Looking for some Staycation ideas this summer? I recently asked readers for some of their ideas, and I thought I would share! These are some great ideas that don’t take a bunch of money but are still filled with fun times for the whole family.

Check out these Staycation suggestions. Let me know if you have any additional ideas!

1. Water Day – Set up Slip n Slides, water balloon fight, sprinklers, etc.
2. Community Service Day – Volunteer at a animal shelter, stock shelves at a food donation center, clean up trash at a local park
3. Set up an Outdoor movie, camp, and have a s’mores night
4. Go to a local state park for a hike and picnic. You can even camp there too! If you have a tent, a campsite at a state park can be a lot cheaper than a hotel, and it’s definitely more of an adventure! National parks are more expensive, but still worth a look. The state park closest to us has a free swim beach, grills, nice playgrounds, a couple diamonds for baseball or kickball, several kid friendly trails, and always some kind of fun educational program through the park rangers. Aug 4 and Aug 25 are Free Entrance Days for National Parks this summer if you want to go that route.
5. Have a board game day! Buy some new ones to learn too.
6. Cooking challenge – Work in teams and assign nights to do a dinner. Let the kids draw/ write the menu. This idea can be great fun for older kids!
7. Use local transportation to go somewhere fun. We live near Charlotte and used the light rail to go to a “dine-in movie theater.” The kids loved riding the train.
8. Library programs – Local libraries have tons of programs for all age kids for free. Plus, there are tons of fun things to do at the library. My kids love to go browse the books, dvds, and play on the computers. Just be sure to check and make sure your programs are running on a normal schedule.
9. Science Day – Activities include tie dyed shirts, make slime, make erupting volcanoes, elephant toothpaste, etc. There are tons of fun experiments that you can do with the kids.
10. Activity Day– Have kids come up with things they want to do and work those suggestions into it. Pick an activity a day and put them in a bowl. Draw the day’s activity at breakfast.
11. Make homemade ice cream. We have a projector and movie screen that we do movies outside on, but before we had it, we would carry our TV and DVD player outside for a movie. Eat breakfast outside in the mornings. Bike riding somewhere besides your neighborhood.
12. We go to a local lake to swim and grill hot dogs. One night, we rented a movie and made a pallet on the floor and ate home cooked pizza, snacks, and ice cream while we watched the movie.
13. Day trips to those funny little places near you that you’ve heard about but never visited.
14. I would buy all the kids favorite foods they usually have to beg me to make. We’d go to the library for great movies from the 80’s and 90’s and drag all the bedding to the living room and eat and sleep and whatever regardless of the clock! My kids LOVE it!
15. Visit those tourist attractions that are normally overlooked by locals. For instance, we have whitewater in our area but have never been.
16. This year we have been focusing on fun memories at home. I have theme days and decorate the house and have food and a family game to match the theme. Over spring break we did baseball day (decorated the house with baseball stuff and ate concession type food).