In a nutshell
- Vacation-maxxing is all about getting more out of limited time and money, as travelers look for ways to stretch their PTO, cut costs, and pack more into every trip.
- Strategic timing can turn a relatively small number of vacation days into much longer breaks by adding PTO around federal holidays and long weekends.
- Group travel can help lower costs by allowing travelers to share expenses such as accommodations, transportation, checked baggage, and even some activities.
- A successful group trip still requires flexibility: mixing splurge-worthy experiences with free activities and allowing travelers to occasionally split up can accommodate different budgets and travel styles.
- Careful itinerary planning can also help travelers make the most of each day, from staying near major attractions to grouping activities geographically and minimizing time spent in transit.
- The goal of vacation-maxxing is not necessarily to travel faster for the sake of it, but to use limited vacation time and budgets more strategically – and come home feeling like you made every day count.
Going on vacation used to mean slowing down, relaxing and taking a break from the everyday hustle. But that was before travel costs started to climb. Faced with a limited number of vacation days and rising airfare and other travel expenses, U.S. workers planning their getaways are turning to optimization hacks, just like they do at work, to squeeze the most out of every day and every dollar. Oh, the irony.
As the U.S. Travel Association reported in May, overall travel prices went up 9.8% compared to the same time last year, while airline fares rose 26.7% during the same period. This financial squeeze, combined with the fact that the average U.S. worker receives about 11 days of paid vacation time, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is making a lot of people think creatively about how to stretch both their vacation days and their budgets.
Travelers are building vacations around holidays to maximize PTO (paid time off), scouring websites for the best package deals on group trips, planning jam-packed itineraries, and cashing in on credit card points to get more value out of every trip. Forget slow travel. This is the era of vacation-maxxing.
How to hack the vacation calendar
The formula is simple yet effective: take what you already have, add a little strategic timing, and make it go further.
To turn a couple of weeks of PTO into a whopping 46 days off, AAA (American Automobile Association) recommends strategically padding federal holidays to create four-day weekends and longer stretches of time off.
“Thanksgiving is a Thursday. Take Friday off and you get a four-day weekend,” the auto club advises. “Christmas falls on a Friday. If you stack on four days of PTO, you can stretch that into a 9-day vacation.” And that’s just the beginning: the 4th of July, Memorial Day, Juneteenth and Columbus Day all offer opportunities to turn a weekend into a mini vacation.
For a mid-February respite, Conde Nast Traveler recommends adding four days of PTO to the long President’s Day weekend to create another 9-day vacation. “That’s enough time for a long-haul trip across the globe, like Hong Kong,” editor Jamie Spain writes in the magazine. “Or to unplug in Costa Rica on a leisurely surf trip in the sun.”
To stretch the budget, split the bill
Solo travel has its appeal but, from a budgeting perspective, traveling in a group and sharing expenses is almost always cheaper. That’s true for flights, accommodations, food, car rentals and admission costs to popular attractions. You can even get better rates for expenses you may not always consider, such as travel insurance.
To streamline planning and minimize stress, not to mention save a lot of money, the travel search engine Skyscanner recommends plugging everyone’s availability into a calendar app to pick the best travel dates, staying flexible in terms of destination, and booking all the flights together. To save even more, if your carry-on bag doesn’t hold everything you want to bring on vacation but you don’t want to pay the full price for a checked bag, you can share one with a friend.
Whether we’re talking about picking a restaurant, booking tours and museum visits, or deciding how to structure each day, communication is key. Some people may be on tighter budgets or simply prefer less lavish meals than others. Some people’s idea of an ideal vacation day may be maximizing time by the beach or the pool, while others will want to check off every landmark on the list.
To accommodate a group of friends with different travel preferences and varied budgets, content creator @AverageGirlDoesCoolThings (or Annie) recommends building flexibility into the itinerary. “Let’s normalize not having to eat together all the time. Maybe there’s just one night when you all agree to do dinner together but there are other times when people can split off,” she says on YouTube. “Plan one or two big activities that are going to be more budget-intensive and then mix in free ones like walking around the city, going hiking or doing a beach day.”
Ready to test this strategy on your own group trip? WeRoad’s trips to Iceland takes travelers on a whirlwind adventure from Reykjavik to the Golden Circle, to the geysers and waterfalls of Thingvellir National Park.
Making every day count
Have you ever come to the end of a dream vacation only to realize you have just started to scratch the surface of what it has to offer? Whether you’re vacationing in Paris, Casablanca or Hanoi, there are always going to be more landmarks to see, more experiences to discover and more flavors to taste. If you’re eager to pack more memories into each day, start with a well-thought-out strategy based on your travel priorities and go from there.
First of all, book a hotel near popular attractions and organize your activities geographically to cut down on travel time from destination to another, writes Jill Schildhouse in a Business Insider story about her ambitious plan to visit three Australian states in just over a week. But by strategically planning her travel, meals and even a relaxing stop by the beach into a busy day of sightseeing in Melbourne, her first stop, Schildhouse had a full day of experiences in the city while conserving time and energy for the rest of her trip.
“I couldn’t believe how much I had packed into just eight days,” she concluded, even as she acknowledged that the packed trip only whetted her appetite for more. “I certainly experienced enough on this whirlwind adventure to fall in love with Australia’s charm, beauty, and warmth – and it left me eager to return and explore even more someday.”
