Three Staycation Ideas for Students Staying Home During the Holidays

Getting away to sunny shores can be a great way to relax after an intensive period of study. On the other hand, it can also be expensive and difficult to organize – not to mention it means you’ll miss your friends, parents and hometown during the only time you’ll get away from campus. For the frugal, or those suffering from homesickness, a staycation can offer all the thrills of globetrotting adventure – depending on how you spend it.

Let’s examine the best ways to spend your holiday at home, ensuring your friend’s tan will be the only thing to envy when term starts again.

A Gaming Staycation 

Games can offer entertaining experiences, and with state of the art developments like VR, they are more immersive than ever. Those with involved narrative and gameplay can transport you to another world, letting you control nations or do battle with evil empires in faraway galaxies. If you consider sightseeing to be a major draw of traditional holidays, it is worth checking out the stunning landscapes of games such as Skyrim or BioShock. And when you consider the huge leaps being made in game graphics, it is no surprise that some of these visuals are almost as breathtaking as the real thing.

However, graphics and realism when it comes to pictures are not everyone’s top priority – some put immersive gameplay over other priorities. Research suggests that some games – including games which utilise logic and math, and particularly casino games – can actually improve cognitive functions, in addition to being entertaining.  But while the sheer number of online casinos and offered games and variants may seem overwhelming to some, free spin no deposit promotions offered by leading providers such as mFortune make it essentially easy to get started. Furthermore, you can pay via your phone bill or ApplePay, making this service extremely convenient.

Get Fit 

Though it sounds slightly counterintuitive, exercise is a very good way to relax – making it the perfect hobby to take up during your staycation. The long period of time you’ll have to focus on your health also means you’ll be able to make good progress on your fitness goals, and may even put that pesky friend’s tan to shame.

It’s also not a case of needing to pay costly fees to a gym which may not have premises in or near your place of study. Great results can be achieved in the home, using no more than free weights and regular household objects.

The key thing to remember is to go at your own pace and to take pleasure in your workouts. You are, after all, on holiday. Pick a YouTube video that’s got music you like and moves you enjoy, whether that is aerobics, dance or something else, and enjoy yourself while knowing you’re working out while everyone’s stuffing their mouths with Christmas food. They’ll be jealous in 2017.

Catch Up on Some TV

Though this one isn’t the most thrilling item on the list, an adventure into the Golden Age of television is nothing to be sniffed at. With services like Netflix and HBO on Demand, a wealth of well-acted, well-produced TV is always right at your fingertips.

A staycation also means you’ll be able to binge without guilt. So whether you’re travelling into the gritty underworld of Baltimore with The Wire, or unravelling  a spine-chilling mystery in Stranger Things, give yourself permission to be entertained, and go on a journey from the comfort of your own frontroom.

The truly wonderful thing about a staycation however, is that you decide your own itinerary: no traipsing around tourist hot-spots; no staying out later than you’d like just to please the group. Begin a project or find your ideal way to unwind. The world, at least the local (and online) one, is your oyster.