Your vacation-how is it spent?

[shootingstar]

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.

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. 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.