Winona Dimeo-Ediger and Nick Castro of Oregon had planned an “epic” cross-country trip. They settled for an Italian dinner.

By ALEX WILLIAMS

When T. S. Eliot said it is the journey, not the arrival, that matters, he surely was not thinking of a journey to Paris on a commercial airline, at a cost of $1,400, following a two-hour wait on the tarmac, in which cocktails on overseas flights are no longer free.
Nor, presumably, was he referring to a 12-hour automobile trek to see friends many kilometers away, seeing the money evaporate as the gas gauge dwindles. And he certainly would not have thought of a “journey” as a simple weekend jaunt across town, or merely across the living room, in the form of a pseudo-respite known as a “staycation” (formerly known as “staying home”).
To most Americans, a summer getaway is a crucial component of the life-work compact: they trade 50 weeks of cubicle-bound servitude for two weeks of sun-dappled bliss, and it seems worth it (well, almost).
But halfway through the 2008 season, vacationers are being squeezed by dismal economic realities: fuel prices that have nearly doubled since the start of last year; airlines that have raised fares 17 percent since the start of the year; a dollar that stands like a pygmy alongside other countries’ currencies.
This summer, the vacation has become a no-win situation: unattainable for those who can’t afford it, dispiriting and unsatisfying for many who can.
“It’s a tremendous disappointment that you’re sort of stuck here,” said Hollister H. Hovey, a public relations executive who lives in Brooklyn in New York City.
She decided to postpone a trip to Scandinavia this summer because of exorbitant air fares and lethal exchange rates.
“I know that travel is a luxury,” she said. “But it really plays on the heart and minds of people, because people need that escape.”
About 4 in 10 Americans said they intended to change travel plans because of escalating costs and rising worries about household finances, according to a recent national survey on summer travel by Y Partnership, a travel services marketing company, in conjunction with the Travel Industry Association.
But generally, people “are trading down, not out,” of the travel market, Peter C. Yesawich, the company’s chairman, said. The most commonly cited change was driving shorter distances to vacation destinations.
Among those who decided to forgo vacation entirely are Winona Dimeo-Ediger, 23, a blogger in Portland, Oregon, and her boyfriend, Nick Castro, 22, a barista at Starbucks. Only a few months ago, they were planning an “epic” summer of travel. They were going to fly to Boston, then to Chicago, and also take a road trip to Montana to revel in “the wide open spaces” of the American West.
Then reality intruded. The couple checked prices for airline tickets to Boston, and found they started at $500, Ms. Dimeo-Ediger recalled. They waited a week, hoping fares would settle back toward earth. Instead, they skyrocketed. So much for Boston. On to Chicago.
“Then the Chicago tickets jumped a couple of hundred dollars,” she said. “Forget Chicago.”
Still, they clung to their Montana road trip. They began to invite “more and more people, to split the cost,” she said. “But then, to make it affordable, it would have been like one of those clown cars - 50 people in a Honda. It wouldn’t have worked.”
They ended up just splitting the cost of a dinner date at a pasta place near their home.
Even travelers who can afford lavish vacations are cutting back because of economic anxiety.
So far this year, business has been good for the Turners of Brentwood, California, where Brinley Turner, 36, runs a socialnetworking start-up and Jason Turner, 40, is the chief executive for a re-insurance company.
But instead of rewarding themselves by spending more than $10,000 on a European vacation, as they typically do, the couple pulled out of a pricey trip to Milan and Crete at the last minute .
Sacrifices like this may seem a small concession in a summer of layoffs and bank failures. But when a vacation disappears, so does an essential family experience, said Susan Sessions Rugh, a history professor at Brigham Young University and the author of “Are We There Yet- The Golden Age of American Family Vacations” (University Press of Kansas, 2008).
The vacation has never just been about fun, she said.
Herding the kids off to see Mount Rushmore or the Eiffel Tower was always a means of re-establishing family bonds and expanding children’s horizons .
In contrast, Ms. Rugh said: “I don’t think anyone’s going to remember a ‘staycation.’ Is anyone going to take pictures- ‘Here’s the kids playing Wii!’ I’d say, cut your budget somewhere else.