🎶 Staycation, couldn’t get away 🎶

While I wish I could jet off every other weekend to some exciting new locale, more often than not I find myself stuck right here at home. There are a million reasons why one wouldn’t be able to take a vacation – little money, no time off from work, a fear of logistics, etc. (I’m still holding out for the US job culture to accept that 4 weeks of vacay are essential to the successful business…)

Thankfully, there’s no reason why you can’t still have fun by staying at home. Check out these ideas for finding adventure right outside your front door.

Take a tour.

Bus tour, Segway tour, walking tour, food tour — you’d be surprised how much you can learn from a tour of your city. I’ve lived in and around DC for most of my life and I didn’t know half of the things I was told on a bus tour. For example – did you know that you can still see scorched pillars on the Mall that were set on fire by the British in the War of 1812? Cool, right?

Visit a museum.

I know what you’re thinking – of course I thought of going to a museum, you call this original?

Did you know that there are over 80 museums in Washington DC? You name it, we’ve probably got it – art, science, textile, espionage, architecture, Jewish, African American, bible, history, octagon(?). Check out your city’s list of museums – how many have you been to? I would be willing to bet you haven’t seen all of them. Find one that sounds interesting and learn something new!

Make your own bar crawl.

I have been highly suspicious of organized bar crawls ever since I ended one fighting with a bouncer in front of a Valencian nightclub after my group left myself and a Korean woman behind.

That being said, I have found that custom bar crawls are a completely different experience. One evening my friend and I decided to take our own “speakeasy” tour of DC and discovered one of my favorite bars in DuPont Circle. We used Yelp to craft our route and the rest was history.

You can use sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp to plan your crawl or – gasp – ask strangers on the street! Who knows, maybe you’ll discover your new favorite bar too.

Rent a bike.

Most major cities, in the US and abroad, have some kind of bike rental system. In D.C., it’s Capital Bike Share; in New York, it’s Citi Bike; in Seville, Spain it’s Sevici… you get the idea. Cities worldwide are becoming more bike friendly, installing miles and miles of special lanes and making the streets safer for bikers. Riding a bike around your city gives you a new perspective of downtown, especially if you typically commute via metro/subway or in a car. On top of that, it’s exercise! So go ahead and get that extra cone of ice cream – you earned it.

What are some of your favorite staycation plans?