Many people do not get a lot of vacation days. No matter if you get a lot or a little, there are things you can do to make the most of the ones that you do have. The following are strategies for making your vacation benefits count.
Combine them with other days off
Let’s say you want to take a week vacation. You may want to take your vacation days on a week when you get other freebie days off. For instance, let’s say you normally get the Thursday of Thanksgiving and the Friday afterwards off, as many people do. If you can take the Monday through Wednesday off, you will have only taken three days off of work, but then you can go on a nine-day vacation when you take into account the workweek and surrounding weekends. That will be an excellent return for your vacation days. If you only want to take a day or two off, you could combine it with a different day off and get a four-day weekend with only one day off. This can make it seem like a lot for very little.
Take little trips
Sometimes people take days off, but they do not do much with it. If you can, you might want to take a small vacation to make it very special. It can be a little driving trip. If you live near a theme park area then you can travel there. If you have family not too far away then you can do that. You do not necessarily need to spend a lot of money to get away for a few days. You can even do something relatively low cost like go camping if it is a good time of year. Just doing something special can make your vacation days seem worth a lot.
Break it up into half days if you are allowed
Some people would prefer to break their vacation days into half days. They may even be able to break it down into individual hours. Let’s say you can leave work two hours early four times for one single vacation day. Each of those days might seem so easy since you are leaving two hours early and between all four you only use up one vacation day. Only certain jobs will offer this flexibility, however, but it can be a good way to make your vacation benefits count.