Staycation Ideas

Archive for February, 2009

This past weekend, I had another great staycation idea hit me and it came by way of my 5 year old.

“Daddy can you tape me?”

I have a 5 year old, who I am convinced will be in show business.  She loves it when I tape her as she stars in her own cooking show at our Little Tikes Kitchen or dancing around the living room in dress-up.  Well, after I finished video taping her she of course wanted to watch it.  After we finished watching these most recent outtakes, she decided it would be fun to look at some of the older tapes as well.  This turned out to be a wonderful trip down memory lane that our whole family, my wife included, enjoyed immensely.  It was fun watching our daughter when she was younger and also fun reminiscing about the people in our lives when those videos were taped.

As I sat there watching these home movies, I thought to myself, “This is a wonderful staycation idea!”  How much fun would it be during a staycation, to sit inside and watch some of these old videos? 

The idea grew the longer I sat there watching those tapes.  I thought about how much fun it would be to transfer these tapes from the MiniDV format to a more usable DVD. 

I stumbled to a site, ImToo which makes a “Easy DV to DVD” software application that makes it easy to transfer your old tapes to DVD.  All you have to have is a computer and a DVD burner.  Connect your Digital Camcorder to your computer, select the source and your settings and and click “Start Burn”  Come back in about 20 minutes and viola! You have your miniDV tape on a DVD!

You can download a free trial version of this program here and try it out for your self:
 
Easy DV to DVD

Well here is a very interesting side benefit to taking a staycation…not being bitten by sharks.

USAtoday is reporting that researchers are reporting fewer shark bites as a result of fewer people traveling to beaches.  Shark attacks are now at their lowest level within the past 5 years.  Reported shark attacks fell from 71 in 2007 to only 59 in 2008.  George Burgress, of the University of Florida, said, “With the price of gas high, fewer people went to the beach.”

So there you go.  Another added safety benefit of taking a staycation this year!

You can read the orignal article from USAtoday here:

Shark attacks drop; recession blamed – Science Fair – USATODAY.com

If you have visited this site in the past, you’ll notice that there are a lot of recent changes. Besides an entirely new theme, I have also just added a new staycation forum to the site. I hope that you will take a moment, register and post your staycation ideas in the only forum on the internet that is solely dedicated to the discussion of staycation ideas.

Some more exciting site news: I have secured the services of a experienced professional writer to assist me in the creation of a staycation e-book. This e-book will contain over 100 exciting staycation ideas. And not just the ideas. This book will also provide you with lots of additional information and external resources to make a staycation idea turn into reality. I can’t wait till the book is finished! Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when the book is released.

Thanks again for visiting and as always, I’m open to your staycation suggestions and ideas. Besides the new staycation forum, you can also use the contact form to send me any ideas that you might have.