My husband only gets three weeks vacation a year. How do you decide where and how to spend your vacation time?This year , we are spending the whole time going to las vagas to MN. I am looking foreward to that trip, of course, but then sad that the rest of the year we won't be going anywhere at all.There are so many great places to visit.

Melissa

The obvious response to me is: Don't take the 3 weeks all at one time; split it up.

melissa - lots of people only get two weeks vacation per year. The way to get more out of it is to do a series of mini-vacations tied in to holidays/days off work. For instance take Memorial day week or Labor day week etc and you've used only 8 days off for 2 11-day vacations.

Those are all good ideas. Another is to do one "big" week-long trip, then take a day or two here and there to do short three- and four-day trips out of town. I do it all the time: Take Friday off, pack up the car, drive down to San Diego or over to Palm Springs. Or hop a plane to Vegas or San Francisco. Even a big "mini-vacation" to NYC or Phillie can be wonderful (since they are cities I go to all the time, mini-vacs are perfect).

I only get 3 weeks of vacation per year, but I've found if I combine it with holidays and over weekends, I can stretch that 3 weeks into something longer. Also, for a while I just didn't have the funds to take longer vacations and I managed to save up some time. So now, while I get 3 weeks per year, I have over 6 weeks on the books so planning vacations is not a problem. This works if your employer allows one to accumulate time. Some don't, so you have to plan wisely but it can be done.

My husband only gets 10 days of vacation a year, after working for his company for over 10 years! (I think that should be illegal, but that's another post!) We usually take half that time to visit relatives on the east coast, the other 1/2 for a "fun" vacation. And like the others said, lots of 3 day weekend mini trips. I wouldn't take all three weeks at a time unless it was for a trip to Europe...and even then, I'd utilize weekends and legal holidays to make it more around 2 weeks of vacation days...

I feel very lucky because I get three weeks paid vacation per year, plus 10 paid holidays and 2 floating days; my team also gets one week of "comp time" (aka paid week off) if we ship our product on time. That's quite a motivaton to get the work done! I also use holidays to extend my vacations which helps a lot. But I've been trying to carry over at least two days per year in preparation for a long trip to the South Pacific or Europe -- hopefully next spring.

Bear in mind that your husband will (hopefully) be accruing vacation time, so as you use up a day, he will be "replacing" it bit by bit every day he goes into work. And if he works extra hours here and there, he may be able to arrange for "comp" time; I do that for my employees (one guy came in for 4 hours on a Sunday-- he gets a half-day comp time, between him and me).

It's not hopeless-- and using holidays to "stretch" those vacation blocks becomes a creative exercise you will end up enjoying!

I agree with the other posters; adding days on to weekends can make for more trips. I get four weeks, but still break it up so I can get out of town more often. Next month I'm going to Paris for five days, but am only using three vacation days (leave Wednesday night, get back late Monday night). I usually try to take five or six trips a year - one international if possible, one or two U.S., and several long weekend trips. Don't know what I'd do if I didn't have a trip somewhere to look forward to!

We too have reached the 3 week vacation and are taking a longer cruise than we normally do. We're doing the 12 day northern Europe cruise in August. We're staying in London for 2 nights pre-cruise and visiting 6 Scandanavian capitals. So we're satisfied with 7 different locales albeit brief ones, in one trip. We also have comp time here and there and combine that with holidays for short ski trips. Good thread!

I don't know about you guys but while I was working, there is no way I could take more than a week of vacation at a time.

Three weeks at one time? I'd lose my job. Comp time? That's funny. As a salaried manager, it was an extremely rare occurance that I worked under 55 hours per week.

The only employees I know that can take more than 5 working days off at a time for something other than a wedding (self) or death, are government employees.

Speaking from the "professional services" angle -- most firms (law, accounting, consulting, etc.) encourage 2 week vacations as most people get extremely burnt out during the year. Of course, you are encouraged to take these vacations when business is relatively slow -- i.e., July/August or around Christmas.

I only get two weeks vacation a year, so I am envious of three! Take long weekends, combine them with holidays, that's how we do it.

I agree with the rest of the pack. The ONLY time we took 3 weeks of vacation at the same time was once for Europe. By taking Fridays and Mondays off, you can have a lot of travel time over the year. And yes Go Travel, who wants to come back to 3 weeks of work to catch up on!

I only get 10 vacation days a year, plus about 10 paid holidays. We generally try to take 1 week off for a vacation and then 3-4 day weekends throughout the year.

I should ammend my previous post. We're not actually taking a full 3 weeks, just slightly over 2. However, if we didn't have 3 weeks vacation; it would be impossible to go on a 12-night European cruise considering flight time, jet lag, etc.

When DH got 2 weeks vacation we would go on a long 2 week trip. Once he hit 3 weeks of vacation we would go away for 3 weeks. Once he hit 4 weeks we went away for 4 weeks.....see the pattern. A few times we carried over vacation and have taken 5+ week vacations. When you drive cross country or to Alaska you need that amount of time. For us it takes almost a week to really get into the groove of vacation.

DH now earns 5+ weeks, management leave days and floating holidays. We now have to divide up the time so we can make trips out to see our Grandson.

Utahtea

Oh,man...I used to have three weeks of vacation a year, and my old company took every single holiday there was. "Only?" Melissa B., now that I work for another company, I only have 10 days and we only take retail holidays.

When I had 3 weeks vacation, I'd blow it all at once and go to Europe. Vegas is one of those places you go over a long weekend, IMHO, and I looove Vegas.

GoTravel, I know PLENTY of employees who can take several consecutive vacation weeks at a time. Some of my co-workers have done just that to go to Peru, Spain, and other spots. And many of my friends at other companies have taken 2+ weeks off for trips (honeymoons or long trips to Europe or the South Pacific). As long as you give plenty of advance notice, it's generally not a problem. At my previous job, I took 3+ weeks off two years in a row to go to Scotland for the theatre festival; I actually had to request some of it as non-paid time, but my bosses ended up paying me anyway! Not bad, although I was working for practically nothing at the time.
I don't like to go away for more than 12 days, usually. But I tend to go to ONE spot and really get to know it; none of those "10 cities in 14 days!" itineraries.

My husband gets 5 weeks paid per year and I get 4 (plus 1 comp day for every weekend day I work- trade shows, etc.). It's very nice but neither of us ever seem quite able to take so much time off, and hardly ever more than a week at a time.