Fauxcation, Real Fun

Fake travel, real relaxation.

By Jason Adair

Everyone is talking about “the staycation.” But why? Not only is this latest in the slang lexicon not incredibly clever, but actually vacationing at home is impossible for some people, specifically, people like me who can’t be at home without doing some kind of work around the house. That’s why I’ve invented a new vacation model, with an even less clever name: the Fauxcation™.

The Fauxcation™ is a weekend-long trip to a hotel. Any hotel. The only requirement is that it be far enough away from your house that you won’t be tempted to return home in the middle of the night for something you forgot. I came up with this idea after several years of traveling with my kids. It didn’t really seem to matter where we went. Short of that theme park with the cartoon vermin, the kids’ fondest memories always had to do with the hotel we stayed in. Even when we stayed in the most “affordable” dives, the kids thought it a magical experience.

It got me thinking about my own childhood family vacations and how walking into a new hotel room was almost like being named king of a castle. This was mostly due to the fact that a lot of childhood’s normal rules were suspended the moment you walked through that hotel room door. It was at a hotel in Phoenix where I was first trusted with my very own key, years before I was given a key to our house. In Flagstaff I was allowed to hang out in the hotel’s arcade by myself, long after my normal bedtime. In Burbank we checked into a hotel at 9:30 at night and then had food sent up to the room; after we finished our burgers, we were allowed to go swimming—no post-meal waiting period! Upon checking into hotels, I always got to fetch ice from the machine down the hall, a job my daughter has now inherited (much to her little brother’s jealous disappointment). She also has first dibs on any of those little shampoos or soaps they give you, but this he doesn’t seem to mind.

When choosing a hotel for your Fauxcation™, get one with a pool. Even if you have a pool at home, this is still huge. No matter how uniform the shape or depth, a pool that’s not in your backyard is a totally different animal. It’s a new place to explore, a place where kids of all ages congregate and bond over petty mischief—because, hey, they’re on vacation too! Unlike regular vacations, the Fauxcation™ does not require you to wage a small war to get your kids out of the pool and ready to go to an actual vacation destination—because you’re already there.

When your Fauxcation™ time is up, you also won’t have to do that soul-killing, five-hour-long, half-asleep drive home. No worries about leaving early to beat the traffic or spending your last day in post-vacation gridlock; no dealing with skyrocketing fuel costs; and with the money you save on gas, you can afford to order dinner from room service, which is kind of magical no matter what age you are.

Many hotels have now made it their mission to provide a family-friendly environment, so go ahead and take them up on it. If your kids are anything like mine, you won’t even have to look up fun things to do around town. Just sit back and relax while the kids jump from bed to bed, giggling, while you enjoy doing absolutely nothing.

Still set on staycationing this year? 
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