ability to take time away from work without pay

Tell me you're a US American without telling me that you're a US American

No.

I can't even afford a bus ticket and I haven't been on a plane since before 9/11/2001.

The last travel I did was three years ago when we took my elderly dog to the beach one last time, and that was only about an hour and a half drive. It was a purposefully special occasion to get him to the beach one last time. Honestly, I'd probably trade never traveling again just to have him back. Miss you, Jack.

Yes.

I haven't flown in four years. Even longer since I flew for a vacation.

Me and the Mrs work remote. We have 25 days of PTO each, but often extend our vacations as workations. We have two dogs to bring along, hence we avoid flying.

We had a sailboat that we'd spend four months of the year on. Hitting four different countries in one season.

We now have a toddler that takes too much time and focus for sailing, so we've traded the sailboat for a caravan/travel trailer. We've only had it one season, but did about 4000km. Spent nights in 9 different towns.

They say vacationing with kids is just parenting without the home field advantage. Towing your vacation home evens the advantage out a bit, at least.

Yes.

Is it in any way financially responsible?

Absolutely not.

I have 6 weeks off work with pay. 5 weeks is the minimum here though.

I just don't have the desire to travel so I just spend time at home doing stuff that I feel needs doing, and chill

Sure. Living in Germany I fly at least once a year to a not so far destination for vacation. Mostly flights with a duration around the 2 hour mark within Europe that cost around 400 Euros (flight home being included)

Since I’m in Bavaria I can hop into my car and be in Austria or northern Italy in a few hours. I could take the bus to Prague or a train to Paris and have done all that in the past. (Although not quite as often as I want to)

Trips to other cities within Germany by train are even easier and cheaper thanks to the Germany Train ticket. Most expensive is often the accommodation.

However I wasn’t outside of Europe for quite some time and I‘d have to save up for quite some time if would want to go to another continent.

I'm retired, so yeah, time off work isn't an issue. We get away pretty regularly, domestically and internationally. I guess about two months a year, in aggregate, on average?

Yes but by far not as much as I would wish we could. We live i n South Korea so anywhere we want to go we have to do it by airplane and with two kids it's getting expensive. We have the financial means but especially my wife can't ever take more than a week off, which is really bad, because visiting my family in Europe isn't really worth is fo a week only.

So we end up in Japan a lot and in China because it's only like 2.5h flight.

I get paid vacation.
Why should I go without?

• A german citizen.

I do not have the ability to take time from work without pay. However, I work for a non-profit University health system, and I get 7 set holidays, 20 vacation days, and 7 personal days. So, 34 paid days off work per year.

Now that my kids are grown, I find myself being forced to take time off because I'm hitting the limit (use it or lose it).

However, I don't generally like to travel all that much.

Yes. We are DINKs in the UK with decent pay and good holiday entitlement (6 weeks each). Will take one long foreign holiday each year and then as many domestic trips as we can with the dog

Yes.

But that’s because I work for the airlines.

I have paid time off I can use and national holidays (though, frankly, not enough of either).

With a good rail network, domestic travel is cake. Wife and I popped up a couple of prefectures to spend a couple of days and see a hockey game. We had a wonderful time.

International, however, is becoming harder with the JPY falling against the USD. It makes imported things, including fuel, more expensive taking more money as well as the exchange rate issue in the target country.

I have 25 days of paid vacation paid a lot compared to living costs. I don't like travelling, but I sometimes do to meet people.

I occasionally get paid to travel to oddball countries for work, was fun the first few times but it's just a chore now.

No.

Last year I did.

I hate my life now.

I certainly have the means and the vacation days. But work is really hard to get away from for long. I've been (mostly) unplugged since Wednesday and it's been amazing. Friday was a legit vacation day and I spent it driving half way back home from a trip to Orlando. I'm about to roll out of bed and plug everything in and be back at it again.

I was hired about three months ago because my boss is stretched too thin, but I'm still learning everything so for the time being we are both stretched too thin. Eventually, hopefully we will enable each other to take vacations. I have one scheduled for April regardless. I think we're going to Mexico, but frankly where we go isn't as important to me as beautiful surroundings, good food, and leaving the kids at home.

Without pay? No. But I do fortunately have some pretty generous PTO at my work, and a bit of a weird work schedule that helps me stretch it even firther if I plan my vacations right.

My wife and I manage to get a bigger trip in every couple years. We're not staying at fancy hotels or anything, but we can go somewhere cool and do some cool stuff, splurge on a couple nice meals, etc.

And usually one or two smaller trips a year, a couple camping trips, or a weekend away or something.

Would like to travel a lot more, but the travel expenses are what prevent it- food, lodging, plane tickets/gas/etc.

Yes, and if I take vacation days I get pay those days, as well as a small compensation for each day because vacations can cost a bit. It's some percentage of what my pay per day would be if I didn't have a fixed monthly salary, roughly the equivalent to like 35$ before taxes. Not like multiple weeklong trips a year, unless I save up some more money... but I've got 30 vacation days, so yes, usually one longer during the summer vacation and maybe one or two 2-3 day vacations during autumn and spring :)

I get 25 vacation days each year, but I don't have money to really travel. Also I grew up on a farm. My parents never could be away from the animals too long, so I didn't grow up with the expectation of yearly vacations to the sun or anything like that. Because of that, it's not a priority for me now. But if I had spare money, I would like to see more of the world.

Before I had kids, I've been abroad a few times, but only once for a real vacation. I've studied abroad for half a year. I have worked as an international driver, so I've seen most of the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switserland and France. I've been in a plane 3 times in my life, one of which was behind the steering wheel (awesome experience).

I expect (hope) to be financially able to travel again in the next 5 years or so.

Yes, but my spouse and I are DINKs, and we specifically chose that, one of the big reasons was for travel. No judgement to those with families, but it's pretty clear that if you have kids then your disposable income is completely going to them. There's a ton of other reasons we chose not to have kids too, but in the context of this post, well we wanted and continue to want to travel.

All but the desire to do so.

Yes, and I have. I've historically chosen places where I had a human connection. Someone to show me around and introduce me to the place.

Don't currently have that 💁‍♂️

Not regularly because, you know, we work, but we could if we wanted to. easyJet and RyanAir have several times gotten me from and to the continent for less than 50 pounds! About two months ago I went back to France to get some documents, all in one day and a little over 40 pounds in total. 👍

domestic kinda, international not at all

The only real limiting factor is my family - If headed somewhere that isn't work related, it would only make sense that they come with me, which increases cost, so driving only.

As for flights, sure, if it's only me. I've accumulated enough points with most airlines to upgrade my seating to something really nice for free.

Yes, and at least some motivation. However I’m still getting used to being single and it’s hard to motivate myself to travel when I don’t have someone to travel with.

I like to travel to some interesting City and then find the one coffee shop and sit in there everyday and do nothing but work

You say that as if "travel regularly" was ever a thing we could do, lol.

I used to travel when I could, maybe once every couple years. I haven't made any long travels in a while, though. I have new expenses now that are digging into my savings, and don't know when I'd get the chance to travel again. Rent is putting me on the razor's edge here.

I can. It’s not the most financially responsible decision. I’m supposed to be budgeting carefully to stretch my savings for the next 3 years.

I could but I chose not to visit my family back in the home country this year as I need to make my severance pay last for I don't know how much longer.

I suppose I could start running across the US ala Forest Gump 🤔

If I chose to afford it I supposed I do.

Day trips yes, including overnight costs then that's gotta be saved up for.

In Canada we have crown land where you can camp for free, and campgrounds where lodging isn't expensive. This is what lots of people here do during vacations. Of course, you will need a tent, sleeping supplies, and cooking supplies.

There is a car outside I am allowed to drive and it currently has gas in it? I can not fill it with more gas, but another household member could. I generally have little reason to travel outside going to medical appointments currently though.

No.

I have plenty of vacation time I could take, but I don't have the money to cover the costs.

Travel how? I can get on a bus or train and head into NYC or Philadelphia any time I want. If I wasn't engaged and totally in love, I could head off to Boston or Baltimore any weekend. That's travel, but just a longer version of my old commute.

I have time enough for quick jaunts but little money and nobody to share it with anyway, sigh.

I like being alone but traveling alone runs a very real risk of me ADHDing myself into a missed flight or something

The few people I do know are the 'you want to see nature? Turn on the nature channel' type.

Yes

I get time off work and use it to travel.

I travel internationally at least once a year.

Depends what you mean by "ability" and "travel".

If you're asking whether I'm able to move about within my house, then sure. Beyond that, things get murky.

Does agoraphobia count as a disability? What if, for sufficiently short periods, it's bearable, but ultimately it crushes?

I've walked the 15 minutes down to the dentist's office and back (I'm lucky to live so close) a handful of times in the last couple of years (not so lucky with my teeth I guess), for example.

Or is this more about "Can [I] afford to use those modes of transport which take [me] to far-off places on a regular basis?"

Now we've got to define "far-off". In theory, I could probably afford to take the bus anywhere within the county on a regular basis. And if I did, there's a travel pass I could buy that would reduce the cost somewhat.

Taxis? Maybe once or twice a week if they remain relatively local.

Airline flights to foreign countries (or distant ends of the same one), which is probably what this is all about? I'd have to dip into savings, and those should probably be spent on more important things. So, no.