Before I moved to Miami, I had a traditional 9-5 office job and still managed to travel frequently and would constantly get questions as to how I would make it happen. It helped that I would get about 3 weeks of vacation a year plus our employer would bundle our sick days with our vacation days which for me meant I could combine them to make about a month worth of vacation days. This was already a win for me. Now the trick was to make that work to my advantage even more.
First of all, please keep in mind that I was a single woman with no children and was not in a relationship which meant I could just pick up and leave whenever I wanted to. This might not work for other people that have a family with kids since I am aware it becomes much harder. For example, I never understood coworkers that were moms and would take a week off from work just to stay at home with kids. To me, that was a waste of good vacation days, but to each their own and I suppose I’ll understand when I have kids. Until then, I use every single day I am given for vacation.
With that said, here are my 3 tips to make vacation trips happen when working a traditional full-time job.
1. Combine company holidays with vacation days.
Every employer gives a certain amount of paid holidays a year. I believe that they’re about 11 a year give or take. Work them in your favor. Most of them fall on a Monday so you can take a long weekend trip without even having to take any actual paid vacation days. This works best for places that aren’t too far from where you live. If you decide for a place that’s a little further away, use company holidays in conjunction with vacation days that way you end up using at least one vacation day less but still get paid for it. This can either be taking a Friday off or a Tuesday off (if the holiday is Monday). Personally, I always preferred after the holiday because you don’t get that travel rush either way of your travel. Over the Christmas holiday, you can easily take two weeks off and only use max 3 days of vacation time off because most employers give several days of paid holidays during those two weeks.
2. Don’t use your sick days unless it’s extremely necessary.
This works best when and if your employer (like mine) bundles them together because if you don’t use a sick day, you could use it as a vacation day. Be very picky with your days and never use them as a day to run errands or for doctor appointments. Run your errands on the weekends or nights and if it’s a doctor’s appointment, most employers are lenient with this. I would, for example, schedule my appointments around lunch time and just tell my manager I’d be taking a little longer because of such appointment. I’d make it to my appointment, buy lunch on the way back and eat it in the office. That way I wouldn’t have to take any time or days off. Or I would schedule them around 4pm which was an hour before my scheduled leave of 5pm so I would just leave early and since I was salary and not hourly based, I wouldn’t have to make it up. If you’re hourly based (like I was in the previous job), ask to make up that time you take off on another day, whether it’s coming in early or staying a little later in the afternoon. You could even split it throughout the week. For example, if you took 3 hours off one day, instead of making up those 3 hours another day, make up 1 hour a day for 3 days. The point is to work with what you have so you avoid taking days off.
3. Save the bulk of vacation days for longer trips.
Being picky with your vacation days means that you’ll have more left over for longer trips. I would do one long trip a year (usually 2 weeks long) and take many smaller trips throughout the year which meant that when it came to an actual long vacation, I had many days to work with. And even then, I would try to work it so I wouldn’t have to take all of those days as vacation days. Remember to include the weekends as vacation days, too, so you end up using less vacation days. Also, if it’s a far away trip, use the weekend for travel time so you don’t waste vacation days just traveling. I was so good at managing them that by the end of a few years, I had several days left over which meant I could roll them into next year and had more to work with the following year. This was especially good if I was planning a longer trip the following year or taking 2 long trips. Some people like to cash them out. I don’t. I use them what they’re meant for: vacation days.
The most important thing to remember is that you’re entitled to them no matter how guilty taking them might make you feel. That’s why they give them to you. You deserve them so take them and enjoy them. Some time off from work is always recommended and needed to come back refreshed to tackle the job again. That is, until the next trip! They balance each other out because you work better knowing you have a trip coming up and vice versa: you work better when coming back from a trip cause you’ve relaxed your mind. Emails and workload can wait. Take those vacation days!
