We have twins and always take a ski trip out West in the winter and an international trip over the summer. We also go on a couple of local long weekend trips here and there. It’s important for us to make memories and have these experiences with the kids because they grow up so quickly.

Fed here: my agency doesn’t let us access email or any other resources outside CONUS. I plan overseas trips now because I literally cannot work while I’m on vacation.

We travel all the time. Typically two international trips (spring break and summer) and a couple of domestic trips (NYC, NOLA, Chicago) every year. When I’m busy, I’m extremely busy (8-10 hour days for a month straight), but then I’m really slow. So we plan trips for the slow periods.

My spouse works in higher education at a top university (not faculty) and basically every vacation we schedule they have either been called back in or worked a large portion of our vacation. There have been a few vacations where they shut off (and no one contacted their personal cell) and those have been nice.


I have friends in Europe and Australia who take a month off in the summer and time off throughout the year. They don’t respond and fully go away. I wish Americans would do this more.

We "vacation" lately to out of state sports tournaments. Still time off work for pleasure, but different phase of life.

We prioritize vacations but it can be hard in a lot of US jobs because of how limited PTO is. TBH, we currently only vacation regularly because I'm self-employed and am willing to work on vacation sometimes in order to facilitate us actually doing it. DH works for the government and has tons of PTO, so my job has always been the limiting factor -- before I decided to go freelance, I was always running out of days off. There were multiple spring breaks where DH took the kids for a long weekend and I stayed back and worked because I didn't have the days off after taking time off for the holidays and wanting to save some up for summer.

When we talk about me going back to a regular job working for someone else, the loss of vacation time is a big factor. Kids are only young for so long, I want to make these memories with them now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:50% of americans have less than $500 in their savings account. Most americans can't afford to vacation.

Did you know that 85% of statistics like this are totally fabricated?

You didn't even bother to look it up did you.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/24/how-much-money-americans-have-in-savings.html#:~:text=How%20much%20money%20Americans%20have%20in%20their%20savings%20accounts,half%20have%20less%20than%20$500&text=Nearly%20half%20of%20Americans%20have,re%20able%20to%20build%20one.

Anonymous wrote:50% of americans have less than $500 in their savings account. Most americans can't afford to vacation.

Did you know that 85% of statistics like this are totally fabricated?

50% of americans have less than $500 in their savings account. Most americans can't afford to vacation.

IDK about "most" but there are many, many people in America who work 6 or 7 days a week for months or years on end.

Most people I know vacation once per year.
Common vacations would be Florida, a long weekend in a different city, camping by a national park, a cruise, or an all-inclusive in Mexico or the Caribbean.
It was only when my kids went to a wealthier school that I saw the crazy amount of traveling rich people do and developed FOMO.
Like spring break in Portugal, summer in Coeur d'Alene, Columbus day in NOLA, another summer trip to Curaçao, London for a long weekend, New Year's in Rome (this was one family I know. Hi guys!)
Very few people can do this.

To answer your question, yes. It is common to vacation rarely.

I know several people who don’t have PTO - self employed or hourly workers - and they take as many vacations as I do.

Between getting sick in post Covid era, taking care of sick kids, dental appt and healthcare needs, my 25 days of vacation gets eaten up quickly. I am privileged that I make good money for any luxury vacation I want but it’s just hard to get to it. If I do take a stay cation, I end up cooking and cleaning and squeeze in a workout.

I don't mean expensive travel vacations, like cruises or luxury beach houses or fancy trips abroad... but even like camping trips, road trips to visit family, or even staycations at home. Anything that's a week or more when you're not working and not primarily a federal holiday.

I'm realizing that I may be very privileged here, but for the past 10 years of my adult gainful employment professional life, no matter how entry-level or low-paying the job, I always had PTO, and I always used it. I'd take a week or so to visit some friends or hang out with family or go camping. I didn't feel irresponsible, financially or professionally, in doing so. And before that, I was in Europe, and had much longer vacations where I got to do pretty much whatever (on a shoestring budget nonetheless). My parents were in academia so that also skewed my perceptions a bit.

Yet here I'm realizing that most of the people in my life rarely go on actual vacations. They have PTO that gets swallowed up by being sick, taking care of sick kids, taking care of errands, or maybe the odd mental health day here and there. But going on a vacation, leaving town or staycation for a week or more, is not a regular annual thing. Often times they feel like they'll miss out on too much at work or fall behind if they do. This to me is very depressing. Does nobody in this country ever really fully disconnect from their jobs?