The ditziest word in current use in travel reporting is "staycation." That's the shameful second-rate substitute for travel that various pundits are currently recommending. Shocked by the cost of transportation, unwilling to offset it with cheaper accommodations, they are advocating, in effect, that we all return to the 1800s by simply moping around the towns in which we live.

You stay at home during vacation (a "staycation") rather than travel.

In those days, the 1800s, most people had no alternative to a "staycation." They did not enjoy the extraordinary privilege of moving easily between regions of the United States and countries of the world.

Things have obviously changed, and so have the goals we seek on a vacation. In modern times, we've discovered that the chief benefit of our non-working interludes is not simply rest and relaxation, but the chance to expose ourselves to different ways of life, different settings -- through travel. We travel to experience the new and the novel, deliberately placing ourselves in situations where our most cherished opinions are confronted by diametrically different beliefs, where we re-assess our assumptions, and witness different ideologies and theologies, different attitudes and lifestyles, different responses to social and urban needs.

The personal growth that results from those confrontations is exhilarating beyond measure. It is part of the adventure of life, and cannot be acquired through a "staycation." It must remain in our sights by adopting a different type of travel.

Rather than bemoan the cost of transportation, the smart traveler makes the effort to offset those higher costs by reducing the expenses of accommodations, meals and sightseeing. By lowering one's requirements, by living in less pretentious settings, by making use of public transportation, local cafes and groceries, free sights and activities, you continue to travel despite the high cost of gasoline.

By opening your mind and your eyes to other regions of the United States and to foreign countries, you experience, in effect, the "actions and passions" of our time. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote it is required of a man that he share those actions and passions, "at the peril of being judged not to have lived." Most of us will reject the boring, enervating, vapid "staycation."