Same here. It acts as if taking a holiday without leaving the country is something new and not the thing that was the default for most people until very recently.
My generation is probably the first in the UK for whom international travel for holidays is routine. And, even then, growing up, a lot of our poorer neighbours didn’t go abroad for holidays. Cheap flights to places where the pound had more spending power than within the UK changed that: it was cheaper to spend a week in a lot of places in Europe than it was to do the same in touristy places in the UK, and the weather was better.
A staycation is not this, it is doing holiday things without going anywhere. For me, it was a reaction to the fact that people always went away on holiday for the few weeks of the year when the weather where I was living was hot and sunny: don’t go away then, enjoy having some time off to appreciate the place you live in that is a vacation destination for other people at that time!
