Sunday, March 9, 2008

Last month the Travel section, fed up with all those niche travel experiences and their impossibly cornball names (mancations, babymoons, etc.), asked readers for help in exacting revenge. And once again you did not disappoint. Encouraged to contribute your own nominees for a Stupidcation -- that is, a themed trip and the requisite cute thing to call it -- readers bombarded us with clever ways to slice and dice the travel public, all of them flying under the travel industry's radar (so far).

Some were as timeless as a honeymoon. (Trips taken for the express purpose of being in weddings, wrote Caroline Cardullo of Rockville, should be called altarcations.) Others were signs of the times. Depending on your political persuasion, the candidacy of a certain senator from Illinois is cause for either an Obamacation, a trip that somehow allows you to be chipper and upbeat despite stale doughnuts and Iowa snowstorms (Andrew Carroll, Washington), or an Obamanation, a sojourn for Hillary Clinton, John McCain and others united by "outrage and surprise at what the country has become" (Bill Kelley, Wittman, Md.).

Selecting the finest was, at best, an exercise in frustcation. But we couldn't help trying anyway. Herewith, the 10 most inspired Stupidcation submissions as selected by the Travel staff. You can see more at here. (Note: In the case of identical submissions, the winning entry was the one that arrived first.) Each of the winners (and the readers above) will receive a Travel section tote bag, plus an all-expenses-paid, self-financed staycation of their choice.

* A trip to visit relatives you don't really want to visit is clearly an oblication. (Jenifer Callahan, Cheverly)

* Elderhostiles: Finally, a name for all those trips angry senior couples take. (Les and Elaine Lawrence, Ellicott City)

* Had enough of your nagging parents? It's time for an oyveycation. (Robert Wagman, Potomac)

* Disgraced CEOs of subprime lenders may well escape responsibility by going on a foreclojourney. (John Webster, Ellicott City)

* Louisiana weekends that skimp on neither gumbo nor zydeco are -- what else? -- vacajuns. (Jeff Rackow, Bethesda)

* When the 4-year-old continually asks, "Are we there yet?," it's a cinch you're on a whine country tour. (Steve Buttry, Herndon)

* You get the grandparents to watch the kids, lie and tell everyone you're leaving town, then luxuriate in your fakation. (Jennifer Weitzner, Potomac)

* September is dumptrek season, that time of year when you generously agree to help the kids return to college. (Alice Kale, Alexandria)

* A cellabreaktion is a trip on which nobody brings a cellphone. (Les Finster, Washington)

* Visiting Canada solely for the cheap prescription drugs? It's a Pill Grim Age. (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly)