Redneck vacation: I actually don't want to travel very far from home.

I will admit I am not exactly the intrepid traveler. This is not something I am ashamed of because of the fact that I have always quite enjoyed building a home where I am and while I can understand when people have the "travel bug" that isn't me at all. When I go on a vacation, it normally isn't even that far away. You could easily surmise that this is a characteristic that is present in a lot of rednecks and honestly, I would challenge you to find a country boy or girl that is even interested in going on a 10 country European vacation.

When we party, we rent a place down at the beach, get a big ol' cooler of beer, make some PJ and get drunk and grill for a week. Vacation done! I realize this isn't culturally enlightening but that doesn't really interest me or the people that I know all that much. I guess we just aim lower on the vacation scale or at least that is what people would say if they were trying to be condescending. You might be surprised to find out that it really doesn't hurt our feelings if people say these things about us.

src

One of the things that seems to be omnipresent in in almost all redneck men (and most of the women) is a general love for the outdoors and some of these environments that we like I think a lot of folks would consider to be icky. While a lot of people strive for crystal clear water of the Caribbean (which I actually have been to, it's lovely) we are perfectly fine heading to a nearby river and just getting in the water.

src

One of the advantages of being a redneck in Eastern North Carolina is the fact that there is a better-than-average chance that you have, or no someone who has a boat, and knows exactly how to use the trailer that pulls it around. On weekends that we have time and since most of us work typical mon-fri jobs so we make time, we hook up the boat and head down to the public access near emerald isle and get out on the ocean. This is a grand ol' time and the only downside is that at least one of us has to stay sober.

Believe it or not there are ocean police (not the real name, I did that intentionally) and they WILL check to make sure that you are not driving a boat drunk. Everyone else on the boat can drink though, and we have a "round-robin" of sorts where each time it is someone else's turn to be the designated captain. The rest of us drink beer, fish, listen to music, jump off the sides and just generally have a fantastic time. I don't really understand how it is that anyone wouldn't want to do this and it is much more difficult to save up the money to have something like your own boat when you are planning expensive vacations to luxury resorts all around the world.

We are only about an hour from the ocean so we can make a vacation really any time we feel like it. Sure it is a little bit lame when you are the sober captain during the day, but since my group of pals consists of 4 families, you only have to do it every now and then.

Normally, we will make a weekend of this sort of thing and sure, we could drive all the way back home at the end of a day out on the water, but who the hell wants to do that? For a couple hundred dollars per family it is very easy to rent a multi-bedroom house at Nags Head, Duck, Emerald Isle, or a number of other places for the entire weekend.

src

Most of these houses are investment properties of very rich people and they are more than happy to rent them out for $1000 for the weekend, even less during the week and next to nothing in the off season. Right now, since tourism is pretty much been kilt by Corona, the prices on these properties have dropped even more and there are very few people that are even trying to rent them.

We grill every night, we drink a LOT of beer, and we have a great time with people that we are already great friends with. The kids love it too, which is always an added bonus.

---

I'm not trying to get on anyone's case because they want to spend 1200 dollars per person just to fly to Hawaii and then pay a small fortune for a classy hotel. Not at all. I would probably like to do that as well but for me it is a question of economics (yeah, rednecks think about stuff like that.) I can go on a beach vacation with my pals, have an amazing time, and do it every weekend if I want to, all for the same price of what it would cost to do an "exotic" vacation twice a year.

I don't know if this is in fact a country boy way of doing things but I do know that in my community in Eastern NC, almost no one aspires to even leave the state unless they are visiting relatives and since most of our relatives are still here anyway, that isn't much of a factor either!