Unless you want to get away from your regular routine, this is partially true. Have tried both. Though it need to be said, staycations are underrated, especially in destination states like California.
It’s relatively easy to split the difference in California as well. I live in L.A. and have done short weekend+ vacations to San Diego, Palm Springs and Malibu.
Book a hotel room, drive 60-90 minutes and you’re winding up, essentially, in fairly different worlds, with just as much or nearly as much to explore. It’s a great way to have the ‘destination’ component of a vacation without all the logistics and headaches involved in vacation travel.
There’s also Vegas nearby if you want a totally different scene. My wife and I would go to Vegas quite often before our child and had a wonderful time - almost rejuvenating to our relationship. Now that I think about it, feels odd to say you had a great time in Vegas with your wife haha.
This has been my approach as well. There's a lot of diverse stuff here. I recently spent a long weekend 7 miles away from my house, at the downtown Bonaventure hotel, just walking around DTLA and doing stuff I don't usually get to do. I left my car at home to be sure I wouldn't revert to my standard mode.
When my kid was younger, we used to take the train down to San Diego for a week, or spend the week at a beach hotel in Santa Monica.
That said, travel abroad and to the east coast is really an essential complement to those pleasures. It's good to keep perspective.
I live in San Diego and have a list of tourist places that I haven't been since my arrival in '79. I have friends who live in Manhattan who have their lists of places they haven't been that "all tourists" have been to. Some Manhattan friends and I did a vacation together in San Diego, and I even stayed in the hotel they stayed in. That knocked a few things off my list of tourist sites.
