Hi [%first_name | Quartz member%],
Among many things, 2020 will be remembered as a tragic year for vacations. So today we’re exploring the antidote to scuttled travel plans: staying home! But first, a recap:
This week, the United States walked back plans to bar visas for international students attending classes online, in a win for US universities. The UK told Huawei to (very slowly) get lost, as Hong Kong contended with Beijing’s new security law. If you’ve been wondering how many jobs the Paycheck Protection Program saved, we couldn’t tell you—and neither can the US government. But in happier news, Covid-19 is sticking it to stiletto sales.
Your most-read story this week: Hong Kong’s protest movement keeps getting stymied by Apple. And best of luck to the member reading The five biggest lies you tell yourself before giving a presentation—we know you’re going to crush that preso.
Okay, put your seat backs and tray tables in their full upright position.
Home suite home
Up until April of this year, the natural response to “I’m going on vacation” was some version of “Where are you headed?” And up until April of this year, I more often than not shamefacedly replied, “Oh nowhere—just a staycation.”
Once the purview of unimaginative or no-budget vacationers, the staycation is for now one of the few options available to those seeking a respite from the daily grind. And it’s an odd staycation at that: In many places, the museums, movie theaters, and restaurants that can make a travel-free holiday still feel novel are shuttered. No matter where you are, the threat of infectious disease looms.
But I’m here to tell you that staycations—even the pandemic kind—can be magical: an opportunity to reconnect with the place you live, relax in the comfort of home, and gain perspective that can be harder to come by when removed from your daily reality.
The key to staycationing is to do it with intention. Don’t take your regular routine, remove work, and add some visits to the park. Think ahead of time about chores, projects, places, or people that get overlooked or kicked down the road when you’re in the thick of things. Think about the most indulgent version of your home self and how to realize it during this brief, wondrous period. (I’m partial to spending multiple consecutive days reading from before breakfast until after dinner.)
Most important, orient your brain around Home. I find it helpful to think in concentric circles: What can I improve or enjoy about the space I’m always in, my 500-square-foot apartment? Now what about in a five-block radius around my apartment? What about within five miles of it? By approaching my surroundings that way, I’ve rekindled a love of painting, discovered now-favorite stores, and built an entirely new Sunday routine. Best of all, when staycation is over, all of that is still available to me.
Travel is wonderful, and no series of walks around the neighborhood can stand in for the joy of a place that’s new to you (or familiar and far away). But we don’t have to associate relaxation itself with being gone. Reclaim the place you already chose to live…at least because, right now, you have to. —Kira Bindrim, executive editor
Rage, rage
“But Quartz,” you’re saying, “I had plans this summer. And I’ve been in my house FOREVER.” We hear you. After months of confinement, getting jazzed about staycation is tough.
So first, let’s take a minute to fully embrace our fury and disappointment that we may not be able to go anywhere, or that wherever we go could be the last trip before another lockdown. Accepting negative emotions can actually be good for our psychological health, writes Lila MacLellan:
The magic of acceptance is in its blunting effect on emotional reactions to stressful events. It’s that mechanism that can, over time, lead to positive psychological health, including higher levels of life satisfaction. In other words, accepting dark emotions like anxiety or rage won’t bring you down or amplify the emotional experience.
So rage against that canceled trip to Bali, or the hot-ticket concert that is no more. We recommend a long scream into a pillow.
The joy of the mundane
Now try this exercise: Pick up something that’s close to you. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and hold it in your hand. Feel its weight, its shape, perhaps even smell it. Consider its provenance. Call to mind an instance when it has made you happy. Take a deep breath out.
Part of what makes travel so great is the thrill of experiencing something new, which can evoke feelings of wonder and joy. But cultivating those feelings in the quotidian can also be nourishing. Ephrat Livni took the occasion of a solar eclipse to walk readers through the Zen principles of finding awe in the everyday. These are a few things that can inspire awe if we put our mind to it:
- Our breath
- Chirping birds
- Delightful dogs
- Charming children
- Falling leaves
- Passing clouds
- Surprising street art
- Moving music
- The ritual of making morning coffee
Best practices
Staycation doesn’t have to be about reflection. Here are some activities Quartz staffers have taken up on their favorite trips to nowhere:
🏖️ Susan Howson, news editor: “I was determined to recreate that ‘beach afternoon’ feeling where you’re hot and tired and content while air-drying, so recently my son and I got in bathing suits and blew a ton of giant bubbles and then soaked each other with the water hose for hours, and afterwards: beach afternoon feeling accomplished.”
🚴 Katie Palmer, science and health editor: “I’ve been going on increasingly long bike rides to places I would normally have driven to, taking lunch on the way, and I find so many more interesting side streets and cool views I would have missed while speeding by.”
🥩 Tim McDonnell, climate reporter: “My group of quarantine-bubble neighbors have been collaborating on feasts, often centered on a large piece of smoked meat that takes most of the day to cook.”
🖼️ Marc Bain, fashion reporter: “I’ve been doing embroidery. You can buy kits online and it’s pretty easy to get started without any knowledge of stitches beforehand. I find it lets me turn off the chattering part of my brain and focus on a task. It’s really soothing, and at the end you have this nice work to display.”
How are you adjusting vacation plans for the pandemic? Is it spritzers under the sprinkler? A cautious visit to the pool? Braving a flight to a faraway place? We want to hear from (and live vicariously through) you.
Making it not work
The Lunar New Year is usually a major time for tourism in China, but 2020 was different: By that point in January, more than 50 million people in the country were under stay-at-home orders.
That didn’t stop them from having some fun. Here are some lockdown lessons that can help you plan your next staycation:
- Watch something new. At one point, live-streams of the construction of two temporary hospitals in Wuhan, China, were generating almost 20 million concurrent views. Some viewers bestowed nicknames on their favorite cranes and cheered them on to dig faster.
- Share your shared experience. Social media can be a great place to commiserate. In one video format that became popular in China, people made a thumbs-up gesture—mimicking photos usually posted from well-known tourist venues—from different rooms of their house, then showed themselves getting back into bed.
- Get creative with activities. Ambitious stay-at-homers in China tried everything from using bottles of wine as ring-toss targets to giving a cat a math lesson.
As always, we want to hear from you: feedback, questions, or your staycation suggestions.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in about the virtual-college conundrum; we’ll share more on that topic soon. And thanks for reading! Best wishes for a relaxing end to your week,
Jackie Bischof
Deputy membership editor
Kira Bindrim
Executive editor