Why taking a real staycation is the only way to guarantee a relaxing holiday

I’m lying flat on my back on a vast concrete plateau that juts into the sea – sun-warmed and strangely beautiful in its brutalism – while staring at the sky. I’m not crying as such. Good Lord, no! Then why are my cheeks wet? Um. Well. So maybe a couple of tears have somehow leaked their way down my cheeks – just because of the sheer gorgeousness of it all, you understand. The hazy June sun, edge taken off by a gauzy whisper of cloud, set in a washed-out denim sky; the crashing of matte-teal waves on rock the only sound breaking the otherworldly silence.

I often get like this when I’m travelling: overwhelmed by the surreal beauty of far-flung destinations when I have the capacity to fully experience them using all my senses, unencumbered by the constant distractions of work emails and social media and the urgent “ping!”, “ping!”, “ping!” of Whatsapp. Only now I’m not in some exotic locale; now, I’m on holiday in my very own home town.

Cast your mind back, if you can, to a simpler time. A time post-lockdown, but pre-traffic light system. A time when pandemic restrictions meant the only trips possible for Brits were within the UK. And, therefore, a time when the hottest debate in travel suddenly became whether the term “staycation” referred exclusively to a holiday taken in your own home, or a holiday in your home country in general.

The former had been the original meaning, the latter what the portmanteau had somehow evolved to mean. Unlike many travel journalists on Twitter, I couldn’t seem to muster sufficient emotional investment in either argument. If pressed, I’d probably have said: “Well, if the majority of people now think it means any domestic holiday, that’s clearly what it means.” Language changes, and we must change with it.

In the post-pandemic world, when travel is largely back to normal again, it seems to matter even less. I only bring it up because I recently had my first real, proper “staycation” in years. And when I say “staycation”, I mean it in the purest sense of the word – I didn’t go anywhere at all. And it turned out to be one of the most relaxing holidays I’ve ever had.

The aforementioned swathe of concrete is part of the Warren, an area of largely untamed wilderness (and Site of Special Scientific Interest)…