holiday in Cornwall is not a staycation.

Ben said: “A staycation is when you stay home, if you holiday within your home, if you’re going to Devon or Cornwall…”

Susanna said: “I thought that’s a lockdown.”

On Twitter, BBC Dan Walker was not getting the staycation trend.

He wrote: “I may be being daft but, if you stay at home (& do day trips etc) that’s a ‘staycation’ isn’t it? If you go to a hotel, B&B or rental somewhere in the same country, that’s still a HOLIDAY! Rant over.”

And Britons have swarmed to support this old definition.

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One said: “Vacation isn’t British for a start. And not leaving the country for a holiday, is I suppose staying. Terminology from obviously an American.”

A few people thought it was just the media getting it wrong.

One said: “But Americans don’t use ‘staycation’ for taking a holiday in their own country. I first came across the word well over 20 years ago (my brother’s wife is from Canada) and it means taking your holiday AT HOME. It’s UK holiday companies and Media getting it wrong.”

Another agreed: “‘Staycation’ is a media-created buzzword.”

Britons have taking to replies to rant and say that yes, a UK holiday is just that: a holiday. And there doesn’t need to be another word for it.

One wrote: “I don’t remember my childhood holidays in a caravan at Tenby being called anything apart from a holiday.”

Someone said: “Staycation is yet another awful American term people seem to have adopted. I haven’t. We have holidays here, even if we don’t go away anywhere, it’s still a holiday. Always has been. Because it’s a break from the norm. you don’t have to go to work/school etc. It’s a holiday.”

Britons care a lot about what their holidays are called.

And this all comes from where they went away when growing up.

One said: “Couldn’t agree more. Based on current usage, I didn’t actually have a ‘holiday’ until I was 10 and we went on a day trip to Calais. Just because the Harriets of this world can’t get to the Maldives, doesn’t mean they have to linguistically sneer at ordinary people’s holidays.”

And someone replied: “Agreed by this definition I didn’t go on a family holiday until I was about 20 years old! And that certainly wasn’t the case.”

Many Britons have spent their childhood holidaying in the UK, and it was no less of a holiday because they didn’t fly anywhere.

One said: “Yep it’s complete poppycock. I always had holidays as a child, they were always in the UK. Except one year when we went ‘abroad’ to Jersey.”

Another replied: “Same here. Never went abroad as a child. We holidayed once a year in Devon or Cornwall. And fantastic holidays they were too.”

Someone else claimed: “It’s quite a nasty snobby thing, ‘oh a holiday in the UK isn’t a real holiday’. So the poor apparently don’t have holidays. Growing up, holidays were mostly under canvas in UK, and foreign travel was a day trip to Calais when one of the red tops did France for £1. I had fun.”

Another said: “I personally think it’s one of the silliest words invented. From being a small child, going on holiday was staying overnight for a few days to as long as you like anywhere away from your home. So we went to my granny’s for a holiday & loved it. Going out for the day was just that.”

Comments kept piling on, with someone writing: “A holiday in the UK is still a holiday. It lessens it by calling it a staycation. A staycation is leave from work but you stay at home! Simple!”

Another said: “’Staycation’ bugs me big time! There was a time when just about everybody took their holidays in the UK. Very few of my parents’ generation ever went abroad but they all went on holiday. Brits don’t go on vacation so why would they have a staycation? A Holiday is abroad and UK.”

However, not everyone hated the word.

Someone wrote: “I don’t understand why people get so bothered by this. Language use changes all the time especially pretty pointless terms such as this. Staycation, at home, near home, same country is much of a muchness…” 

While another added: “I’m bemused that so many people care about this.”
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