Data Source:Â Sarah M. Flood, Liana C. Sayer, and Daniel Backman. American Time Use Survey Data Extract Builder: Version 3.3 [dataset]. College Park, MD: University of Maryland and Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2025**.**Â [ATUS-X : ATUS Data Extract Builder](https://doi.org/10.18128/D060.V3.3)
Tools: American Time Use Survey Extract Builder (Years: 2020-2024, EMPSTAT: Employee status, WHYABSNT: Why they were absent from work, WHERE: Where they were while they were on vacation or taking personal days), Excel, and Adobe Illustrator
ND — too expensive or too much of a hassle to fly or drive anywhere. (Alaska’s probably similar)
Some places – lot of things to do locally, can stay home.
Some places – too little to do locally, gotta get away.
CMDR_Tauri on
“Chose a staycation”… Call it what it is. Folks either can’t get enough time off to take a proper vacation and/or they can’t afford it.
underlander on
way too many decimals and the actual chart is barely the size of the clip art slapped on top. The table is redundant. Crop out all that bullshit, streamline the chart (the purpose of a chart is to summarize, not specify each individual value to the second decimal) and this could be good
Jakemeister91 on
I live in a fun part of Florida, I will take vacation time and stay in my city. But I will book a hotel room, or visit family. I’m not sure how that is accounted for.
CasuallyExisting on
I’m confused. It looks like the chart reports on people who answered “What was the main reason you were absent from work?” with “Vacation/personal day.” (So they weren’t taking a sick day.)
But doesn’t this include all people who took a day off to chaperone a field trip or move into a new house or attend a local friend’s wedding? That’s not what people mean when they say “staycation.”
Please correct me if I’m wrong!
Cricket_Trick on
This explains why I keep running into weirdly high numbers of Wisconsinites when I travel.
kirklennon on
The relative differences between the states may still be directionally accurate, but the numbers themselves are not supported by the data. Just as an example, if I took a two-week international vacation, flew back on Sunday, took Monday off to recover and take care of chores, and answered the survey on Tuesday, it would count as a staycation because I was at home on Monday.
BigBird_69 on
How do they define “on vacation”? I mean what if someone took a personal day because they had a doctor’s appointment, that would count as a staycation in this scenario?
Double-Rain7210 on
Hawaii – were here!
Mississippi – were too poor to go anywhere.
Also Hawaii for normal people – costs too much to leave.
10 Comments
Data Source:Â Sarah M. Flood, Liana C. Sayer, and Daniel Backman. American Time Use Survey Data Extract Builder: Version 3.3 [dataset]. College Park, MD: University of Maryland and Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2025**.**Â [ATUS-X : ATUS Data Extract Builder](https://doi.org/10.18128/D060.V3.3)
Tools: American Time Use Survey Extract Builder (Years: 2020-2024, EMPSTAT: Employee status, WHYABSNT: Why they were absent from work, WHERE: Where they were while they were on vacation or taking personal days), Excel, and Adobe Illustrator
The article with more information from our analysis can be found [here](https://rovelab.com/blogs/news/where-in-the-us-do-people-favor-staycations-instead-of-getaways).
Interesting, I’m thinking of factors.
ND — too expensive or too much of a hassle to fly or drive anywhere. (Alaska’s probably similar)
Some places – lot of things to do locally, can stay home.
Some places – too little to do locally, gotta get away.
“Chose a staycation”… Call it what it is. Folks either can’t get enough time off to take a proper vacation and/or they can’t afford it.
way too many decimals and the actual chart is barely the size of the clip art slapped on top. The table is redundant. Crop out all that bullshit, streamline the chart (the purpose of a chart is to summarize, not specify each individual value to the second decimal) and this could be good
I live in a fun part of Florida, I will take vacation time and stay in my city. But I will book a hotel room, or visit family. I’m not sure how that is accounted for.
I’m confused. It looks like the chart reports on people who answered “What was the main reason you were absent from work?” with “Vacation/personal day.” (So they weren’t taking a sick day.)
But doesn’t this include all people who took a day off to chaperone a field trip or move into a new house or attend a local friend’s wedding? That’s not what people mean when they say “staycation.”
Please correct me if I’m wrong!
This explains why I keep running into weirdly high numbers of Wisconsinites when I travel.
The relative differences between the states may still be directionally accurate, but the numbers themselves are not supported by the data. Just as an example, if I took a two-week international vacation, flew back on Sunday, took Monday off to recover and take care of chores, and answered the survey on Tuesday, it would count as a staycation because I was at home on Monday.
How do they define “on vacation”? I mean what if someone took a personal day because they had a doctor’s appointment, that would count as a staycation in this scenario?
Hawaii – were here!
Mississippi – were too poor to go anywhere.
Also Hawaii for normal people – costs too much to leave.