Your vacation-how is it spent?

Strange predictament...but now I'm in a strange position where I have less than 1 wk. left to identify date blocks of vacation days until the end of 2009. Due to initial period of probation as a new employee, I cannot go on vacation until 6 months after my anniversary.

This means killing off my vacation days later. I can only carry over 35 unused vacation hrs. into following year.

For me, I usually try to make each vacation day "special", going out of town, or doing things in home town that I find very difficult to schedule or entertaining the rare visitors who have flown in to visit me, during business work days. So far, it's been going out of town but I can't afford do this for every vacation day.

So what percentage of your vacation time annually do you?:

a) Take an out of town trip

b) Stay at home but do something that's difficult to schedule: ie. medical appointment(s), take a course/test, children's event, etc.

c) Entertain visitors from out of town

d) Clean the house, garden, household chores. (someone told me this that she cleaned her house for several hrs.....and frankly I was abit amazed. I would never waste a whole vacation day to do this. But hey, some have busy schedules...)

In recent years it has been taking trips 80% and a couple days around the holidays to relax/refresh. But back when my husband was still in college and I had a "use it or lose it" vacation policy I did take a week off and sat a home. Surprisingly, the "staycations" can be quite nice. When we first moved here we took off my birthday and went to Dave and Busters (an arcade geared towards adults). Last December we took off the middle of the month and went to the zoo, no one was there. I would love to take a vacation day to go hike or mountain bike, the parks and trails are so busy on weekends and I hear it is nice on weekdays when no one is around.

Do you fancy visiting the aquarium or a museum? Taking a day off is a great time to explore your town because most everyone else is stuck at work. ;)

I've only taken about half to two-thirds of my vacation time these past few years. I typically take one week off to go out of town and a handful of random days to stay at home--to ride, work a volunteer event, or get random errands done. This year will probably be much the same way. It's not that I can't take more vacation time, but I generally haven't taken it unless I have something I want/need to do.

I'm in a weird situation. Last year, we relocated across the country. I used a lot of my vacation time from my previous job making that happen (interviews, house hunting, etc). Prior to that, I used vacation time primarily for travel around the holidays or for long bike weekends.

This year, I'm being forced to take ALL the vacation time I have already earned by the end of the first quarter (by the end of March). We have animals (of the farm type) so travel is out. I'm taking basically one day per week just to get stuff done around the house and plan for spring planting. I'll be doing things like tiling the bathroom counters, painting the laundry room, building tables for the greenhouse, pruning trees (though that's mostly a two person job), etc. Of course, these are all things that I really enjoy and wish I had more time to do in my regular life, so I have no problem with using up vacation time for it.

You left out (e) stay at home and do some local sightseeing even though no one is visiting from out of town. Since it's not practical financially to leave town for all your vacation time, I would lean toward this option. It can be a lot of fun.

I spend my vacation time like this:

- 1-2 long trips (1 weekish) to visit family, coinciding with holidays and other special events

- tacking an extra day onto several weekends for family visits. Sometimes making a 4-day weekend out of a holiday like Memorial day, sometimes just turning a regular weekend into a 3-day trip.

- a couple of days off here and there when relatives visit from out of town.

- taking a 1/2 day or full day off for travel to/from out-of-town bike rides.

- miscellanous: I once took 2 days off to participate in the filming of an instructional mountain biking video geared towards women. A few years ago I took a vacation day so I could volunteer to help out with a big emergency drill at the Pentagon.

In my last job I had two weeks of vacation annually and I'd take one week out of town (camping) and one week staying at home. I'd usually take the week off just after the kids started school and I'd clean the house, organize the closets, get caught up with filing, spend some time watching movies and doing hobby stuff, etc. That was always a really nice week--I went back to work feeling relaxed and caught up for a change!

In my current job we get winter break and spring break in addition to our vacation time, so I tend to do the "catching up" during spring break. I still camp for a week but other than that I haven't really figured out what to do with all of my vacation time! I took a cruise with my sister in my first year on the job, and two years ago we did a family trip to Disney World. My husband and I are planning a trip to Ireland and Norway this summer. But even with all of this I'm still maxing out my vacation time each year--we're allowed four weeks (on TOP of spring break and winter break) and I never take more than two, with occasional odd days off here and there for other things.

It's a very nice problem to have.

Sarah

Our vacations have always been active ones for the most part. I don't like to just sit around. We have gone on Hut trips in the winter and backpacking trips in the summers. When I was climbing more we would go on those trips. We spent 1 week up in the Tetons climbing. One year we went to Washington for about 2 weeks. For part of that, about 3 days we climbed Rainier then travel around with lots of stops along the way for hiking. I guess it depends upon your focus. I always prefer to get away from "society" and people..I am a people person, I just like the piece and quiet.:)

I hate having almost all of my time off in the summer. I really liked it when our district was tracked. We had three months on, 1 month off. I was off Oct., Feb and June. It wasn't until the last year or two of that schedule that we actually had money to travel. I've always wanted to go to Australia and New Zealand, but I don't want to be there in their winter.

At Lonely Planet Thom had six weeks of vacation time and that was awesome. At his job prior to that he had 4 or 5 weeks. But he was the head dude so he didn't like to be gone for much more than ten days at a time.

At his current job, he has just three weeks, with no carryover allowed, so we're carefully plotting out how he will use them.

Veronica

We try to take at least one fun trip for a full week each year, and we usually spend almost a full week at DH's parents' house for Thanksgiving. That's about 1/2 our vacation time. The rest of the time is a mix of long weekends entertaining out-of-town guests, long weekends out-of-town for us, or just taking days off to do whatever we want locally. I really love the days off with nothing specific to do - I find that these are the most refreshing.

The economic crisis is certainly going to be affecting the vacation plans of a lot of people. I already know people who have canceled overseas vacation trips that they had booked months ago.

DH and I have been sticking closer to home during our days off over the past two years. We do like to go visit favorite friends for overnight weekends if they live a few hours away- that's cheap and fun. :)

Travel. We do a car camping mountain biking trip to various places in Colorado and Moab, Utah for a little over a week

We also do shorter stuff. This year we're going to try to visit Chicago for a few days, we did the Smithsonian a couple of years ago, stuff like that.

Kid stuff. Mostly for school holidays/events.

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Originally Posted by ny biker

You left out (e) stay at home and do some local sightseeing even though no one is visiting from out of town. Since it's not practical financially to leave town for all your vacation time, I would lean toward this option. It can be a lot of fun.

I spend my vacation time like this:

- 1-2 long trips (1 weekish) to visit family, coinciding with holidays and other special events

- tacking an extra day onto several weekends for family visits. Sometimes making a 4-day weekend out of a holiday like Memorial day, sometimes just turning a regular weekend into a 3-day trip.

- a couple of days off here and there when relatives visit from out of town.

- taking a 1/2 day or full day off for travel to/from out-of-town bike rides.

- miscellanous: I once took 2 days off to participate in the filming of an instructional mountain biking video geared towards women. A few years ago I took a vacation day so I could volunteer to help out with a big emergency drill at the Pentagon.

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You're right, I forgot sightseeing in one's hometown area. Once I took a day off before a weekend to setup an information booth and man it for the start of an annual large bike show for our women's cycling group. It was lots of fun since there's always networking with other folks manning their booths.

I'm like GLC and a few others where I will have earned 18 days by end of 2009. PLUS I am on compressed work schedule, which means getting every 3rd Monday off --an additional 17 days. Yes, it does potentially mean some lovely long weekends, if we make an effort to plan something..

As mentioned earlier I am carrying over a precious 35 hrs., the maximum carry-over ,into next year simply because I can't even begin taking vacation until mid-July.

Now compounded by the fact that it would be nice to coincide my vacation with my partner's availability....except he will be off cycling solo in Europe (for his biz) and then later in fall for 1 wk. in Quebec. It's just the way how life is when 1 person works full-time, and the other is semi-retired with his own biz. There will be 1-2 long weekends where I will be by myself while he's at the tail end of his vacation somewhere else in the world. Life is never totally perfect. Not the end of the world.

Yea, when to take vacation days without wasting them...

In the last few years it has been primarily travel, bike, then local ferry during warmer seasons or take bus somewhere to snowshoe with occasional 1 day car rental for faster sightseeing. Only every few years, it has been plane flight. For local during vacation, it does tend to be outdoor activities since Vancouver area does offer good stuff...if it's not ...raining. We have gone snowshoeing and hiking in the local mountains here..it's only a 45 min. ride by public transportation.

Would agree visiting friends nearby and staying overnight is a great thing to do..now that we do have friends who moved permanently into a new home at a mountain ski resort. :D Still problem of when to structure the vacation dates...

Some years, vacation included entertaining family members visiting us. There's lots of lovely local stuff here to show visitors and we enjoy doing this.

I do foresee wanting to investigate more on intensive art courses or events that involve art. There is alot in the Vancouver area plus on Vancouver Island and in the Gulf Islands. In the past I've just taken the odd art exhibit here and there.

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Originally Posted by Veronica

I hate having almost all of my time off in the summer. I really liked it when our district was tracked. We had three months on, 1 month off. I was off Oct., Feb and June. It wasn't until the last year or two of that schedule that we actually had money to travel. I've always wanted to go to Australia and New Zealand, but I don't want to be there in their winter.

At Lonely Planet Thom had six weeks of vacation time and that was awesome. At his job prior to that he had 4 or 5 weeks. But he was the head dude so he didn't like to be gone for much more than ten days at a time.

At his current job, he has just three weeks, with no carryover allowed, so we're carefully plotting out how he will use them.

Veronica

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Veronica, with your summers off, maybe a nice long bike touring ride where hubby can join you part of the time. I realize part might be solo for you, but seem like a resourceful person and strong rider to handle this if you plot a route well. :)

Oh, I've managed to come up with things to do since I started having summers off. We've actually timed it so that Thom was between jobs in 2005 and 2007. It was great and we did a lot of traveling both times.

Veronica

I do a mixture. I took 3 1/2 weeks off over Christmas/New Year (with the statutory holidays and a close down between Christmas and New Year we get 7 business days off without it coming off our vacation time anyway). I did a lot of 'the whanau thing' (thats NZ speak for family stuff), got back into riding regularly after some time off, did a few jobs around the home and garden. But I also did a lot of nothing (and slept in almost every day) which I really enjoyed.
Having said that I still have 20 days annual leave accrued, and due to a change in policy have found out I have the bonus of 5 days long service leave owing as well so I have lots of opportunity to take a few trips away later in the year. BF and I might do this again in April http://www.centralotagorailtrail.co.nz/ and an old friend from high school and I are going to have five days in Melbourne to celebrate our 40th birthdays later in the year

We usually take one week long vacation once a year. Our schedules don't really coincide much and it's easier for her to take time off than me. That said, I work 12 hour shifts so I only work 3 days a week. But if I take time off other than that, it's usually because I have to make sure that I can't be moved to that day if there is something planned. For instance, last year I had to take 2 vacation days to make sure that I would not get moved to the day before and after my niece's first birthday. If I take any other time off, it is usually only a day so that I can decompress. You wouldn't think my job would be all that stressful but it is. Right now vacations are planned around DP's schedule, but in 2010 I'll be saving every last bit of time I can so that I can have a total of 2 weeks off to do the Lifecycle ride. That's going to take some serious thinking and planning, but I am so stoked about the ride.
Good luck on planning your time. I hope you get to relax and enjoy.
Gray

My DH is all about travel and hotels. If he can't go somewhere, he doesn't feel like it's a vacation. Though work has him to always take his lap top and Blackberry and work some anyway. He has even lost vacation time off as he won't take off if not going away:eek:.

We've cut back from hotels where we ate out to a condo style with a kitchette. The kids are happy this way. They don't have to sit still through the meal as in a resturant and it's cheaper.

Camping is something else that cheaper as well. It's a lot of work setting up camp, but it's still getting away.

If I were you... I would not/ could not stay home and do chores. Unless it makes you feel better they are done.

If not even spending $ to stay out of town etc., pack up and go window shopping for a day.

Hmm... maybe a road trip to an out of town bike shop you don't frequent;). Even if you don't buy something, it is different than what you normally do. And part of vacation to ME is that you "get away" from the usual daily grind:).