How I wish I had never read this!
Until I did, I had not heard either of a "staycation" or a "holistay". What hideous words.
To me "a holiday" is time off work, or if you are a schoolchild, time off school. In itself the word says nothing about how you spend the time, or where. It simply states that the period of time it covers is not a working day or days.
Vacation has always struck me as such a negative word, as it must surely mean "an empty time" .- -definitely not my idea of a holiday. I DO things when on holiday - whether I stay at home, travel in my own country, or go abroad. The point is that what I do is different to the things I do all the rest of the time.