How To Plan Staycations

Yes, I'm on vacation in New Zealand at the moment, but there's nothing I love more than mid week getaways and staycations. And no one does staycations better than my blog friend Sara. I've invited Sara over today to share her tips on how to play the perfect staycation! Sara, thank you so much for being my guest xoxo

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Bonjour tout le monde! My name is Sara and I'm an American living in the South of France blogging over at Sara in Le Petit Village. This past summer, instead of going on a vacation, my mother and some of her friends visited me from Texas, so while they vacationed, I staycationed, and Vanisha asked me if I would like to tell you about it.

{Marseille & The Count of Monte Cristo's Chateau d'If}

{Marseille - Notre Dame de la Garde}

Now I happen to be very lucky in that I live in a really cool place to staycation, but the great thing about staycationing is that it allows you to explore your city in a way that you normally might not (case in point... I lived in San Antonio, Texas for years and years and it took someone from Australia visiting me before I ever went to the Alamo.. and that's the Alamo for goodness sake!).

{Cassis & me}

{les calanques de Cassis}

First up I scoured through Lonely Planet for ideas (I'm a Lonely Planet  girl, but Fodor's and Frommer's are just as fantastic) and came away with a H U G E list of places to go and things to see. After a lot of thought and advice, I settled on the definitive list of destinations for my staycation.

{Arènes d'Arles}

And with the destinations chosen, I got busy with the second most important part of any vacation/ staycation... the food! I searched Tripadvisor for restaurants and started matching up the restaurants to the cities and lunches and dinners and my itinerary began to take shape.

{The 10-25 B.C. Arch of Glanum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence}

And of course, I turned to one of the best sources of ideas, suggestions, and inspiration... all of you. I posed the question on my blog; "What you like to do and see if you were staycationing in the South of France?" So many wonderful tips and bits of advice that I'll have to take another staycation, just to get through them all.

{Gordes}

{Gordes & Roussillon}

And that's that.

What about you?
Got any great staycation tips?