5 ways to maximize your vacation days

Americans are not good at taking vacations.

About 62% of employees have to say a job with paid time off — for vacation or sick time — is “extremely important” to them, even more so than benefits like health insurance, a 401(k) plan or paid parental leave, according to a Pew Research Center report as of 2023. 46 However, % are not taking advantage of all available free time, Pew found.

“If you never take a vacation or take time off, you’re not honoring how humans are created and what we need to stay fresh,” says Elizabeth Grace Saunders, a time management coach. “We are biological humans. We are not machines.”

The number of vacation days employees typically receive depends on several factors, such as length of time in the business, income and industry.

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For example, on average, private sector employers Offer 11 days of vacation after one year of service; 15 days after five years; 18 days after 10 years; and 20 days after 20 years, according to 2023 data the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, 32% of employees give up their unused vacation days don’t roll over to the next year, while 28% don’t get paid for unused days, according to a 2022 Qualtrics survey.

Moreover, the US is the only developed country to do so not required that workers get paid vacation, according to a 2019 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

About 21% of Americans work in the private sector don’t get paid vacation, and 20% get no paid vacation, according to the BLS.

Those who work in services, earn lower wages, have part-time or non-union positions or work at smaller companies are much less likely to get them, agency data shows.

Here’s how to maximize your vacation time, both paid and unpaid—both for efficiency and overall quality, experts say.

Grouping vacation days with other guaranteed days off can help you extend your time off without sacrificing additional paid time off, experts say.

In other words: Take advantage of weekends and paid holidays.

For example, the 4th of July falls on a Thursday this year. If you take just one day off (Friday, July 5), you get a four-day weekend.

“Play a little Tetris” with your calendar, Saunders said.

However, there is often a trade-off with this approach.

For example, traveling around holidays or flying on weekend days like Friday and Sunday are generally busier and more expensive, says Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet.

Employees may be able to book business trips with vacation time, French said.

If your company sends you to a conference in another state for part of the work week, you can take a vacation day to spend an extra day in the destination city, French explains.

Combined with a weekend, employees may not even need to use paid time off, she said. The company can also cover some of the costs, such as airfare, she added.

Additionally, those who work remotely or only part-time in the office may be able to use these arrangements to get away without taking time off, French said. (There’s even a practice, especially among younger workers, known as “quiet vacations,” in which employees must work around a shortage of PTO by secretly taking time off.)

Hotels have capitalized on the trend during the Covid-19 pandemic, offering amenities such as video calling rooms and co-working spaces for free to guests, she said.

“That trend won’t die out even in 2024,” she said.

Employees with this flexibility can also more easily take advantage of traveling on cheaper days, such as midweek flights, she added.

Distributing vacation days in a “measured” way throughout the year helps prevent burnout, Saunders said.

She recommends taking at least one day off every month – or at least every few months – even if it’s just a staycation.

People who don’t take vacations until they’re “really feeling burned out” get to a point where they no longer enjoy their work and need two or three days of vacation to feel “normal” again, she said.

Employees who don’t get many days off (for example, 10 in total) might consider taking a longer trip that requires four or five PTO days and bundling their remaining days with paid vacation days, Saunders said.

People can feel more “refreshed” by PTO if they strategically take days off during different periods of busy work, Saunders said. a

Taking time off during busy periods feels more ‘refreshing’ than when it is cooler, for example, she says.

Of course, people may not be able to get away during the crisis or they may not have people to delegate work to while they are away; for such people it may be more useful to take time off during colder periods to avoid work stress during the holidays.

Likewise, it can help to give yourself an extra day before going back to work — coming back Saturday instead of Sunday, say — to run errands like laundry, French said.

That buffer can provide some extra peace of mind, she said.

Many people may avoid taking time off due to feelings of guilt.

For example, according to the Pew Research Center, 43% of Americans don’t use all of their PTO because they feel bad about coworkers taking on extra work. a

Additionally, some studies have shown that employees who get “uncapped” PTO tend to take less time off than employees with a fixed limit.

Employees who struggle to take time off should set a personal “acceptable minimum” — for example, making sure you take at least 15 days off in a given year, Saunders said. a

And try to unplug completely during your holiday, experts advise.

Put on your out of office message, turn off email notifications, and don’t take business calls; if you absolutely have to, try to limit work to just one hour a day, Saunders said.