2020-04-29 Yes, You Can (and Sho

In quarantine, vacation days seem like a relic from another era. If you’ll only be journeying from one end of your apartment to the other, why bother? Especially if you had to cancel an actual vacation — your big family camping trip, or that beach getaway with your best friends from college, or the world pastry tour you’ve been planning for months — the idea of taking a day to just stay inside right now can seem depressingly pointless.

Disconnect. No, really.

If you’re taking a vacation day, you need to disconnect from your email, Slack, and all other ways that people from work can contact you. Turn your phone to Do Not Disturb mode, or tuck it away completely. Pretend you’re on an island vacation, and the only Wi-Fi available is the expensive, unreliable connection in the lobby.

Create your itinerary

Think of yourself as a tour guide. Create a schedule for your day, like so:
7–10 a.m.: Sleep in. If you have kids and are raising them with a partner at home, ask them to take on the morning routine.

Other at-home vacation ideas

• If it’s warm where you are, order a kiddie pool. Put it in your backyard (or maybe your kitchen?) and pretend you’re at the beach.

• Play an old video game you haven’t thought of in years (remember Runescape? The Sims?).

• Practice your green thumb and repurpose your veggie scraps into plants