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So you have a big travel bucket list and you can’t wait to start checking places off!  I know.  It’s so fun to plan trips.  In fact, to me, planning my trips is almost as much fun as actually going on the trip itself.  I think it’s the anticipation of all the cool stuff that I’ll see and do.  Also, a huge part of the anticipation is the anticipation of not being at work!  If you’re like a lot of people, including me, you have a full-time job that requires you to be mostly at the office 5 days a week.  And, you only get so much vacation every year.  I hear ya!  I’m in the same boat.

I hear about these people that never use all their vacation and end up giving some of it back to the company.  That’s not me.  I use ALL my vacation days.  EVERY one.  And I always wish I had more so I could travel more.  I’ve done some serious thinking about how to get the most out of my allotted time off and have come up with creative ways to travel more.

TIME TO TRAVEL!

This year, I’ve taken 6 different trips and had a stay-cation at home.  In 2019, so far I’ve been to the Dominican Republic; Boca Raton, FL (twice); Delray Beach, FL; Biloxi, MS; and Athens, GA.  Plus I took a week off just to chill at home.  I really wanted to re-live my New York City experience, which was so fun and inexpensive but it just didn’t pan out so I took a week off just to chill at home instead.  And I have a couple more potential trips in mind to close out the year.  Not too shabby considering I don’t have unlimited vacation days!  With some careful planning, it’s possible to travel more and still keep your job.

 

How To Travel More

• Negotiate with your boss to make up time.  If you’re a really good worker when you’re at work, then chances are your boss likes you.  And if your boss likes you, she’ll be more apt to be flexible when it comes to taking time off.  If you want to take a trip but don’t want to use those precious vacation days, negotiate with your boss to make up the time you  take off.  Maybe you take off 1-2 days and then make up that time by working through lunches or working a few hours on Saturday.
• Negotiate for more vacation time.  This year I felt I deserved a raise so I created talking points about why I should get a raise and scheduled a meeting with my boss.  She was in agreement that I did deserve a raise, but her hands were tied as there was a company wide freeze on any compensation changes.  Knowing that she agreed that my performance was stellar, I approached her with the idea of a few more vacation days in lieu of a raise at that time.  She agreed!  So it’s a win-win.  She gets to make me happy without costing the company any hard dollars; and I get more vacation days so I can travel more!

More Ways to Negotiate for More Travel

• Negotiate with your boss to work from vacation.  This one has also worked for me on a few different occasions.  This Spring, I had a few personal trips back to back that I wasn’t going to miss.  All of them were to watch my son’s tournaments so there was no way I wasn’t going to be there.  I had plenty of vacation days since it was still early in the year, but I didn’t want to use all my vacation in the first quarter.  Plus,  I had things I had to get done for my clients.  So,  I decided to see if I could work for 1/2 days on my travel days (what else is there to do while sitting in the airport, anyway?).  So on my flight days, I worked from the airport for about 4 hours each day and saved a day of vacation.  During the trip I also logged into my laptop most days.  Usually I’d send  emails most days, dialed into conference calls and did other basic work stuff.  All told, this added up to another 8 hours = another vacation day saved!

Make Comp Time Your Time

• Negotiate for comp time for extra hours worked.  If you are working a special project, or working long hours just because business is booming, negotiate to get some of that time back in the form of comp time.   See if your manager will grant you one hour comp time for each hour worked over your normal required hours.   If your manager won’t go for that, then try 50% comp time for each hour worked.  I’ve been able to negotiate for comp time when my office had a special project that needed to be done within a certain time frame.  No one wanted to do it so I decided to approach my boss with a comp-time-pay-plan and it worked!

Other Creative Strategies to Travel More

• Take Long Weekends.  You want to do a 5 day trip but don’t have 5 days of vacation to burn?  Simple.  Take a long weekend and use Saturday & Sunday as part of your vacation.  It’s a no-brainer, but I can’t believe how many people don’t think about doing this.  I see my co-workers agonize over using 5 days of vacation when they could easily change their plans to include Saturday & Sunday, thus saving 2 days of vacation.

• Use evenings for travel.  I do this one a lot.  Why burn up a whole day travelling when you can drive or fly out after work?  I like to have my bags packed and then once I’m off work head to the airport for my flight.  Even with a connection, I always get where I’m going by 11:00 or so, which isn’t really that late.  That allows me to get to the hotel or airb&b by midnight.  Even after unwinding, I can easily get a good 8 hours of sleep and still get up by 9 or so to start my first full day of vacation.
• Use holidays.  If you work in banking or government then chances are you get a few non-traditional holidays off.  These might include Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, President’s Day, Arbor Day, Veteran’s Day.  Use these days to add to your scheduled vacation days.  Same goes for the traditional holidays.  Just make sure if you’re flying that you book your flight early!  Flights around any holiday always fill up extremely quick.

Make Business FUN

• Extend your business trip.  If you have a conference somewhere you want to visit from a personal standpoint, tack on a few days of vacation after your conference ends.  Typically this will be a great deal financially as well.  Because, your company is paying for at least part of your flight (try to get them to pay for the entire round trip ticket).  And,  your company is paying for your hotel stay while you’re at the conference.  So,  you’ll only have to pay for your hotel a couple of days.  And, if you do it right you might be able to get a free stay and maybe a portion of the flight home.

Fun in New Orleans

My husband had a business trip to New Orleans.   I met him in New Orleans and hung out for a few days exploring the city while he was working.  Then, when the conference was over, we stayed for a couple more days and flew home together.  All we had to pay for was my flight.  He got a per diem each day of the conference, so we used that money to pay for most of our food.  It was one of the most fun trips I’ve been on.  If you haven’t been to New Orleans, you must go!

 

• Take advantage of company policy for unpaid time off.  If you get one bucket of PTO (Paid Time Off), it goes without saying to try to use it all for travel!  If you’re not feeling the best, power through and go to work anyway.  As as long as you won’t be infecting all your co-workers, you should be fine.   Just get through the day if you can so you can use your precious PTO for FUN!

Now that you know how to rack up more vacation days, put these tips into play so you can travel more, too.

What are your strategies to get more travel in?

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