Why You Really Need to Take All of Your Vacation Days

Women Who Travel | Condé Nast Traveler

Condé Nast Traveler

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.4 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2019

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We say it a lot over here at Traveler: Americans are really bad at taking vacation. So much so that in 2017, we left 705 million vacation days on the table, the U.S. Travel Association reported. Think of all the walking tours, island naps, and life-changing meals that were missed! And while we always urge you to take all of your days—be they five or 25—we don't always practice what we preach, either. One of us (cough, Meredith) left nearly half of her vacation days unused during her first year at Traveler, for fear of being gone from work too much.

Thankfully, we've since learned the error of our ways—but we could all use the reminder that we're actually devaluing our salary by leaving those days behind. (Especially given women are already earning about 19.5 percent less than our male counterparts, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.) We tapped the keeper of our vacation days, Traveler's director of editorial operations Paulie Dibner, and contributor Cassie Shortsleeve to chat about vacation guilt, how to ask for time off, what to do when you have unlimited vacation, and what to actually do when you get it.

Find the full show notes here.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Women Who Travel, a podcast from Condé Nass Traveler.
0:03.0	Meredith is out this week, travelling in Namibia, no less,
0:07.0	so we decided this was the perfect opportunity to revisit an episode from the start of the year.
0:11.0	It's about a topic that's very important to us,
0:14.0	why you really need to take all of your vacation days.
0:17.0	Not only is it essential to creating a healthy work-life balance, but when you don't take
0:22.0	them all, you're actually leaving your hard-earned money on the table. That's an even harder
0:26.0	pills to swallow when you remember that we earn 79 cents for every dollar a man-made this year.
0:31.0	So listen in, get inspired about where to go next, and whatever you do, take those remaining
0:36.1	vacation days you have before the year
0:37.9	wraps up. Oh, and while I have you, a quick heads up that we'll be taking a break between
0:42.5	Thanksgiving and the new year. And don't worry, it's a good thing. We'll be using that time to
0:47.0	work on some really exciting episodes for 2020. Okay, until next week.
0:59.0	Hey, everyone, and welcome to Women Who Travel, a podcast from Connie Nass Traveler. My name is Meredith Kiri and I am joined as always with my lovely co-host Lolle Eric Koglu.
1:05.0	Hello.
1:06.0	And this week we are talking about something that Lale and I are personally very passionate about, which is vacation days.
1:12.1	And you would think that working at a travel magazine, things would be a little different.
1:15.4	You would get to, you know, travel for work and then maybe not travel as much fun.
1:19.0	But no, we stand very strongly on the side of taking all of your vacation days.
1:23.7	Also, when I add, when you're traveling for work, it is work.
1:26.6	I mean, it's fun work.
1:28.2	But it's work.
	...

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