Winter is here, bringing winter break with it; but it’s coming to an end. Maybe you’ve just stayed in so far. Why not finish it off with a bang?! Where could you go? Many families go on vacation, but it can be hard to find places to go with so many choices for fun spots, and so many ideas to stay back and relax. With winter break counting down days fast, everyone has ideas for their holiday dream ending of where to go and what it would be. “I’d want to travel abroad- it’s just a nice way to see how other people are living and a nice way to get into a more diverse culture than the one you’re used to. It’s a chance to expand on what you already know and to celebrate other places and especially at the holidays to see what they do,” Robert Cranwell said.  

If you have the chance to go somewhere new, there are so many wonderful places unlike our own. You can experience new people and cultures and you can see things common to them that are unknown to us. “I’d recommend South Korea. They have so many animal café’s like cat café’s and then there’s lots of photo booths and places that you can hang out at and take pictures and it’s really aesthetic and pretty. The temperatures are like Washington so wintertime it’s cold and if you really like snow then there’s a lot. Plus Christmas in Korea is not just like a normal holiday it’s a big celebration. There’s big parades and music festivals celebrating the time and it’s really cool,” Lauren Kim said. 

As fun as it is to go away and see something new, some argue that a simple staycation can be even better. A staycation is where you plan a set of events to do in your own town and area that feel special. Your holiday fantasy can be sitting with hot cocoa, holiday movies, and friends. Kim said, “Just going to Bellevue Square with my friends and hanging out there the whole day and then going home and getting a lot of good sleep would be how I would do it.” 

There’s lots of ways to host a staycation, however, with so many diverse opportunities possible. It can be hard to find ideas of something fun without lots of planning, but for an idea, Ellie Paul says, “I would stay in with my friends at my house and bake Christmas cookies together and watch Christmas movies like Just Friends which is so good and has Ryan Reynolds, and Polar Express, which I love.”