How Would You Staycation?

My summer travel schedule is reaching nightmarish -- for me -- proportions. I just came home from an amazing four-day wedding trip thinking, "I need a vacation to recover from my vacation." And it's just the beginning: between work and some long-planned vacations, I'll be away from home for at least 36 days over the next three months. (Bear with me if I skip some posts here and there in the normal schedule of the Natural Capital.)

This level of travel seems normal to some of you, I'm sure, but my head is spinning a little. I like sleeping in my own bed, and checking in on my garden in the morning (not to mention eating from it). Besides, there's always plenty to do close to home -- which is, after all, one of the points of this blog.

Which brings me to my question for you: if you were designing your dream staycation in the DC area, what would you do?

Photo credit: Carlo Alberto

Let's say you have at least 4 days off of work, but you want to stay with an hour's drive of your home. We want a real vacation here, not just sitting around home catching up on sleep (though we could use some of that, too). And, as a Natural Capital reader, we're assuming you'd want to spend most of that vacation outside. Would you go camping? Take lots of day trips? Where would you go? Check out some parks you haven't been to? Visit an old favorite?

Leave us your dream itinerary in the comment section.  Or, if you can't think of an itinerary, tell us some things that would make you feel like you were on vacation, and we'll see if we can't come up with some posts on places that would fit the bill!