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

People who work short term contracts and time it so they have the summer off
Teachers (camping in Europe does not have to be £££)
People who can work remotely

My husband and I. Teachers. Sometimes our 20 year old son joins us. We spend every summer in Florida. Normally 5 weeks.

Starting this year in the Keys and working around the state. Such a lot to see and do. Stunning place.

My friend and husband do...both retired. 3 months in the Italian Lakes.

We are both senior in our jobs and can work remotely from anywhere so we do.

All my DS1 friends disappear for 6 to 8 weeks in the summer because all his friends have foreign grandparents; Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Romania and Malta.
The parents work remotely or share the leave with other parent.
It was the same for me when I was a child. 8-10 weeks on a Mediterranean island every summer to catch up with family. My fair English skin has paid a high price!

We used to employ a contractor (IT) who would work May thru Sept remotely from Spain where he had a villa. If there was an important meeting he needed to attend he'd fly back, attend then fly home. He also took Dec & Jan of as holidays to go skiing.

We also had a board member who'd take months at a time off to go to the Caribbean or Mediterranean.

For how long, it depends on if you’ve got school aged dcs or not.

School aged usually it’s fhe bulk of the holidays - state schools usually have 5.5 - 6 weeks (and they aren’t always full weeks, often ending or starting half way through a week). Most people I know who “go away for the summer” aim to come back the weekend before the kids go back to have a few days to sort uniform etc.

those without school aged dcs who “go away for the summer” tend to be gone July & August.

Those I know who do it, all have holiday homes. (Or have parents with holiday homes). Don’t know anyone who just rents for the summer.

Me and DH.

We're both academics. We work 100% at home over summer so might as well do it somewhere beautiful.

We piss off abroad somewhere in late June and come back to the UK in early September.

We take a few weeks dedicated time off over that period to travel and explore the area. We spend the rest of it 'working' but at about 50% capacity.

Actually I looked into this when we were considering getting an extension (so would need to be out of the house for 4-6 weeks anyway) and I was pleasantly surprised!

You can get long-term Airbnbs for a month which cost about the same as 2 weeks normal rental if you book ahead of time. Not quite sure of the economics from the owner’s perspective (this was peak time), but if my job had more flexibility I’d consider it.

You would assume it would be wealthy people with second homes but all the people I know who do this are those who have term time only jobs (schools or university) and one of them is from another country, so they spend the whole summer school holiday there.

Someone I know, they air b&b their own house which makes them approx £14k to piss off abroad for the entire summer holidays…
just pays for all their holidays really!

Wealthy people.

Or, in the case of someone not wealthy that I know and lives somewhere crap, possibly a drug dealer. 3 weeks in Ibiza in peak season made me wonder.

I only know one family that does this.
The wife works in education so has nearly all the summer off. She will take the kids abroad each summer and the husband joins them for a couple weeks, maybe another week later. They seem quite well off, even though they’re not staying in plush hotels or expensive villas, and are choosing less expensive areas to stay in for so long.

I’m going to suggest people with flexible working and a holiday home or rich people.

DH works 6 days a week so we can go away in half terms and for summer, I'm a housewife so obvs flexible. It doesn't have to be as expensive as it seems- long term airbnbs are cheaper than 1-2 weeks sometimes. We have a second home in the US and have access to various abroad family homes so we're lucky- but it's not entirely unattainable for some.

Arhhh good call.. I guess they would prefer to be booked with just one big clean than 12+ weeks of changeovers, maybe the savings are worth it.

Im planning on buying a place in France one day, so I can be one of these people as I can work remotely.

Retired peopel like IL - though they've only done a month but most many of their friends do longer - think max is 3 months block as once out to destination accomodation and living costs are pretty good.

Or visiting family abroad - or family property- so main costs again flights . One of DD2 friends went back to Turkey every year to see family till brush up on langaue skills they lost the family house/second home it had become - in earthquake they've not been back since.

Presumably some of those with parents abroad stay with family (so taking your kids to Poland or Portugal or whatever to stay with their grandparents). So they save a ton on accommodation vs someone else without connections to the area who'd have to pay for hotel, food etc.

I’ve known a few people who have done this , some just rent a place for weeks or have a holiday home / caravan there already or even just a second home.
You’d be surprised , but the one factor they all have is they have money. Even towing a caravan needs a pot of money to maintain it and a car big enough car to tow it and so on and traveling on the continent isn’t that cheap with toll roads ( as we discovered last year in a normal car !)
( I know you can avoid , but it takes longer etc)

When I was a toddler my dad took a sabbatical and we went to Finland for the whole summer. I assume my mum wasn't working then. Another time in my childhood we went for almost the whole summer holidays. Pretty sure my mum did have a part time job then so dunno how she managed it. Not sure if dad was with us for the whole holiday or not but he did always get a lot of annual leave.

I took my children away for 6 weeks one summer but we were staying with my parents so didn't cost much more than plane tickets. I wasn't working then. But now the most I can take off in the summer is 4 weeks which is not even half the summer, let alone anywhere near the whole summer.

This is normal in France and Spain. I am able to work remotely/lightly for 3 weeks (very few meetings during this period as everyone is on holiday and so I am working to my own rhythm) and have 4-5 weeks off. DH doesn’t work but when he used to he could have 4 weeks off and 4 weeks remote work (in his line of business) which would mean checking emails at least twice a day on work days, usually a few phone calls each day and probably about 3 hours of proper ‘work’, maybe a bit less on a Friday.

We go to DH’s parents’ house by the sea for about 3 weeks (this is the remote working time), on holiday with the DC for a week, on holiday together for a week (DC at summer camps) and on holiday to our friends’ house on the Mediterranean for 10-12 days plus a few days of holiday ourselves somewhere near there. Sometimes we also spend 5 days or so with DH’s sister and her family on their beach holiday.

A colleague and his family do this, his wife is a teacher so they book an airbnb somewhere and head out with the kids. He flies back after 14 days, works 10 days, then flies back for another 14 days holiday. Seems to work well for them but he has no other time off really for the rest of the year which wouldn’t suit me!

Husband of a family we know works for a company with a Californian HQ. They all go over as soon as the dc finish school and come back just in time to start again.

University jobs are very most definitely not term-time only jobs 🫠

Compared with 10/20/30 years of having to pay exorbitant tour operator costs to holiday in the Summer school holidays, it's a pretty good investment to buy your own place so that you only have to pay air fares. Of course, your own holiday home is probably also an appreciating asset, so it makes a good investment too, instead of money down the drain paying for hotels or other people's holiday home lettings.