Ask HN: How many vacations do you take a year?
Also do you take extended periods of time like 15-20 days, or small periods like 5-days? And also what kind of things do you usually do? Travel, visit family, work in side projects, etc
I'm curious to see if there are great differences between people located in different parts of the world, who work in startups vs in more established companies, etc
58 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 140 ms ] threadBy law you are granted 25 days vacation per year, assuming you have worked enough to "earn them", generally you get 12.5-13.x% extra salary per day worked that goes towards your vacation.
The law also says that you have a right to 4 weeks uninterrupted vacation during the June, July and August. At least two months before the (requested) vacation you must get a definitive decision. The employers are not allowed, by law, to change their mind about granted vacation time.
I believe I saw a study that recommended shorter, more frequent, vacations as the best way to recover from mental fatigue but I assume that there is a lot of opposing opinions on that matter.
I've always been surprised at how little people get in the US. Given that it's a wealthy nation it seems to lag considerably behind European countries in this regard.
So now it's a 28 day minimum, of which 8 are usually bank holidays and 20 free to pick.
Many Swedes have summer houses that they go to during the summer when the kids are on summer break from school. There is also a so called "Industrial Vacation" during July, where many companies at least partially close for a month, this is especially true for manufacturing.
Another interesting fact about Swedish law is that you are free to leave your job for further education if you want. Max 6 months and when you come back, the employers is required by law that you recieve the same sort of job tasks and the same amount of pay of course.
The employer has the right to decide when you may leave for max 6 months ahead in the future.
As for myself, I find that I don't manage to totally disconnect from all things work until nearly a week of vacation, so even 9 full days (which is what you get when you take an entire week off) is kind of "not enough" because you only really enjoy that for 2 or 3 days.
That lasted for about 10 years, but I've slowed down a bit now.
These days I seldom take more than six weeks truly "off", with all tools down and no hours billed. Instead I tend to move around to places that have the things I want to do, set up shop, and do my "vacationing" on nights, weekends, and the odd afternoon off. There are cheap-ish rental houses/apartments with good wifi pretty much everywhere in the world now. If you can work remote, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be working remote. Like, all the time.
It actually works out pretty well this way. I get way more climbing/surfing in than I used to when I was contracting in LA to save for the next trip, and I get to have a house with an office, comfy couch, etc.
Thank you, software industry, for making us pretty much the only class of individual on the planet who can pull this off!
I'm a technical PM so I tend to have to be on site for contracts and yet to find a remote PM role. That aside though I'm getting back to more coding these days so hope to be able to work remotely in the future.
Keep in mind, that your taxable income for the year will likely be less than $20k, so most of your paycheck while you're living cheaply will go straight towards travel expenses for the next lap.
Personally, I liked 3 month contracts. I usually ended up saving a lot more than I could possibly spend on the road.
Topic: I have something like a lifestyle SaaS business, but I'm mainly at home and take a week or two off whenever I want (and other people have time). For example, last week, I went snowboarding in France for a week.
In 2013, I spent about 8 weeks in total in other places (US, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey).
In 2012, I traveled for 6 months around the world with my girlfriend.
On extended trips, when I hit Europe (and thus needed to camp at climbing areas), I'd spin the $12/day rental car past a Decathlon and pick up a $20 sleeping bag, $40 tent, and $1.99 giant inflatable pool toy mattress to serve as the envy of the entire campground. Everybody else has stoves and cookware, so that part's sorted. And when it comes time to fly home, some lucky dirtbag gets a bunch of free gear.
This year, I'm going to make sure I have at least a couple of full weeks off.
A 4 week long trip every 6months or so, though the last trip was 10 weeks.
3 to 4 weekend city breaks per year, most usually geared around a sporting event, festival or a friends Stag/Bachelor party.
Next big trip is a month in Brazil for the World Cup in June. Aside from that Roland Garros in May and Oktoberfest in September.
I was in Bangkok during the riots a few years ago and then Crete during the Greek ones, just being sensible helps you navigate around those sort of things.
Luckily IT companies can often manage a few days without you.
Best of luck with the startup and do enjoy vacations, or at least long weekends, from time to time.
I usually take 3 vacations(2x15 Days, 1x7 days), they are divided into some travel, visiting family/friends, some spiritual activity, etc.
Mygola also has one cool perk called workation when entire team travel while also keep working(work+vacation).
I have left about 20, which I like to take in August (like most of the other employees) for a long vacation abroad, having one month a year when I can completely disconnect and still getting paid it's a real luxury.
Other than my one big trip, I usually only take a Friday off here or there. Maybe only 2 or 3 of those per year.
We get 25 days by law, that's for employees who do the 35-hour workweek. Then people who do more than 35 hours (that is, people who don't follow the fixed 35-hour model) get more days depending on the sector / company.
I get a total of 38 days per year, so that's about 7 and a half weeks. (Yes that's a lot but has to be compared to my average 55-hour workweek.) I work at a large retail corporation.
I take 2 long breaks every year, 2 to 3 weeks each : - one in March/April where I like to travel far from the French winter, preferably in a sunny and warm tropical country - one in August/September, the destination depending on opportunities and remaining budget after the March break ;)
During these breaks, I do a lot of sightseeing (both scenic and cultural spots), days are generally busy but relaxed at the same time - what you don't see this time, you'll see next time. And I sleep a lot, too.
Other than these long breaks, I take a few days off around Christmas/New Year, and I use the remainder for some Mondays/Fridays off. That's when I visit family or just do the things I don't have time to do on regular week-ends.
(Edited for spelling)
In Australia, it's only 4 weeks off, plus you kind of have to take 2 weeks to visit your family back in Europe for Christmas, so in the end I couldn't visit Australia while I was working there (reason #6 why I left). Fortunately I had taken a gap year to go farming around the continent, and i'll probably keep the idea of a 6-month break every 3 years.
I find that short holidays = unhappy employees, pressure to prevent them from taking unpaid leave, and that ends up in the sick leave being high. It's unfortunate.
#1 3 years in Australia = Time to open a new chapter: I want to be a product manager and I wasn't on the rails,
#2 Stress due to unhealthy working hours,
#3 Air conditioning in buses and offices,
#4 No snowboard or windsurf in Sydney (If you enjoy surf you'll be just fine),
#5 Stress due to the immigrant visa,
#6 Not enough holidays,
#7 Sydney drivers. I think Melbourne has the stereotypical friendly Australian lifestyle and Sydney is more a capital/immigrant city. But Sydney has the beaches. And Melbourne the windsurfers. #hardtochoose
#8 Cost of living (With twice my French salary, I barely saved the same amount per year)
To make it fair, I'll mix it with the upsides:
# Hypercool working culture, awesome knowledgeable colleagues,
# The Sydney IT scene is alive, knowledgeable and dynamic,
# Nice parties at work (beer on tap in the office),
# Sun all-year-round, beach culture, nice dates (ey, that's important),
# Multicultural environment,
# Agile culture, a crazy lot to learn at the workplace...
# The border police saying "I like your Angry Nerds t-shirt. Welcome to Australia."
So here's my advice: Like everyone, have your target workplace pay for your move to Australia and host you for the first month. Apply for Permanent Residency as soon as you touch base (or before if you can). Once you have PR, get a good salary and/or change company. Be excellent at work. Go there if you're not addicted to mountaineering. And remember immigrating isn't easy: During the first months you feel lonely and disoriented (as in, people have values you're not used to, and the ones you do have mean nothing to them), it may take up to 2 years to get used to the new culture. After 2 years, you learn what you're going to take away from that culture and it enriches you. Best of luck adaml!
# Sun all-year-round, beach culture, nice dates. This is really really important. Unfortunately the European countries that can offer Sun almost-all-year-round and beach culture have a big economic crisis.
The article says "Pedestrian safety has improved a lot since we fine more heavily for jaywalking", "but some pedestrians still don't get the message", "they use iPods and similar devices", and similar stories placing the pedestrian at fault. This uneducated thought comforts drivers in dangerous driver behaviours. Instead, in Melbourne, I had a case of an (occupied) taxi thought I wanted to cross and stopped. There wasn't even a zebra. This is what I'd call "classy".
Used to go in for rather more varied adventures before we had a kid. However, he is mid teens so we are starting to look at getting back to more varied stuff rather than focusing on holidays with great child care/entertainment.
I work for a UK based multinational - 33 days paid leave.
Here for permanent positions you get 24+ days off but as a freelancer I obviously don't get any vacation unless I take a few days off myself.
- Usually every 1.5 years ~10-14 days: traveling in Europe - Every 3-4 years ~20 days: traveling outside of Europe - In addition to that I take a Friday off every ~2 months for a long weekend with the family, visiting places in Germany
I do my side projects at night and on the weekends, if the family allows me to. I outsource A LOT, so I think I actually get a decent amount of work done.
In Germany we have lots of official holidays so we get an extra day off here and there. The official "calculation" is ~220 working days per year (for permanent positions).
I try not to work on side projects during vacations. It's mostly about travel or doing something I haven't done before.
Vacations are a strict "no Internet" policy for me, to the extent that I can manage that. I usually cave and will leave notifications on my phone on, so I'm not as pure about it as I'd like to be.
Regular employees here are entitled to 20 days of vacation, or 25 for those who are 33 or older. In addition to that, there are 15 days of public holidays (that includes New Year's Day, 2 days Easter, 3 days of Christmas, plus other holidays such as Constitution Day, and so on). You have to negotiate with the employer when do you take your holidays, and employer has the right to specifically tell you when to take half of those days.
As for me, I am a freelancer, and I like to travel a lot around Europe. Usually for 1 - 2 weeks, with first week off and the second week I work at the location and let my wife and little boy enjoy the warm weather for a bit longer. In the recent years we never took holidays during July/August, because we like to travel a bit more off-season, when the sun is still (or already) warm enough to still have a great time.
Last year I was to USA (10 days), Mallorca/Ibiza (14 days), Greece (4 days), a bit around the country for a few days, and during winter I tend to take every 3rd weekend or so to go to skiing. That sums up to around 30+ days/year.
This year, my plan is to mainly have active vacations, travelling & working, Thailand for a few months, and some mountain during winter for a few months.
We will typically squeeze in a few four day weekend as well at other points in the year. If I've burned all my vacation time on our road trip, I'll just condense my work weeks.
You can choose to "sell" 10 of those 30 days and work (getting paid your normal wage plus the vacation money), but you HAVE to take the other 20 days off.
If you choose to take the 30 days, you can split them in two periods. If you split them in 12 and 18 days, you can put your vacation days between weekends and effectively get 5 weeks off.
Of course, that's for regularly employed (meaning "working for someone else") people. If you have your own business or work as a freelancer, there's no regulation.
I always take at least one 3+ week vacation, either to visit my home country (US) or to backpack. For me it's very important to completely disconnect from work for a while, it puts things in perspective, gives me more motivation, and brings me back ready to disrupt my previous work routine for the better.
The rest of the days I use 1-2 at a time to make a long weekend here and there (Nature or city trips).