ABSTRACT
Tourism researchers often argue that travel for pleasure is a social necessity in Western societies (Frew & Winter, 2010), and that “the modern subject is a subject on the move” (Urry, 1995, p. 141). Further, “travel has become an automatism, a kind of habitual mobility” (Krippendorf, 1989, p. 136). Such discourse suggests that “normal adults” will travel for pleasure and “to stay at home is to be pitied” (Urry, 1988, p. 36). Thus, the concept of a home holiday-or what has been alternatively labeled as a “staycation” (Fox, 2009)—is widely perceived to not be a “real” holiday (Frew & Winter, 2010). Consequently, tourism researchers focus on extraordinary experiences rendering tourists’ ordinary, everyday-like experiences relatively invisible (Urry, 1990). The everyday-like experiences of tourism have received increasing attention, whereas holidays spent at home are still relatively neglected as an area of scholarly study (McCabe, 2002).
