With Sydney and now the whole of our state (NSW) under health orders that restrict us to staying within 5Kms of home, the idea of a holiday seems impossible. Many of us are feeling quite hemmed in. Australians are among the most travelled people on the planet. With our international borders closed, it has at least been good to be able to see parts of our homeland. Now, we cannot even do that. And, for those in Sydney, it appears that it will not be until the end of October (10 weeks) until we start to see restrictions lifted (AFR 16/8/21).
Holiday challenges during Covid
The normal rhythm for my wife and I, is to take a week off every quarter. We have managed that so far since Covid hit last March. We have had to adjust here and there – had two Queensland holidays rescheduled due to hard borders. We have made it to Byron Bay, Adelaide for the day/night Cricket Test with India, Noosa Heads for a week, and to Sanctuary Point on NSW South Coast. We have realised that our New Zealand holiday booked for mid-October is not going to happen.
With the tougher restrictions now in Greater Sydney, we have started planning a holiday at home. We normally spend a few weeks planning a holiday, so we have decided to put our minds to work and get creative about a holiday at home.
Thinking differently about a holiday at home
We began by asking ourselves what sorts of things we really enjoy about a holiday. Our list included: clean sheets and towels, having someone else cook for us, daily room service, visiting places we have not seen before, time to go for walks, being able to take our dog with us, reading a good novel, no computer or email, and the list goes on. We realised we would save money on travel and accommodation so we could splurge a bit on other things.
Here are 10 tips for enjoying a holiday at home
- Start to plan your holiday at least 4 weeks beforehand
- Order some new sheets and towels online (ours arrived within a week)
- We have booked our regular local cleaner to come in one of the mornings we are out (pretty sure this is still allowed if we are not home at the time.)
- We will time our morning walks to go by our local takeaway café each morning.
- Order some novels from Booktopia from your favourite authors. (Daniel Silva, Stephen Leather and John Grisham all have new books released which we now have ready to go)
- Plan your meals. Because we live in the Lower Blue Mountains, it is challenging to get Uber eats or other delivery that caters for my wife’s dietary needs (dairy free, gluten free, low sugar). So, we have checked out some options from our local deli for delicious, pre-cooked meals. We have also looked at pre-made salads from our fruit shop and some special cuts of meat from our butcher. We plan to BBQ which is fun for me and a break for my wife. Meal plans sorted.
- Now, the benefits of living in bushland. We are already discovering so many beautiful walks in the bush within 5 Kms of our home. We have checked 2kmsfromhome and have now planned to explore other areas close to us. Kind of strange that it takes a pandemic to get us to get to know our local area well. Our puppy loves roaming in the bushland around our home.
- We have researched some Netflix shows to watch
- We have made a list of family to catch up with on Zoom and will contact one each day
- We are both closing our office doors for the whole time we are away, and we will set our emails to ‘out of office’ replies for the time we are off, and we will tell our clients that we are unavailable.
After making these plans, we are starting to get excited about this holiday at home. We both work from home all the time. One of the benefits of this holiday at home will be that we are shifting the balance from home being dominated by work to work being pushed back into closed offices for a week. Can’t wait.
Any other suggestions for how to enjoy a holiday at home?
