Travel More in 2016: How to Travel Despite a Full Time Job

It has probably happened to you, too: You post a photo of a beautiful memory from a holiday gone by on Facebook and the comments from friends and relatives start rolling in. “You on holiday AGAIN?” or “Do you ever WORK?”.

The unexciting truth is: Yes, we do. We both have full time jobs. Martha leaves for work around 7.30am and usually doesn’t return home until after 6.00pm. Nigel’s longish commute makes his work-day about just as long.

Regardless of our work schedules, we somehow managed to have four foreign holidays last year, including a 2.5-week honeymoon road trip. Sometimes we wonder ourselves how we manage to squeeze in all that fun, so we have put together a list of the main factors that make it possible for us and we would love to share it with you.

DO THE MATHS: HOLIDAY ALLOWANCE

Sorry to disappoint you, but we cannot provide you with a magic formula that makes 20 days of leave into 40. Instead, we usually write down how many days leave we have at the start of each leave-year and keep track of how many of them we will need off for holidays. You can ask either of us at any time of the year – we will always know how many days we have left to take. If our original plans do not work out, we have to be more creative, which is where some of the following tips come in.

BANK HOLIDAYS AND WEEKENDS

Also fairly obvious, but often overlooked: When booking flights, we will always try to make sure they incorporate the best amount of weekends and bank holidays, even if that sometimes means paying slightly more. Our leave is our most precious commodity after all.

Martha works with an international clientele, so she will sometimes opt for working certain UK bank holidays, which she can then flexibly use for going away.

UNPAID LEAVE

With Martha’s family living abroad, 20 days are often not enough to see them and fulfill our thirst for travel. When she started with her current company, she negotiated 5 extra days of unpaid leave to give us enough time for everything. A previous company she worked for offered the possibility of “buying” 5 extra days off as a perk. If you are always short on leave, it might be worth checking with your employer if unpaid days are an option for you.

On rare occasions, she has also been able to work from her family’s home for a week, so that she could spend time with them after working hours and on the weekend.

HOUSEKEEPER NIGEL

Nigel has a slightly more generous leave entitlement and can also build up flexi-time. That means that his additional days off are usually spent completing chores, accepting deliveries, getting cars serviced and running various other errands that require time off.  That way, we can spend all of Martha’s days off exploring together.

SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE

All of this means that the only times we really get to relax at home are weekends and Christmas. We never usually take any random days off for appointments or events. Neither do we allow ourselves much time to adjust before going back into work after a long distance trip (even though we would not necessarily advise you to do the same).

Most of our fellow travellers have lots of time but little money to do the things they want to do. We have two full incomes and can afford nice vacations, but we lack the time.  Unless you are a super successful full time travel writer, there seems to be an inevitable dilemma: You are either time-rich and money-poor or the opposite. You just have to make some sacrifices to embrace whichever side you are on – the reward of your travel memories will be more than worth it.

You can find more Travel Tips here.