Your vacation-how is it spent?

[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

[Flur]

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.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

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.

[singletrackmind]

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.

[shootingstar]

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

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.

[Veronica]

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

[kiwi girl]

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

[GraysonKelly]

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

[Miranda]

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.

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.