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Who would have thought that this time a few years ago, the term ‘staycation’ would be a phrase as common as ‘social distancing’ and ‘lateral flow’? However, with more people opting to stay in the UK over the past few years, it was a term bandied about freely when people described going for a holiday in the UK.
But the tides are changing with people having busy lifestyles, limited budgets, or young families, and there’s a new travel trend in town…the ‘daycation'!
So, what is a daycation? When broken down, daycation is actually a ‘day-long staycation’ (there’s that cheeky staycation word again!) involving exploring the UK in just a day and then going home to your own bed!
The best part of a daycation is that you can pick all the best things you want to do without having to fill the days with needless and expensive activities just to pad out a staycation!
It’s cheaper than taking a longer break as you don’t need to pay for multiple overnight stays. You can do all the fun things in one day without needing to arrange and pay for things like house sitters or pet sitters, and you still get the benefits of doing something different and getting a change of scenery and routine.
A daycation can be taken on a weekend day, so if you don’t want to use up annual leave or you don’t have time for a longer holiday, you can still enjoy a break.
A hot air balloon ride is the best experience you can do to start or finish a daycation. This is because all our flights are either early morning or late afternoon, and this is due to the weather. The weather system is generally a lot calmer in these time frames which enables us to get more of our flights out than if we were to do it in the middle of the day when the weather can be very interchangeable and unpredictable.
With most early morning flights, you can be out, flown, prosecco toasted, and back to your car by approximately 10 am. This means you have the whole day to explore the area you’ve come to fly from, whether it's around the corner or further afield.
The smart move for the best daycation would be to pick a launch site that is close to an area you’d like to explore. Take Bristol, for example. We have launch sites in Bristol, Ashton Court, and nearby Bath, so you are spoilt for choice in that area.
There is then a delight of sights to see in these two beautiful cities and surrounding areas, such as the Royal Crescent, Roman history, Georgian buildings and Medieval cathedral in Bath, and the familiar structure of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and one of the world’s most famous sailing ships, the S.S. Great Britain in Bristol.
You can then close the day with a nice meal in the city, and you never know, you might even see one of our balloons flying overhead on the evening flight!