Planning vacations can be stressful, especially when your days are limited. Don’t worry; you’re not alone! Many people (including us) face the challenge of balancing their desire to explore the world with limited time off. Fortunately, with some smart planning and a few travel hacks, you can make the most of your limited vacation days and create long lasting memories.
In this blog post, we will share some valuable tips to help you maximize your travel experiences while working with restricted time off!
1. Maximize Your Paid Holidays
This seems obvious, but maximizing your paid holidays are one of the best ways to stretch your limited vacation days. Taking the few days before and after (especially when they’re attached to a weekend) can make it feel like you’re taking more days off than you actually are. Look at this example here:
While you are taking 1 day of PTO, you just made this into a 4-day trip!
2. Extend Business Trips
If your current job has you travel, one of the best ways to maximize your limited vacation days is to extend your business trips. Of course, this can be dependent on where you’re actually going, but if you’re traveling for work 9 out of 10 times there will be other things to do there other than work-stuff.
3. Make the Most out of Long Weekends
If you have a long weekend coming up, you can add 1-2 PTO days to that and voila! You now have a 3-4 day trip, which is a lot of time to do things you want to do. To capitalize even more on your limited time, choose somewhere close in driving distance so your time is spent doing things vs traveling to your destination.
4. Capitalize on Hybrid Work
A lot of companies post-COVID have implemented ‘hybrid’ work into they day-to-day roles. When I say hybrid, I’m talking about having the ability to WFA (work from anywhere) as long as you have access to your laptop. If this sounds like you, capitalizing on hybrid work is a great way to extend your limited vacation days. For example, you can leave after work for a flight, and the next few days WFA at your destination. Once work is over, you’re free to explore and do things at your own leisure.
Something we’ve done before is book a 7 day / 6 night trip to Hawaii without taking any PTO. Because the time difference to Illinois is so different (~5 hours) we can start work at 4a-5a Hawaii time and log off at 12p-1p Hawaii time. Of course, waking up early isn’t for everyone, but you have the rest of the afternoon to go and explore!
5. Incorporate Two Weekends into Your Vacation
This is my favorite tip I’ve learned when booking vacation. When you incorporate 2 whole weekends into your trip, you can extend it by 4 whole days. See the example below:
You’re taking 5 whole PTO days, but with two weekends your trip ends up being 8 whole days with 2 of them being travel days. If you count your travel days, that’s a 10-day trip!
6. Book Your Flights Strategically
This tip can work for anytime you’re looking to travel and is a great way to maximize your paid time off. Here are a few ways to book your flights strategically:
- Always leave for your flight AFTER work so you don’t use any of your PTO days to be on an airplane
- Learn to love red eye flights, so on your way home you land and jump into work without having to use a day for travel
- Book a flight with Wi-Fi, so you can use that flight time to get work done without having to take time off (if your role allows to)
7. Consider Traveling Somewhere Close
When you travel to get away, it doesn’t always have to be on the other side of the world to be considered vacation. Take traveling from Illinois as an example:
- Wisconsin/Michigan Wineries: 1-2 hour drive from Chicago
- New York: 2-2.5 hour flight from ORD
- Austin: 2-2.5 hour flight from ORD
Take a look at the places nearby and make a trip out of it! As long as you have a good time and are taking time away from work, that’s all that matters.
8. Plan in Advance
Lastly, a tip I cannot stress enough, PLAN IN ADVANCE! When it comes to maximizing your PTO, planning in advance is essential to make sure you have enough days for all of the trips you’re planning on taking. By planning in advance, you can also make sure you use all of your days because you’ve earned them!
If you don’t plan in advance, it’s really easy to over-plan and not have enough days throughout the year for the trips you’re planning on taking.
Hope these tips are helpful when thinking about planning your next vacation!
