Who are these people that go away for the summer, like the whole summer

[GingerPussInBoots]

You know the ones that will be like yes I’m spending in the summer in France, Italy or Spain or whatever

I guess it depends on how we define summer, but I’ve been lucky to be able to spend every other August mostly in a nice, hot, Mediterranean country. As long as those I work with are ok with it, and I can get cover (usually split as not fair on one person for a long time) then I use most of my AL and then take parental leave, which so far has worked.

Many companies now have policies around being about to work X number of days abroad as well which can extend this. I can’t do this as we don’t have reliable internet.

the people who do this are the people I am envious of.

IRL though- most of our friends are retired and have holiday homes in Portugal/France/Spain so they do it. Or a friend of DS1s whose parents are both teachers (private school) so they spend the full 9 weeks in their France holiday home.

Next year hopefully us .... hoping for 5 weeks in Australia with my side of the family.

But my family were all teachers and we would spend the 6 weeks over Christmas and New Year (our summer) on a road trip with our campervan. I recall it being stinking hot and hating it at the time but look back with nostalgia.

Yes, sometimes I work while travelling but I try to take decent chunks of time off too. I find it easier to be in a time zone ahead of the UK/Europe so I can go and go fun stuff in the daytime and work some evenings when it’s working hours in UK. I do digital comms but in a specialist industry. If I’m taking a longer trip of weeks or months I’ll travel around a few different places, usually a combination of cities and more remote/outdoorsy places. I also do some volunteering in animal conservation.

May I ask how/where you travel so you can be away for long periods of time?

The houses may be inherited, or they married someone with a family home. Or they bought something shambolic in a cheap area and renovated it themselves, very gradually. It doesn’t need to mean they have a lot of money themselves.

When I was married to a City boy, it seemed lots of them had families who went away for the summer (school holiday) and the husband joined them for a couple of weeks, living the high life in town the rest of the time. #reason32145whyi'mdivorced. Other than that, wealthy SAHMs but they don't go on holiday, they "summer".

i do.
just getting everything together (dog passport etc).
going to stay with my mum in south of Spain for two months.
taking DD2 with me as she has long uni holidays.

DH will drive over with us for ten days then return for work. He’ll then come out end of August and spend two weeks before we drive back.

when the kids were younger I’d fly out for summer holidays and DH would pop over several times.

while it sounds perfect, I just dream of summer at home, but whenever we’ve done that the weather has been awful.

so rest assured people, your summer will be full of sunshine cos we won’t be here 😝

I’ve spent the last few Decembers and beginning of Jan in south east Asia (mainly Indonesia and Thailand). The flights are the biggest expense. I’ve also done a multi-country/city train trip across Europe in summer. Both of those trips were easy to work at the same time as I spent a week or so in each place and worked mainly from hotels and cafes with good wifi. Something I’m looking into for this summer is to get a short term lodger in my flat for 4-6 weeks while I’m away too.

Most of the school holidays, so 4-6 weeks.

Pipe dream for most of us!

Older people who bought foreign homes when they were a lot cheaper, who are on higher pay scales, bought their UK homes a long time ago when cheaper.

I can't imagine younger teachers will be able to buy a UK home let alone a foreign home too, given the house price inflation of the last 2 or 3 decades!

6 weeks I think you’d start to have a claim as the children need a week or so to prepare for school again.

ETA but my long term goal is mid May to mid September!

My kids spend the whole summer holidays in France every year.

I use 3 weeks of annual leave and 3x husband uses 3 weeks. We back and forth either week on or two weeks on then off. Sometimes grandparents go out. Often friends come to stay with us so there's always lots of people around.

I do have my own house in France. It cost me £40,000 in 2020 and is far cheaper than trying to find a weeks all inclusive for everyone every year.

I can't manage to get the whole summer off but I also can't work remotely.

My grandmother used to do this in the 60’s. She was a teacher and would take my mum and her sister away for the summer.
usually Scotland- and done cheaply. Staying with people/ at places that she regularly went to.
My grandad would go for a weekend/ week and join them when he could.
Sounded idyllic.

It's not unusual here in Ireland for medium income families to have a mobile home on the coast. When my DC were in primary school a lot of their friends would head off in school holidays and at weekends, families with one SAHP would spend the whole summer there and the working parent would travel. My friend had one that was only about 45 minutes from her home (in light traffic, in rush hour it was considerably longer) and her DH would spend the weekend and also a few nights in the week as it was commutable so long as he left reasonably early in the mornings. There are mobile home parks with lots of facilities in prime beach locations that cost loads and also cheaper ones.

I only know a few families that leave the country every summer and they tend to be ones that have one or both parents originating from the country that they travel to or they are the wealthier families with property in Spain or Portugal.

We had a house in Donegal for summers, I had a stay at home mum and dad would work from his phone or travel up at weekends.

I imagine it’s slightly easier now with work from home if people are in manager/director positions. I know someone who lives in NYC, she spends August in the Hamptons with her partner who works from home for the month.

My parents did this as soon as I turned sixteen, was working and considered responsible.
When working, my Ddad had an excellent A/L allocation so they would spend 4-5 weeks on the continent touring in their Moho.
Before mobile phones, I would get a weekly call from a payphone to let me know they were ok and what part of Europe they were currently in!😆

When he retired (60) they would go multiple times a year, spending 5-6 weeks at a time and sometimes only coming home for a few weeks before heading off again.

My husband and his Dsis grew up in London but are from NI and their mum (not a teacher but worked school terms) took them back to stay with grandparents and in family caravans for the whole 6 weeks. Their dad would join for a week at the beginning and end of summer and return to work in London in between. Their summers sounded truly idyllic!

My DCs are teens now but when they were primary age and I worked part time we would go camping in UK or Ireland for multiple separate weeks and long weekends over the summer, so between June and August we would only have 2 weeks in London before going away again.

I do this - I am a SAHM, and DC and I stay with my family in my home country for the whole summer. It is a very long journey so it makes sense to go for a longer time. My husband sometimes joins for a couple of weeks.

People with family abroad or with money for a 2nd home as renting a villa for 2 months would be expensive!

I work in investment banking. Lots of people work remotely over the summer from holiday homes etc, taking the odd days off and working in between.

I take my DD away for 4 weeks usually. Move on each week to somewhere new. I figure if you’re paying for flights / ferries etc that you may as well go for as long as possible. Spending £1700 on flights to South America so not going to stay for only a week! Likewise Europe, take the car over and go to France / Italy / The Netherlands etc If I’m paying for travel getting the most out of it!
I get 6.5 weeks plus bank holidays and I can buy back 5 extra days. Some colleagues take unpaid parental leave to get the 6 weeks off.

We do this most summers. Term time in the UK is plenty….

Academics eg at University. Students away all summer and no need to be on campus. Contactable by teams. So from July - September. Of course you can blur the line between holidays and WFH so you get longer. People who can work remotely. Go to eg Thailand for 6 weeks and as long as you have a good connection it doesn't matter where you are

Teachers (very well paid ones?), retired people, ridiculously wealthy people, or people who have 100% WFH jobs that pay well and probably older kids who can look after themselves.

I would love to be one of these…..sadly I’m not 🤣

A lot of very senior people in public sector organisations seem to take the whole of August off.