Tourist or resident, or maybe both? International students’ staycation considerations

The staycation has gained prominence amidst global crises, offering new perspectives on travel and place attachment. This study examines staycation experiences through the lens of international students, whose dual roles as residents and tourists provide unique insights into the interplay between home and away. The paper moves beyond Tuan’s (1975) theory of place experience and the dichotomy of ‘simple’ (tourist‑like) and ‘complex’ (resident‑like) place perspective and examines how visiting familiar locales fosters transformative experiences. Through conducting in‑depth interviews with international students in Malaysia, two key thematic areas have emerged: (1) comparisons between traditional tourism and staycation experiences (novelty, cultural distance, spatial distance, therapeutic value and convenience); and (2) the capacity of staycations to trigger transformative, experiential outcomes (personal reflection, learning, cultural enrichment, and socialization). These findings highlight the fluid continuum between the roles of residents and tourists, revealing how routine activities in staycations can evoke mindset shifts, mental restoration, and intercultural understanding. Moreover, the study challenges conventional notions of distance, highlighting its physical and cultural impact on transformative processes in staycations. From a practical perspective, the findings offer actionable insights for destination management, specifically for urban neighbourhoods in Malaysia to design integrated experiences catering to both ‘staycation tourists’ and residents.