If you are a busy professional, how often do you go on holiday?

[Peor]

Both DP and I work in the city. Long long hours and often stressful. We feel frazzled after around 10 weeks of work. So we try and take a week somewhere sunny every 12-14 weeks or so.

This seems pretty normal for city workers/busy professionals but my mum thinks it’s madness.

We had a week in the West Indies in October, a week in Southern Africa for New Years and then at Easter we’ll hop back to the West Indies.

How often do you go away?

Two sun holidays - one two weeks, one a week, and usually city break somewhere and a week in the UK somewhere. Any other school holidays we don’t have plans, I bugger off to my parents by the coast and wfh. A few short weekend hotel breaks in UK 2/3 times a year.

Two City workers, two DC. DH is like you and likes regular breaks scheduled in, to keep going with long hours and high stress of role.

My DH was a busy city lawyer. Did one one week holiday, one for about ten days a year and did at least one conference call during the holiday. No way would he go on four holidays a year.

When I was single and after I had caught the travel bug in my mid 20s, every day of my annual leave was spent abroad, 3 or 4 trips a year but not at exact 12 week intervals. When I met my husband pre-kids, I became an expat and there was lots of domestic travel, regular long weekend or week long trips, especially when my family came out, and then one overseas trip for 2-3 weeks each year. Now with kids and living in the UK, we aim to take 2 or 3, one week long trips in Europe in the school holidays, aim for Easter, summer and October, plus a short city break somewhere at Christmas. Travel revives me, I work to travel, ignore your Mum, you can clearly afford it.

I dont work in 'the city', but my job is stressful with very long hours. We do normally have one trip abroad each year, but I find it equally relaxing to enjoy my own home and garden so prefer not to be away from it too often nowadays. I used to like travelling more, but everywhere always seems quite busy nowadays and I prefer the quiet. We do live in a forest though, so feel pretty lucky to have somewhere lovely to be.

Both Dh and I have busy jobs and work fairly long hours. our Dd is now a young adult living away from home.

As a three we go away abroad 2-3 times a year.
As a couple we will have long weekends or a week away abroad at least once a year.
Dd lives abroad so we will have 1-2 nights abroad over a weekend a few times a year.

Basically we go away for all of dh’s holiday allowance. I have more due to my work.
It’s what we spend the most amount of our money and savings on.

We have DC still in school and very busy outside of it so we don’t go away as much as we’d like. My parents think we are mad and that we should take more holidays!

I am a busy professional with a stressful job and long hours though not in the city, and these days I work part time (for various reasons but not least so that I can protect my mental health from burnout due to the stress of the job), which as a single parent limits my finances to the point that sun holidays every 12 weeks is sadly unaffordable. However I would jump at the chance to do exactly what you’re doing if I could so I definitely don’t think it’s madness! I find holidays abroad to be an excellent stress buster and I have never regretted money spent on travel personally, I think it’s money excellently spent if you have it. I personally don’t know anyone who takes that many trips abroad though!

I am limited to school holidays currently which doesn’t help with the expense of travel, so usually these days we go for a sun holiday once a year in summer, usually somewhere reasonably close such as to a Greek island or Italy or the Canary Islands or maybe France/Austria/Spain etc, though we had an amazing trip to Mexico once. Would love to take some more far flung breaks away but affordability plus the pandemic have limited that in recent years, I travelled a LOT as a young person though to more exotic destinations, took a gap year, went backpacking lots at uni etc, so don’t feel I am missing out, and my son simply does not have the travel bug in the way that I do and would be equally happy with a week in the Canary Islands as Thailand etc. plus he is generally quite a homebody. I try and make the annual summer holiday 10-14 days if possible but some years it is just a week. Occasionally we have managed a week away skiing in the winter, or for another sun holiday too during one of the half terms, but holidays have definitely had to be cut back here since the pandemic/Truss/cost of living crisis.

For other breaks we often travel to other parts of the U.K. to stay with my parents or siblings or friends, so at least we are getting a change of scene, or occasionally they come to stay with us. Sometimes we’ve even stayed in an hotel, although in general I don’t find a U.K. holiday to be restorative in the same way as a trip abroad somewhere sunny, partly due to the weather but also just lack of novelty/difference I think (in the past I’ve been disappointed in Barbados and Singapore as they felt too much like the U.K. had been transplanted somewhere sunny, and the Channel Islands are exactly that), and unless you stay with someone it’s just as much money if not more compared to a sunny European break abroad.

As my son nears university age I’m hoping to do a bit more travelling again, but I will have to try and up my working hours again to afford it although it will be nice not to be so tied in to school holiday times and the expense of that.

Where have been the best places you’ve gone OP? Any particularly great locations/hotels?

but my mum thinks it’s madness.

Why? Presumably you have good salaries and pensions and can afford it?

Pre-kids, DH and I both worked in finance. Our holiday patterns haven't changed after birth of DS, since I'm a SAHM, and now we live in the EU.

October is our big long-haul trip time, since bonus earning time has just finished, plus weather is good in a lot of places. Other school holidays like Christmas, Easter, summer etc are spent in DH country where we have a home. Feb we usually ski. We usually take a weekend break in May, and I'll take DS back to UK a few times during the year during school hols to see family/friends.

De-stressing is really important for those working long City hours, with no proper lunchbreaks etc. DH plays golf, which helps him relax and gets him proper exercise.

Within my friendship group it’s perfectly normal to have anywhere between 4-8 breaks a year, although this is a mixture of weeks abroad/weekends in the UK. We all have kids who are adults, or old enough to be left by themselves, and the time/money to do it. We’re all of the opinion we should travel and enjoy time away while we’re fit and healthy enough to do it.

I am not sure this is normal. Also City workers, but I don’t know many people who go on long haul holidays this frequently, certainly not if you have children. We do one main holiday and probably 3-4 mini breaks in the U.K. or abroad.

I do also need a week off every 12 weeks to reset myself, but I don’t have to be in the Carribean for that.

Pre kids we used to use all our leave every year to go abroad. Like a PP we’d use weekends and bank holidays to maximise the time away, I had it all planned out.

I’m really glad we did, had some amazing experiences and it’s only now the kids are 10+ I can start thinking about adventurous trips again. Although being tied to school holidays is a big restriction.

I have around 6 weeks of annual leave plus public holidays and I go away for 1 week or longer 4-5 times a year, with a few long weekends on top.

Work in Finance (the equivalent of the City, but I don’t live in the UK).

This level of travel/holidays is very common where I work.

Long haul trips outside school holidays are often cheaper than short haul trips in school holidays. Also some long haul destinations are incredibly cheap once you’re there (e.g. parts of Asia and Latin America). If you’re going to the Caribbean every 2 months it will be quite pricey, yes, but a mix of Caribbean, Asia, LATAM and Africa won’t be as expensive.

We don’t work in the city but we do both have busy jobs and a dc who is now 16. We have always prioritised holidays and this year have 6 planned- Iceland in Feb half term, Japan in summer, Portugal for a week in summer, somewhere tbc in October, weekend in Rome in November and Thailand for Christmas. My husband and I each have a weekend planned with friends too ( and we were supposed to be away as a couple this weekend but illness put paid to that!). As others have said, travel restores me and it’s what we work to do. We’re lucky in that our mortgage is nearly paid off and we prioritise spending on holidays. We don’t tend to stay in 5 stars and we plan it all ourselves, no travel agents or packages. I’m conscious that we’re very fortunate. Do what works for you op!

We do a week camping in the summer, a couple of festivals and a half term in a yha.

Pre kids, it was a week or 2 somewhere interesting and a week skiing in march.

I've ended up with a tonne of leave left so lots of gardening going on at the moment. Everyone else is in school.

Once a year usually, and virtually never long-haul.