One of the biggest questions we get on the day to day basis is how we have time to travel so much while working demanding jobs. We don't work in a travel related field and neither of our jobs require any business travel. All of our travel is done while working traditional corporate desk jobs, but because this is something that we absolutely love, we make it work and want to inspire you to do the same!
Last year we took 7 trips total which totaled 43 days spent traveling!
Here is a quick *list of places that we visited together leaving from our home base in Michigan:
April- Camping/Hiking in Arizona (4 days)
May- Camping/Hiking in Porcupine Mountains (3 days)
June- LA, San Diego and Sequoia National Park (11 days)
August- Orlando (5 days)
Sep- Camping/Hiking in Nordhouse Dunes (3 days)
Nov- Costa Rica (10 days)
Dec- Cozumel (7 days)
These don't include 7 days where I traveled without Joey to Miami with my friend and solo trip to San Francisco.
We want to be completely honest and let you know that we get a lot of time off during the year. I get 20 paid vacation days and Joey gets 15. We also get 1 week around Christmas and all major holidays off. In this sense we're very lucky to have more time off then an average American.
Before you roll your eyes and say, "well you guys have more time off then me", let us walk you through some strategies that we use in order to travel more during the year. You can implement these tips to stretch your vacation days no matter how many days off you have in a year.
Even if you only have weekends off, that's 104 days in a year that you could spend traveling!! That's 3.5 months of adventures that you could be missing out on!
1. Take Shorter Trips and More Often
I think the big thing for most people is to rethink of vacations as something that you only do once a year and spend all your hard earned money on. We find that it is much more fulfilling to spread your trips throughout the year, ideally one per quarter. This way it gives you something to look forward to every 3 months. We found that sometimes a quick weekend getaway 4 hrs away (or even 10 hrs drive away;) can make a world of difference!
2. Leave Friday/Come Back Sunday
Yes we know it sucks to leave right after work and have to rush to the airport through rush hour traffic to not miss your flight. Then you have to go through the misery all over again to fly back on Sunday at midnight only to go back to work the next day. We never said it will be easy, but you can do these short weekend trips for flights that are up to 4 hrs one way or you can find a place within a driving distance.
3. Use Your Holidays Wisely
One of our favorite ways to stretch our vacation is to tack on days off to major holidays. We personally made a commitment to be home at ONE holiday between Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the time, we spend traveling.
Even though people will argue that those are high cost travel times, if you know how to use your airlines miles wisely you can find some sweet spots on when to fly out (check out our Travel Hacking section to learn how to maximize miles). We used 4 days off that we had for Thanksgiving to travel to Costa Rica for 10 days by only using 5 vacation days.
4. Work Remotely Friday and/or Monday
If you have an opportunity to work remotely at your job, who says you can't do it from a beach in Miami? Run this by your boss of course, but there is really no difference between you working from your couch at home, at a coffee shop or in a hotel across the country.
We like to fly late Thursday night right after work, work remotely Friday and come home late Sunday. If you are flying East Coast U.S. to West Coast you can leverage time difference and get your work done early in the normal time zone and still have enough day light hours to go and explore!
5. Buy/Accrue More Vacation Days
If your company allows you to buy extra vacation time or if you get accrued vacation time for working overtime, use it! Joey actually only gets 10 days off a year and ends up buying another 5 days. It gets deducted from his paycheck throughout the year, so he never sees that money in the first place.
Remember that it's up to you to make travel a priority! If it is something that you feel truly passionate about, then prioritize your life in such a way that you have room for exploration and adventure. We hope these tips help you find the time to explore more of our beautiful planet.
If you have any other tips, leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!
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