people who travel often & for over a week, how do you get so much vacation time at work? or is your job flexible?

We do a theme park trip every year, whether WDW or Universal Resort. I was a nanny to someone with a teacher’s schedule and my husband is a in law enforcement. He’s get around four weeks of PTO for personal days, and vacation days. His sick days are separate so that helps.
Now that I’m an RN I have to build up my PTO before I can take any time off 😬. I can earn around 3.5 weeks of PTO per year.

We really don’t use any of our time unless it’s for our one vacation a year (usually 10-14 days) though so we always have plenty.

As far as affording that, we use credit card points for flights, and we’re kind of homebodies, so we don’t eat out much or spend a ton of extra leisure money.
 
My husband has 4 weeks vacation a year as of now The more years at his company the more time off he gains. I'm a substitute teacher so I have a very flexible schedule. He usually takes off Thanksgiving week, last two weeks of the year and spring break. We have traveled up to 10 days at one time.
 
It’s called you work, build seniority and earn the time. The older you get you hope your job and time at one company allows you to acrue more time. You don’t get handed allot of time right off the bat or if you jump around allot. Plus if you are in a highly desired profession you can negotiate for moreover time.
 
My husband gets 8 weeks a year, and I work part time so my schedule is flexible.
 


I also get just under 8 weeks a year, about half of it I use to leave early/have long weekends, the other 4 weeks I usually spend quarterly - week in Hawaii, week at Disney, week at a beach somewhere, and holidays.

lately it’s just been shorter work days/work weeks cuz of Covid
 
I worked an awful job for 10 years where vacations were seldom approved and always with the caveat that you were expected to work full time while on vacation--we typically only stayed at WDW 2-4 days and whenever we did I was that sad person answering work emails in every ride queue or on work calls on benches while my family rode stuff, then typing away on my laptop in the hotel lobby at 3am while my family slept.

Fast forward, a year ago I changed jobs and in the negotiations I traded salary for additional vacation to make up for lost time. Looking forward to my second weeklong vacation of the year in a couple of weeks! To OP and others, I would absolutely recommend asking for additional vacation instead of increased pay in initial salary negotiations, or when seeking a raise in an annual review if that is something your company does.
 
I get just under 4 weeks per year and then we have about 9 paid holidays. But I don't think I could (or would) take more than a week off at a time (5-6 business days at the most). I don't know if it's frowned upon per se, but it just isn't done. For one thing, I would feel like it was not OK to do that to my coworkers who have to carry my workload while I am out. I was recently on an Aulani board asking about trip duration, and everyone was like "you have to go for 2 weeks" and I was like hmm... because there is no way I could or would leave work for that long. I would also be worried if they could get by without me for 2 weeks that might put me top of mind when it's layoff time. I guess I am pretty much a trained corporate drone. LOL
 


My company is great. As I have been there over 10 years now, I get 28 days a year of PTO (I earn a little more than a day off every pay period). And most employees can only carry over 40 hours, but my state allows one to carry all of it over and I cap out at 1.5 yearly allowance (around 330 hours I think). I am over 300 this year. I typically take a week off in March to go to WDW, two weeks in September to go to WDW, and then plenty of other random days (many for mini staycations at Disneyland). This year I took my week in March and went to WDW, have had multiple Disneyland visits cancelled, and then took a week off in September where I did nothing. I am planning another week off in November (gotta stay under the cap) and maybe a few days around Christmas.
 

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