Daycation

A day trip or other short vacation that does not require an overnight stay.

published on: Word Spy

If you don’t have the time or the money for vacation this summer, maybe you can spare a few hours for a daycation. Somewhere between the staycations of 2008 and the naycations of last year there’s the daycation trend of 2010.Sure, it’s another silly neologism. But the slowly improving economy means many travelers will take their first real first vacation in more than a year this summer — minus the long flight or drive and the hotel overnight. More Americans will opt for short day trips, instead.After two consecutive years of decline, the number of domestic leisure trips is expected to edge up just over one percent in 2010, according to a study by Euromonitor, a market research company. “People are expected to get back on the road, although they will remain extremely cost-conscious,” says Michelle Grant, the company’s travel and tourism research manager.Kathryn Watson counts herself among them. A business analyst with a health systems company who lives in Jefferson, La., she’s daycationing in nearby New Orleans this year instead of taking an overnight trip. “I plan to picnic in beautiful Audubon Park with my dog and a great book, treat myself to lunches, dinners, and drinks at some of my favorite places throughout the city, stroll the French Quarter, and shop Magazine Streets vintage and antique shops,” she says. No need for a hotel, since she lives only ten minutes from the Crescent City.The travel industry isseeing more people like Watson. At the discount travel site Hotwire, they refer to her kind of vacation as a “straycation,” or “travel that’s within a close proximity to the customer's origin,” according to its president, Clem Bason. “A lot of our customers took vacations within their nearest metropolitan area.” In 2009, the number was up between 1 percent and 9 percent, depending on the market. The trick, of course, is persuading them that they’d be better off in a hotel than at home. And that’s not easy.