How to Travel More While Working: 14 Ways to Maximize Your PTO

Trying to figure out how to maximize your vacation days? Trust me, I’ve been there. In fact, I’m still there! As a traveler and adventurer, there’s always another trip or dream on the horizon, and being constrained by days off work can be challenging!

So how do you travel more while working full-time? Let’s take a look at how you can maximize your PTO!

The Ugly Facts of Vacation Days in the USA

If you live in the US, you are painfully aware of our dire vacation day policies. In fact, the US federal government doesn’t require companies to provide any paid time off (PTO) to employees and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require any payment for time not worked. This includes paid vacation time, paid sick time, and paid holidays!

On top of no required PTO, the standard starting vacation day policy for US companies is just 2 weeks, or 10 days off, per year! Of course, this does typically come with a side of public holidays, which vary by company. I have generally had around 10 paid public holidays off at my full-time jobs after university.

To drive the point home, I even had one job where you couldn’t take any vacation days the first year!! That’s right, 1 full year of NO days off – and I’m a travel addict! So how do you make the most of your limited vacation days? Keep reading to find out!

Paid Time Off vs. Vacation Days

Some companies separate out sick time from vacation days rather than lump them into paid time off. While there are similarities in both systems, there are also a few subtle differences.

Vacation days typically only include that – leisure days taken off of work. These may be used for actual vacation, or as moving days, family days, really any outside of work requirement. This means you will typically have a bank of sick days also.

Meanwhile, PTO or paid time off will generally include sick days under its umbrella. This means you’re more likely to have more PTO days vs. vacation days, which is great if you’re a healthy individual. However, if you are sick often, you could end up eating up all of your paid time off days while you’re sick, resulting in no vacation days. Yikes!

Unused Vacation Days in the USA

To make matters even worse, studies show 55% of Americans don’t use all of their vacation days. In fact, in 2018 there were over 768 millions days of PTO left on the table. That’s $65.6 billion in lost benefits! It’s safe to say, Americans are under-vacationed.

However, for those of us who live for adventure and carefully track and plan our paid time off, it’s important to know how to maximize your vacation days. And if you’re wondering how many vacation days you should take off each year, the answer is all of them that you’re entitled to!

To drive the point home, studies and science show employees are happier and more productive when they take vacation. They come back refreshed and ready to work hard again – so do you and your employer a favor by having a vacation strategy in place!

8 Ways to Travel More, While Working Full-Time

I get it, not everyone is looking or able to quit their job to travel the world full-time or become a digital nomad and take their work on the road. So how do you make the most of your paid time off?

1. Use Public Holidays

One of the easiest ways to make the most of your vacation days is to add them on to public holidays that you already have off work. Book a trip over the 4th of July or Labor Day to get that one extra day without taking PTO. It makes long weekends easy without taking days off, or you can make a 9 day vacation with just 4 PTO days!

Depending on your holiday traditions, you may be able to squeeze even more vacation days out by traveling over Thanksgiving or Christmas – especially if you can book Christmas through New Years! This is a time of year where work tends to be quieter, and some businesses close completely during that week!

2. Perfect Long Weekend Adventures

The easiest way to make your trips longer and more fulfilling is to book them over a weekend. This means you can take just one or two days off (Friday/Monday) to have a 4 day weekend.

This makes trips feel so much longer and more relaxing than traveling after work Friday and coming back Sunday night where you only have one full day in your destination. Take that Friday or Monday for that extended weekend trip!

3. Strategically Book Your Flight Times

When you’re short on time, the time of day your flight leaves can have a big impact on how much time away you have. Particularly when you take into account the possibility of flight delays.

I am a big fan of early in the day or late in the evening flights. It allows me to have the prime hours of the day free to be productive and adventurous. It also allows me to more easily nap on the plane!

Most importantly, if I can fly after work, I can start the first day of vacation refreshed and ready to explore, without wasting a vacation day on just travel.

Learn how to get over jet lag quickly.

4. Take Part Days Off Work

Each company handles days off differently. Understand if your place of employment allows you to take half of a day off, each hour off individually, or if it has to be a full day. This allows you to be flexible and maximize your vacation time.

One of the best parts of taking partial days off work is that it gives you more options of when and where you travel. This is particularly beneficial if you’re flying as you can select from a broader range of flights and potentially save money by flying during a less busy time!

Additionally, if you’re traveling by road or public transit, you can travel during the day when transportation and roads are less busy. It also means you could be settled into your destination before dinner!

5. Stretch Week Long Trips Over 2 Weekends

When you have limited vacation days, do you prefer to save them up to take one longer trip or to use them to take multiple shorter trips? There’s no right answer, but taking at least one longer vacation per year is good for the body and soul.

In fact, a recent study showed it takes the average American 4 days to stop thinking about work! As such, plan a 9 day trip using just 5 vacation days by linking it to two weekends. To maximize your time off, you’d be looking at a trip from Friday evening to Sunday evening a week later. It will help you destress and return to work refreshed – a perk for you and your employer!

6. Consider Closer Destinations to Spend Less Time on Transit

Trust me, I would love to jump on a flight to Fiji any chance I get. Unfortunately, spending 20+ hours in transit is not very practical for a long weekend, or even just a week long trip. You could end up spending more time in transit than in your destination!

If you’re tight on time off, look for places close to you or that are a direct flight from you. While I would love to visit Thailand for a 4 day trip, it is both travel time and cost prohibitive. Look for an alternative closer by for those shorter trips, like Puerto Rico, which also offers stunning beaches and rainforests and is just a 3.5 hour direct flight from me.

It’s also awesome to check out destinations close by via road trip. I have explored more of my home state of North Carolina this way! You can leave when you’re ready and freely explore until you need to return home for work. It’s even possible to do it for cheap with camping options available.

Learn more: How to Plan a Road Trip: A Step-by-Step Guide

7. Extend Work Trips for a Mini Getaway

If you ever have to travel for work, consider extending your work trip, on your dime of course, to cover the adjacent weekend or with some added on vacation days. While you won’t have say over your destination, most places have something interesting to do for a few days!

This saves you the time and cost of traveling to that destination, while getting the perk of exploring where you’re at – something work trips never account for!

8. Track Your Vacation Days and Use Them Wisely

Paid days off are rare – you’ll want to take advantage of them. This means getting out there and exploring the world! Don’t just let them go by watching Netflix. Most importantly, you’ll need to track your paid time off. Some companies have formal vacation tracking systems while others it’s up to you to keep track.

Don’t miss out on taking those hard earned vacation days. And remember, they are just that – earned days off. Paid time off is a part of your total compensation – just like a salary or benefits. So don’t feel guilty using them. In fact, you can even negotiate at different points to get more vacation days… let’s talk more about that!

6 Ways to Increase Your Vacation Days

In addition to making the most of your valuable vacation days, you may be able to secure more time off. Some companies offer a very strict and standard vacation policy to all employees, others might have more flexibility. Here are six ways to consider increasing your vacation day allotment.

1. Negotiate Your Paid Days Off

Before you take a job, one of the many things you can negotiate is how many vacation days you get. While the company may have a standard vacation policy, they may be more flexible on negotiating days off versus negotiating salary as companies typically have a salary band or budget they are working within for each role.

2. Ask for a Raise in Vacation Days

Once you’ve been at a job for a bit, maybe you are feeling the constraints differently than you did before. Since most companies don’t offer sabbaticals, it may be a good time to negotiate more days off work.

Take note that your employer is more likely to grant it if you have a track record of being accountable for your workload. If you already are flaky or missing deadlines, it’s unlikely to be able to negotiate more days off work!

3. Understand the Option of Unpaid Time Off

If you can’t negotiate more PTO, it’s worth understanding your company’s policy for unpaid time off. Some companies only offer unpaid time off for extenuating circumstances, like illness or family emergencies. Other companies have no qualms about letting employees extend their limited vacation days to take the necessary days off, whether they be vacation days, mental health days, bereavement days, etc.

Unpaid time off can be challenging for some companies to accommodate if you are salaried versus an hourly employee as they have to adjust pay on the backend, but it doesn’t hurt to find out what your options are!

4. Consider Buying Vacation Time

While not offered at all companies, some companies allow you to “buy” vacation time. This in essence equates to taking unpaid time off, but you pay for it up front or out of your paycheck.

This can be an easier way for companies to manage salaried employees taking unpaid time off as it is worked strategically into the budget. It often falls under the “benefits” where you elect for extra days off work just like you select your medical plan. In this way it is then automatically deducted from your pay.

5. Find Out if You can Work Remotely

This is a tricky one as not everyone understands that working remotely still means working. But with the COVID pandemic, the idea of working from home and remote work has definitely become broader reaching.

The main benefit of remote work in these situations is that you can maneuver your PTO to be used to your full advantage. Just make sure when working remotely that you are getting your work done and fully available during your work hours. If you aren’t working, your ability to work remotely will soon be a thing of the past!

You might be wondering how working remotely can help if you still have to work… Well, for example, you can book flights on a less expensive day after work (Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to be the least expensive days to fly!). Or you can take 3 vacation days and spend 2 days that week working to get the added benefit of having 2 full weekends included in your trip.

Think more of the digital nomad lifestyle, working on the road. Stay someplace quiet with great wifi or find a co-working space or cafe you can hide out in for the day to get your work done uninterrupted. Once again, the key to working remotely is ensuring it doesn’t disrupt your work!

6. Take a Job with Unlimited Time Off!

What?! How does that work?? Unlimited PTO is actually becoming more common, particularly amongst startups and tech companies. As of 2022, about 9% of workers in the US currently have this time off structure from work. Admittedly, I am one of them.

Unlimited PTO in essence means you can take fully paid time off, for whatever reason you need it, without counting them day for day towards your annual allotment. It sounds awesome, right?

Well, keep in mind it’s not truly unlimited, you do have a job you need to get done, and depending on the company and company culture, “unlimited” could mean feeling guilty for every day you take off work!

In fact, recent studies have actually shown on average people take 13% less time off work with unlimited paid time off than with a set allotment. It also shows that those with unlimited PTO tend to be twice as likely to work on vacation (guilty as charged!).

Even with the studies showing that unlimited PTO favors the employers, if you’re a go-getter employee and can go above and beyond when you are working, it does open the door to more days off work. Just carefully assess the company before jumping at those “Unlimited PTO” words!

Other Vacation Day Hacks

Now that you know how to maximize your vacation time, it’s time to start planning your time off! After all, studies show Americans who plan their time off are 26% more likely to use it to travel.

Here are a number of travel resources to get you up and running on your own adventures to make the most of your valuable vacation days!

Travel Resources

Gear up for your travels with these great travel resources. You’ll be planning your vacation days in no time!

Road Trip Resources

Thinking of taking a road trip with your limited vacation days? Here are your need to have resources!

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How to Travel More While Working Full-Time: 14 Ways to Maximize Your PTO