Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn, and I am joined as always by my brother, Herman.
Herman Poppleberry, here and ready to dive in. It is great to be back in the chairs today. Our housemate Daniel sent us a prompt this morning that actually feels quite relevant to our current situation here in Jerusalem, but it is a concept that applies pretty much anywhere you might be living.
It really does. Daniel was asking about this idea of radical staycationing. And I want to be clear, we are not just talking about taking a week off work to catch up on laundry and watch movies in your pajamas. This is about a deliberate, cognitive, and spatial practice where you reclaim your local environment. It is about moving beyond that common paradigm where we think of travel strictly as an escape.
There is this pervasive travel as consumption trap that I think a lot of us fall into. We feel this weird guilt if we are not booking a flight or heading to some exotic destination during our time off. It is like if you did not cross a border or spend two thousand dollars on a hotel, you did not actually have a vacation. But what Daniel is pointing toward is that staycationing can be a deliberate act of spatial hacking. It is not a failure of ambition. It is actually a very high level exercise in curiosity.
I love that framing, spatial hacking. Because the truth is, most of us suffer from what psychologists call inattentional blindness when it comes to our own neighborhoods. We stop seeing the things we see every day. The architecture, the history, the weird little geographic quirks, they all just become background noise. We are going to explore how to flip that switch today. How do you make the familiar feel strange again? Why do we value distance over depth when it comes to leisure?
That is the core question. Why is a street in Paris inherently more interesting than a street three blocks over from your house that you have never actually walked down? We have been doing this show for over a thousand episodes now, and if there is one thing we have learned, it is that the most interesting things are often hiding in plain sight.
Right, and I think we should start by breaking down the psychology of why we feel that need to leave. There is this sense of the tourist gaze versus the resident gaze. This is a concept from the sociologist John Urry. When you are a tourist, your brain is on high alert. You are scanning for novelty. You are looking at the details of the window frames and the way the light hits the stone. You are essentially a professional observer. But when you are a resident, you are just looking for the shortest path to the grocery store. Your brain is optimizing for efficiency, which means it is filtering out ninety nine percent of the sensory input.
It is a massive cognitive shift. And honestly, Corn, I think the reason people find traditional travel so refreshing is not necessarily the destination itself, but the fact that the destination forces them to pay attention. You literally cannot be on autopilot in a city where you do not know the bus routes or the language. Radical staycationing is about bringing that high intensity attention to the place you already live. It is about defamiliarization, or what the Russian formalists called ostranenie. It is the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way so they could gain new perspectives and see the world differently.
I want to dig into that mechanism. How do we actually force our brains to stop being on autopilot? Because you cannot just tell yourself to pay attention. You need a system. You need to break the heuristic loops that your brain has built over years of living in the same spot.
Well, one technique that I find fascinating is what is often called the Flaneur method, but updated for the twenty first century. Historically, the Flaneur was this figure in nineteenth century Paris, famously described by Baudelaire and later Walter Benjamin, who would just wander the streets, observing society without a specific destination. But for a radical staycation, you can use things like randomized walking algorithms or geographic information system mapping tools, what we call G-I-S.
Explain that a bit more. How does a G-I-S tool help me enjoy my neighborhood?
Think about it this way. Most of us interact with our cities through a very narrow set of nodes. Home, work, the gym, the store. We follow the same three or four lines on the map every single day. If you use a G-I-S tool or even just a historical archive of your city, like the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps in the United States or the municipal archives here in Jerusalem, you can start to see the layers. You might find that your neighborhood was built over an old orchard, or that there is a hidden waterway that was covered up in the nineteen fifties. Once you have that data, your walk to the store is no longer a chore. It is a walk through a historical site. You are looking for the remnants of that orchard. You are looking for the way the road dips where the water used to be. You are essentially becoming a local archaeologist of the present.
That is such a good point. It transforms the environment from a static backdrop into a dynamic puzzle. I think back to when we were kids, everything felt like an exploration because we did not have those set patterns yet. Somewhere along the way, we optimized the curiosity out of our daily lives. We traded wonder for convenience.
We did. We optimized for efficiency, which is the enemy of exploration. Radical staycationing requires you to be intentionally inefficient. It is about taking the long way, but with a specific lens. One of the things that really hits the cognitive load of traditional travel is the friction. The airports, the packing, the jet lag, the foreign currency, the constant decision fatigue of where to eat and how to get around. People think they need that friction to feel like they are on vacation, but that friction is actually incredibly draining. It is why people often say they need a vacation from their vacation.
Right, you spend the first three days of your trip just recovering from the process of getting there. You are dealing with the cortisol spikes of missing a connection or navigating a crowded terminal. And then you spend the last two days stressing about the process of getting back. By the time you actually settle in, it is almost over. With a radical staycation, you remove all that travel friction, but the challenge is that you have to replace it with a different kind of effort, an intellectual effort. You are trading physical travel for mental travel.
And that is where people struggle. They think staycation means doing nothing. But doing nothing just leads to you checking your work email or scrolling through social media because your brain is bored and it defaults to its most common habits. If you want a radical staycation to work, you have to treat it with the same rigor as a trip to Tokyo. You have to have a syllabus. You have to have goals. You have to have a sense of departure, even if you never leave your zip code.
I like that idea of a local syllabus. We talked about something similar back in episode five hundred seventy four when we were discussing how a change in destination can change your life. But here, the destination is the same, and the change has to happen entirely within your own perspective. It is perspective through proximity. It is about realizing that the depth of a place is infinite. You could live on one block for eighty years and still not know everything about it.
And let us talk about the hedonic treadmill for a second, because this is a key piece of the research. Studies in positive psychology show that the novelty of a new environment typically wears off within seven to ten days. That is why most vacations are about that length. After that, you start to habituate to the new place. The palm trees just become trees. The ocean just becomes water. Radical staycationing argues that if you can learn to find novelty in the familiar, you are actually building a much more sustainable long term well being. You are training your brain to be satisfied and curious without needing a massive external stimulus or a ten thousand mile flight.
It is almost like a form of mental fitness. If you can find something fascinating about a brick wall in your own alleyway, you are basically immune to boredom. You are developing a superpower of engagement. But I want to pivot to the social and economic side of this for a moment. Because from our perspective, being pro local and pro community, there are some massive second order effects to this radical staycationing model.
Oh, absolutely. When you spend your vacation budget in your own city, you are not just saving money on airfare. You are investing in the resilience of your own community. There is a concept in economics called the local multiplier effect. When you spend money at a local business, that money stays in the community and circulates, supporting other local businesses. When you spend it on a global hotel chain or an international airline, that money leaks out of your community almost immediately. By staycationing, you are visiting that small museum that usually struggles for funding. You are eating at the local bistro that you usually pass by because you are in a rush. You are becoming a patron of your own backyard.
And there is a political dimension to that as well. We often talk about the importance of strong, self reliant communities. If everyone is always looking elsewhere for their meaning and their leisure, the local culture starts to wither. It becomes just a place where people sleep between work shifts. It becomes a bedroom community with no soul. But if you have a population that is deeply engaged with their local geography and history, you get a much more vibrant and protective community. People who know their history are more likely to fight for their future.
It ties back to that fifteen minute city framework that Carlos Moreno popularized. I know that term gets some pushback in certain circles because people worry about it being used for top down control or restricting movement, but from a radical staycationer's perspective, the fifteen minute city is just a playground. It is the idea that everything you need for a rich, fulfilling life, work, food, health, education, and culture, should be within a short walk or bike ride. When you stop viewing your neighborhood as a place you are stuck in, and start viewing it as a rich ecosystem that you have not fully mapped yet, your whole relationship with urbanism changes.
We covered some of those urbanism frustrations in episode five hundred four and also back in episode four hundred ninety nine when we compared Vienna and Jerusalem. The structure of the city really is the stage for your staycation. If your city is built only for cars, radical staycationing is a lot harder because the environment is hostile to the observer. But that is where the radical part comes in. You have to find the cracks in the pavement. You have to find the pedestrian paths that the city planners forgot about. You have to engage in what Guy Debord called psychogeography, the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals.
It is about reclaiming the third place. Traditionally, sociologists like Ray Oldenburg talk about the three places. You have the first place, which is home, and the second place, which is work. The third place is the social environment, the cafes, the parks, the libraries, the places where community happens. A lot of people feel like their home is just a chore hub. It is where the dishes are, where the bills are, where the broken faucet is. Part of radical staycationing is reconfiguring your domestic space so it can actually serve as a retreat. You have to turn your first place into a temporary third place.
How do you do that without it just feeling like you are ignoring your responsibilities? I think that is the biggest hurdle. If I am sitting in my living room, I can see the dust on the bookshelf. I can see the mail I need to sort.
You have to set boundaries. This is the professional out of office rigor we mentioned. If you were in Italy, you would not be fixing the faucet. You would just ignore it until you got back. You have to give yourself permission to let the chores wait. You have to treat your house like a high end rental. Maybe you buy the fancy coffee you usually think is too expensive. Maybe you move the furniture around to change the flow of the room. You have to break the domestic patterns. If you always eat dinner at the table, eat on the balcony. If you always watch T-V in the evening, listen to a record instead. You have to hack your own habits.
I think that is the hardest part for people. The physical environment of the home is so tied to our habits. Our brains are associative machines. I know for me, if I sit on my couch, my brain immediately thinks about the three things I need to do for work tomorrow because that is where I usually sit when I am answering emails. It is hard to decouple the space from the stress.
That is why the micro exploration is so important. You have to get out of the house, even if you are not leaving the zip code. Have you ever actually looked at the geology of where we live, Corn? The layers of limestone, the way the ancient water systems like the Hezekiah's Tunnel were carved into the rock? Most people who visit Jerusalem spend all their time at the major religious sites, which are incredible, obviously. But there is a whole other layer of natural and engineering history right under our feet. There are caves and cisterns and ancient quarries that most residents walk over every single day without a second thought.
I have noticed that. Sometimes when I am walking the sloth walk, which is my method of walking as slowly as humanly possible to observe things, I see things people miss because they are moving too fast. There are these little markers on some of the older buildings in neighborhoods like Talbiya or Rehavia that indicate who built them and when, but they are often obscured by vines or just decades of grime. If you take the time to look, you realize you are living in a giant, open air museum. You start to see the dialogue between the different eras of architecture, the Ottoman, the British Mandate, the modern Israeli.
And that leads me to another point about the cognitive load. Traditional travel is often very surface level. You go to a city, you see the five big things, you eat at a place that has good reviews on a travel app, and you leave. You have consumed the city, but you have not understood it. You have the photographs, but you do not have the context. Radical staycationing allows for a deep dive. You can spend an entire day researching the history of a single city block. You can find out who lived there in nineteen hundred, what businesses were there in the nineteen forties, how the architecture has changed over time. That kind of depth is almost impossible to achieve when you are constantly moving from one tourist destination to the next.
It is the difference between a one night stand and a long term relationship with a place. One is about the initial spark of novelty, the other is about the richness of intimacy. And I think we are seeing a shift in the culture where people are starting to crave that intimacy more. Especially with the rising costs of everything and the general volatility of global travel lately. People are looking for ways to find meaning closer to home. They are realizing that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side, it is just different grass.
And let us not ignore the environmental aspect. We do not have to be alarmist about it to acknowledge that flying halfway around the world for a weekend is a massive expenditure of resources. Aviation accounts for about two point five percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, but for an individual who travels frequently, it can be the single largest part of their carbon footprint. If you can get that same sense of wonder and reset by exploring a local nature preserve or a historical district twenty minutes away, that is a huge win for everyone. It is about being a good steward of your own environment and reducing the unnecessary friction we put on the planet.
I think that stewardship is a big part of our worldview. Taking care of what you have, rather than always reaching for the next shiny thing. It is a very conservative value, in the truest sense of the word. Conserving the local, valuing the immediate, and finding depth in the traditional. It is about rootedness.
It really is. Now, let us get into some of the actual logistics. If someone is listening to this and they are thinking, okay, I am sold on the idea, but I have no idea how to start. How do you actually execute a radical staycation? How do you make it feel like a real event?
Well, I think the first step is what we can call the Seven Day Local Audit. You have to approach your upcoming week off with a plan. You do not just wake up on Monday and say, what should I do today? Because if you do that, you will end up doing laundry. You map it out. You treat it like an itinerary. You should have themes for each day to keep your brain engaged.
I love that. Let us brainstorm some themes. Monday could be the geology and topography day. You go to the highest point in your town and look at the watershed. You look at why the town was built where it was. Tuesday is the hidden history day. You visit the local cemetery or the historical society. Wednesday is the local food producer day. You find the people who are actually making things in your area, the bakers, the brewers, the urban farmers.
And for that hidden history day, use the archives! Most cities have digital archives now where you can look at old photographs of your street. It is a mind blowing experience to stand on your front porch and look at a photo of that same spot from a hundred years ago. You see the trees that are no longer there, or the ones that were just tiny saplings back then. You see the way people dressed, the carriages or early cars. It collapses time in a way that makes your everyday life feel much more significant. You realize you are just one link in a very long chain of people inhabiting this space.
Another key part of the audit is the local syllabus. Before your staycation starts, you should spend a few hours doing research. Find three books about your region. One about the natural history, the rocks, the birds, the weather patterns. One about the social history, the people who lived there before you, the conflicts, the triumphs. And maybe a piece of fiction set in your town. Read them before you start your week. It gives you the mental hooks to hang your observations on. When you walk past a certain building, you will suddenly remember the story of the person who built it or the fictional character who lived there.
It is about building a mental map that is richer than the one Google Maps provides. Google Maps tells you how to get from A to B. A local syllabus tells you why A and B matter. And speaking of maps, I highly recommend people try the randomized walk. There are apps for this, like Randonautica, or you can just use a simple six sided dice. Every time you hit an intersection, roll the dice. One or two, you go left. Three or four, you go right. Five or six, you go straight. It sounds silly, but it forces you into areas you would never naturally go because they are not on your way to anything. You find these little pocket parks, or weird architectural details, or small businesses that you never knew existed because they were not on your usual path.
It is the Flaneur method in action. It is about breaking the tyranny of the destination. Usually, when we walk, we are walking to something. We are in a state of transit. With a radical staycation, the walking itself is the thing. You are not in transit; you are in situ. You are just an observer. You are a ghost in your own city.
And let us talk about the home as the third place again. During this week, you have to change the rules of your house. This is vital. If you do not change the rules, you will not change your mindset. Maybe you decide that the kitchen is a cafe this week. You stock up on the best ingredients, you put on specific music, and you do not use the kitchen for anything other than preparing those special meals. No quick bowls of cereal over the sink while looking at your phone. You sit down, you light a candle, you make it an event. You are trying to create an atmosphere that is distinct from your daily life.
That is such a crucial point. It is all about the atmosphere. If you stay in the same atmosphere, you will stay in the same mindset. You have to hack your senses. Use different scents, maybe a specific incense or candle you only use during your staycation. Use different lighting, lamps instead of overhead lights. Use different sounds. It sounds like small stuff, but it has a huge impact on how your brain processes the space. You are trying to trigger that novelty response in your amygdala.
I want to address the guilt factor that Daniel mentioned. People feel like staycationing is an irresponsible waste of money because they are not getting a tangible return on their investment, or they feel it is a sign of laziness. But if you are doing it this way, it is the opposite of lazy. It is an active, intellectual pursuit. It requires more creativity and effort than just sitting on a beach in a resort. And as for the money, you are not wasting it, you are reallocating it. Instead of giving it to an airline, you are giving it to yourself and your community. That is a much better investment in my book.
It is also a way to build what I call local capital. When you know the history of your area, when you know the local business owners, when you understand the geography, you are more invested in the place. You become a better citizen. You are more likely to care about local issues because you actually understand the context. You are not just a consumer of services; you are a participant in a living history. It is the opposite of being a globalist tourist who just skims the surface of a dozen different cultures without ever truly belonging to any of them.
That is a powerful distinction. Belonging versus consuming. Traditional travel is often about consuming an experience, taking the photo, eating the meal, and moving on. Radical staycationing is about deepening your sense of belonging. It is about realizing that you do not need to go to the other side of the world to find something worth looking at. The world is infinitely dense with information and beauty, no matter where you are. You just have to have the eyes to see it. You have to cultivate the resident gaze.
I think about that a lot when I am looking at the hills around Jerusalem. You can see the thousands of years of human struggle and triumph written into the terraces and the stone walls. You can see the way the light changes on the Jerusalem stone at sunset, turning everything gold. It is all right there. But if you are just thinking about the traffic or the heat or your to do list, you miss it. Radical staycationing is a way to reclaim that wonder. It is a way to fall back in love with your life.
It really is. And it is something we can all do, regardless of our budget or our ability to travel. It is a democratic form of exploration. You do not need a passport or a plane ticket. You just need a sense of curiosity and a willingness to look at the familiar with fresh eyes. It is about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.
So, what are the practical takeaways for our listeners? If they want to start their own radical staycation this weekend, what should they do?
First, set the dates and treat them as sacred. Put them on your calendar. Tell people you are unavailable. If you can, set an out of office reply on your email. Treat it like you are in a different time zone. Second, create your syllabus. Find those three local books. Download a G-I-S mapping app or look up your city's historical archives. Third, do the Seven Day Local Audit. Plan your themes for each day so you have a sense of purpose. And finally, change the rules of your house. Treat your home like a luxury destination, not a place for chores.
And do not forget the randomized walk. Let the dice decide where you go. Break those mental ruts that you have been walking in for years. You might be surprised at what you find just two blocks over. You might find a whole new world that was there all along.
It is a journey of discovery that starts at your own front door. And honestly, Herman, I think this is the future of leisure. As the world gets more complicated and more expensive, and as we become more aware of our environmental impact, the ability to find joy and wonder in our own communities is going to be a superpower. It is about being grounded.
I agree. It is about being present. We talked about this a bit in episode five hundred seventy, about the allure of remote travel, but this is almost the opposite. It is the allure of the immediate. Both are valid, but we have neglected the local for too long. We have been looking at the horizon so much that we have forgotten to look at our feet.
We really have. Well, I hope this gives people some ideas. Daniel, thanks for sending that prompt in. It really got us thinking about our own habits here in Jerusalem. It is funny how we can live in one of the most historical cities in the world and still need a reminder to actually look at it.
It is true. We all need that nudge sometimes. If you are listening and you have done a radical staycation, or if you have some tips for local exploration that we missed, we would love to hear from you. You can get in touch with us through the contact form at myweirdprompts.com.
And if you are enjoying the show, we would really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your podcast app or on Spotify. We have been doing this for a long time, and those reviews really do help new people find the show. It makes a big difference for us.
It really does. You can find all of our past episodes, all one thousand and five of them now, on our website at myweirdprompts.com. There is an R-S-S feed there for subscribers, and you can search the archive for any topic you are interested in. If you liked this discussion, you might want to check out episode five hundred four on urbanism or episode five hundred seventy four on the outlook shift.
There is a lot to dig into. Thanks for joining us today, everyone. It has been a pleasure as always.
Definitely. Go out and explore your own backyard this weekend. You might be surprised by what is waiting for you. This has been My Weird Prompts.
Until next time, I am Herman Poppleberry.
And I am Corn. We will talk to you soon. Warmly signing off from Jerusalem.
Take care, everyone. Stay curious.
See you in the next one. Goodbye.
