Why does it seem so inviting? It smells the thrill of bringing it home with Sarah and Sunil. Sarah! I know, I feel so relaxed.
Oh my gosh. Diana Kral is the artist. The song is Autumn in New York. I believe she's a Canadian jazz artist.
Okay, well she's making me want to go to New York. And you know, New York would be a wonderful place to spitball. They have a lot of viewing and a lot of neat things going on in fall. But I had a neat thing to go on yesterday.
Yes, we did. Or you did. I did. I turned on your own today.
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Teach one as a blessing. It just feels great to be here.
Well, I'm happy to celebrate with you today. Yes, definitely. Definitely. So why are we talking about going to New York for Autumn?
I mean, I mean, I just don't know why we're talking about it. Well, we're going to talk about going to Montreal. But we're going to talk about going to Montreal. But we're going to talk about going to Montreal.
We're going to talk about going to Montreal. We're going to talk about going to Montreal. Oh, well. Okay.
There's an article that I recently called The Rise of the Staycation. I wonder why these prices rise. They're actually several reasons. Oh, okay.
And I thought it'd be good to talk about this because fall break is knocking on the door for a lot of our, you know, families. September is basically over at this. After you get done listening to us, seriously, in fact, my kids going fall break this Friday. Oh, yeah.
So it's here. So I thought it'd be kind of interesting to dive into this whole idea of staycation because according to this article that I ran on travel polls, um, but close to home or staycation vacations are trending right now. There was a survey done over a thousand Americans and it said 67 percent either have planned a staycation or are planning a staycation this year. So that translates into about 173 million people are going to take a staycation.
These are people not going on a vacation for fall break. Right. Or they're going to put a spin on it and do a staycation. I guess I should define that, right?
So a staycation is a word that describes like a close to home vacation or even time at home, taking off work to be at home. And there's a couple reasons for an increase in this. Obviously, we all know the last two and a half years we've been living in a pandemic. So just the ability to travel worries concerns, the inability to go do things obviously is one, but more recently, you know, gas prices cost a lot of money to feel like we take a couple of times on a trip.
Yeah, even though it's kind of down some still more than what it used to be. Right. Right. And then another one is just saving money on like flights and again gas and accommodations.
If you've tried to go to a hotel lately, they're going to go up. Yes. You know, anything about, you know, the time spent on a long term trip. Right.
So there's there's some big reasons for that. So a staycation really kind of is within 50 miles of your home. Okay. All right.
So we're going to talk about some staycation ideas for fall break. In my family, we're not going anywhere, but I ain't taking off some time to go do some of these staycation things. Okay. So you're speaking from experience of what you want to do.
All right. So number one, here's an idea guys, participate in some agritourism that's going on in your area. Okay. That's not like picking fall crops or anything.
Right. Well, pumpkins or apples. Absolutely. So a lot of, you know, your area farmers, they have kind of started this side gig of agritourism.
We're going to go on a corn maze. Yeah. Yeah. And now with you, you know, there's several in West Tennessee that we're familiar with.
Right. This is all around one fall break. We were in North Carolina and they had apple picking opportunities all over the mountain area we were in. So this is, this is nationwide.
So check out what's going on locally. You may contact, I'm going to shout out to who we work for. Yes. Your extension office may be able to give you a list or some ideas of things in each county where you can go and take part in agritourism.
And it's also your benefiting that local economy and that local farmer. Now you always go to the pumpkin patch with your family. Oh, we already have it planned. I was like, this is like a standing appointment.
It's like our kickoff to fall. And we do all the things, the domains, the pumpkins that we go play in the corn bin, you know, all that stuff. Play in a corn bin. Okay.
Not my thing. All right. Go ahead. It's fun.
And it's not far from the house and it's pretty and expensive for, you know, a family of four to go and and have a whole afternoon. And tradition. It is. So we're building that quality family time.
Okay. So what about some local stuff you can go and if I don't want to get in the corn bin, where are some other places that I can go locally? We often forget about what we have right at our fingertips. Okay.
You know, so is there a museum or maybe the zoo? You haven't been in years. I haven't been to the zoo in years since my kids have gotten a little older. I mean, it's an hour away from you.
Right. And you know, we take those things for granted. You know, there's even some local museums in my town I've never been to. You know, so consider what you have at your fingertips as far as museums, zoo, state parks, hiking is free, guys, you know, go for a hike.
If you live near a national park, go check that out. A lot of those places too, post throughout the week on their social media sites, like programs that are going on that are free. Yeah. You know, so look into those.
We have a lot of performing arts, opportunities where I live, you know, to go view some things of, you know, there's always something going on. Absolutely. And a lot of times when it's fall break in your area, these places are running specials or running deals if there is a cost to it. So don't think like you've done everything that you used to do in your hometown because you probably haven't.
No, not even close. Not even close. I think about all being a good time for some photo ops. You know, this is something you can do for free.
I'm not saying you have to schedule a photographer and all of this. Yes. I mean, go take some pictures. Just go around to different locations.
Maybe you've got something downtown or maybe there's some water near where you live or just some pretty foliage or something. You know, take some pictures. Girl, that pumpkin patch. That's right on town for us at photo ops.
Oh, yeah. There you go. So I mean, that's always something to kind of capture those memories. What everybody looks like this year.
You might even can go ahead and get your photo for your Christmas cards. You never know. That's a great idea. Yeah.
I love that photo ops can always make work into the fall break plan. Yes. You know, another thing when we think about local things that we, like we've talked about museums and things like that, let's also think locally about some small businesses or restaurants that have popped up that you haven't had time to go try out. But you know, I know there's several places in the area that my kids want to go check out.
My son is into vinyl. Like he's loves records and there's a new record show. Oh, I was confused for saying he said restaurants and then buying a little thing and wait a minute. Where would this?
Okay. But you know, there's a new small business open and they only sell his records. So I'm like, that could be a place we could go and fall and break and he would love it. You know, but go, go try out a new restaurant.
We want to support our local businesses and our local restaurants too, or steal some rebounding from the pandemic. You know, so it's great to do that. You know, if you're not going on a big trip, maybe some of the money you would have put on a big trip. Give your kids, you know, 20, 30 bucks and say, hey, we're going to go to this door this sort of day and you know, they can have some fun shopping, go eat some new food.
Yeah, that would be good. So that's always a fun one. And then, you know, I love to read. Yes.
So hey, go to your local library. A lot of them beef up their children's programming during fall break because they know people are looking for inexpensive or free things to do right now. You know, and what's wrong with going and checking out a few good books and enjoying the cooler weather, you know, set up a hammock and go outside and read. I know that's not your idea of fun, but it's Oh, that sounds delightful.
Well, you know what, you might read in the fall. I'm good with the the hot outdoor sunshine, but a sunny fall day, which is amazing. Take a book to the park where your kids play those kinds of things. Check out again, what is local and at your fingertips that we often forget.
A lot of them also have movies that you can check out. And so I always think about fall break downtime is a good opportunity to catch up on some of those maybe some things on your own DVR that you have recorded and just have time to watch or maybe you subscribe to a streaming service or something and you're probably not watching it, maybe because you're always rushing around, you know, find something that's family appropriate, hang out. You can pop some popcorn or I had somebody tell me they didn't know this. Did you know you could go to your local movie theater and purchase popcorn?
I had no idea. You can totally purchase popcorn, take it home. Movie popcorn. And have a movie night.
I love that idea. So you can actually do that and you may save a few books from having to pay admission for everybody to go to the movies, pick something you've already got streaming that you're paying for. I love it. And now most things are streaming that you can go see in the movie theater.
There you go. Hey, stay up and outside movie. That'll be so fun. Yeah, you could do that.
Now stay with me here because some people might think this is a stretch for my next idea. But you alluded to it already. Okay. The holidays are quickly approaching.
So take some time now to if you like to do homemade gifts or take that picture for your Christmas card like you were talking about. You know, if you do gifts in a jar or you know, the kids make stuff for grandparents or teachers, if you're not going anywhere, my book, my kids love like local craft stores. Yeah. Like I can say here's 20 or $30.
Let's go get some stuff and make Christmas gifts. They would be all about that. You know, so get ahead a little bit. Spend time together, have some fun and check off some holiday to-do list items.
You know, even if something as simple as making them in you, I've already revised my three times. So if I had them all break coming up, I definitely could make some headway on that. But no, it's not too early to start working on that because we've got about three months ago, New Year's. Everyone's fall season gets busy.
Yeah, it does. So it's a good time to start working on all those things. So I don't think it's a stretch at all. Well, I don't know if any of our listeners are playing in locations or at home vacations, but I hope if they do, they maybe some of these ideas will spark an interest and they will go and you know, kind of look at your hometown or your area you live in with new eyes.
Yeah, I think it's a great idea. And if you've got a few extra books tucked away and you want to do something all in New York, there you go. It doesn't sound like a bad idea. That's, I'm sorry.
That's gonna be my plan A. Thank you all for joining us for our fall break ideas. I think there's some good ones. So hopefully you identified some of the two can do and the words of Mr.
Bob Marley. I don't even enjoy this ball break. Yeah. So but he wants us to live the life we love and love the life we live.
Bye-bye.