How To Make More Time For Travel
Sometimes it seems like the whole world is just the same four walls you see every day. We all wish we could travel more, but travel costs money and money means having to work. Work, likewise, requires a lot of time and energy, leaving you with little wiggle room to take a vacation.
Want to figure out how to make your job work for you so you can finally see more of the world? Here’s how to do it.
Turn Work Trips into Vacation Trips
Many of us know the frustration that comes with having to travel to another city, state, or even country for business, only to spend the whole time you’re there going back and forth between the airport, the hotel, and a boardroom. In the end, you end up returning home wishing you had time to go on a vacation, without realizing you squandered an opportunity that was right at your fingertips.
With a little planning and flexibility, almost any work trip can become a vacation trip. Say you’re in real estate and have to drive up to Canada to negotiate some Vancouver homes for sale. Figure out what time your presence is needed, then, instead of departing the day of, leaving the night before. Now you have a head-start on your day, with several extra hours to get out and see the Great White North.
For another example, let’s say you have to attend a business conference down in Florida. Do you have some vacation time saved up? Schedule your days off so that they begin right after the day off the conference.
If you’re going alone, suddenly the plane ticket your company paid for has taken care of half of your vacation’s travel expenses. If you’re bringing your family, see if you can trade-in your reserved seat for multiple cheaper ones. After a long day shaking hands with strangers, nothing’s better than a day of fun in the sun with your cherished loved ones.
Turn Vacation Trips into Work Trips
What if you don’t have a job that involves travel at all? Not even a little bit, really? That’s a shame, but it doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. If the work you do is mostly computer-based, is freelance, or if done from-home, then there’s a very good chance you don’t have to take any time off at all. Just bring your work with you. That might seem to fly in the face of everything a vacation is supposed to represent, but a working vacation is better than now vacation at all.
Thanks to smartphones, laptop computers, webcams, video conference apps, and widespread affordable Wi-Fi, working on the go has never been easier. Instead of typing up reports in a cubicle or home office, why not do it from the balcony of a beachfront hotel room, an outdoor table at a European café, or by the roaring fireplace of a cozy Canadian ski resort?
If you’re a freelancer or work-from-home person, taking your work with you is relatively easy and a no-brainer. If you work on-site, it can be a little trickier but it’s not impossible. Sit down and talk it out with your boss.
Emphasize how technology makes it easy for you to maintain productivity, as well as the benefits to your mental health a vacation would provide. A good boss will rather get work from you while you’re someplace else than not get any work from you due to burnout.
