Reminder: Start Planning Your Vacation Now
Today is the national weekend plan , so expand your calendar and start flipping through these travel guides. You don’t want those precious vacation days to be wasted just because you were too busy before organizing the well-deserved R and R’s.
I was reminded of today, my favorite holiday of phony marketing gimmicks, by travel expert Samantha Brown. In aYouTube video from Project: Time Off (see above), Brown shares some disturbing data about Project: Time Off . For example, 54 percent of Americans left 662 million vacation days unused in 2016. That’s roughly 1.8 million years of time they didn’t spend sipping margaritas or visiting their grandmother. I never expected the travel host I used to watch on TV after school to scold me for not taking enough leave ( passport to Europe with someone Samantha ?), But here we are – and she’s right …
Why is it important to plan your vacation in advance? First, the more notifications you give to work, the less nervous you will be about actually wasting the allotted days. Research like this one in the Netherlands shows that people find their vacation more enjoyable and rejuvenating when their free time is free of stress. Planning early will also save you tons of money in the long run. Between hotels, events and flights: the sooner you can organize events, the better for your wallet. Airbnb is even trying to get the attention of those reluctant to plan. Recently, they’ve started allowing guests to play less ahead of time when booking , making the service more like a hotel. The site allows guests to book in advance without a minimum of headache should their plans fail at the last minute, and helps hosts not lose advance bookings from “cash-flow-sensitive guests”.
So it’s time guys. Pick a destination (it might be home), set a goal for your free time (it might just be relaxing), give yourself enough time to allow your free time to drown ( eight days or so should do this ), and give yourself extra a daily buffer just in case (in the worst case, you have an extra day to just relax and prepare for your return to work).