By JUAN DE JESÚS BREENE

We all know about vacations (and, boy, do we need them), and staycations (those quick little getaways right in your own city but at a posh resort hotel).

But have you heard of daycations?

Because many Pulse News Mexico readers are expats, I figured I’d breach the subject.

Just the fact alone of living in another country can often produce stress, known by the fancy clinical term as a bad-Mexico day.

Other readers, like me, are Mexican citizens, but we all have stressful times.

Surprisingly cheaper than you might think, many hotels across Mexico offer something called daycations. (Yes, it sounds like a made-up word, but it actually exists.)

High-end hotels are filled during the weekday with corporate guests paying $300 or $400 a night for a room.

But those same rooms are basically empty on weekends because  tourists can usually not shell out that kind of cash.

So, as a way to bring in extra income, through third parties that specialize in marketing the daycations, the hotels offer amenities at certain times of the year and on certain days of the week for guests to come and spa, relax, work out, swim, write, eat or even sleep for a few hours. (Some will actually give you a room, but you obviously cannot stay overnight.)

Every set up is different. Some packages include food, certain types of massages, with a host of other services available for extra pay a la carte.

You can even avoid the middle man who promotes the day packages by going directly to your favorite hotel and asking for yourself.

The range of packages out there vary greatly, but seem to hover at around $80 for an eight- to 10-hour getaway.

A daycation can be a great gift to yourself, or even better, to a friend, especially those for whom it is impossible to buy a gift.