How to Feed your Wanderlust While Working a Full-Time Job

Sounds like a challenge, right? It can be.

I am wanderlusting 24/7 while holding down a 40-hour a week job. I manage to travel multiple times a year. But how, you ask? How do I have time to fit it all in? Let me show you the way:

Strategy #1

Travel around a national holiday

Ok, so this is my best strategy and the one I most depend on to get all my vacations in each and every year. For our week-long vacations, we center them around a national holiday because we get one or two paid days off from work depending on which holiday you travel during. We are gone over Memorial Day week, Labor Day week, and Thanksgiving week. So, instead of asking off work for five days, we only need to request 3 or 4 days away. By doing this, we save several vacation days a year to put towards other trips!

Strategy #2

Negotiate more PTO at your job

Most corporations or large companies will give you any where from one to two weeks of PTO (paid time off) during your first year of working there, along with about 7 paid national holidays off in the U.S. That’s not much, I know. With my current employer, I receive 3 weeks and have from the get go. However, at my previous job, I was offered one measly week but that just wouldn’t do what with all my wanderlusting, y’all. So, I negotiated an extra week totaling two weeks instead, yaye! Negotiating vacation time when starting a new job is totally doable. I would explain to them that low PTO it is a deal breaker for you (put in nicer terms) and that traveling is something you deem highly important in your life. Hey, everyone’s got their hobbies, right? Yours just happens to be seeing the world and until teleportation is invented, traveling just takes time, simple as that. Up for a review at your job? This is another opportunity to ask for more vacation days. The worst they can say is no! But it’s worth a shot.

Strategy #3

Don’t just stick to one area during your whole vacation

You don’t really want to only hang out at the beach for a whole week, do you? Let’s get some bucket list destinations in! When I vacay, I try to hit up as many different attractions and activities as I can in one general area. I’ll stick to one spot for a day or two and then move on. Ok, so you’re not going to see everything that one spot has to offer, but what you gain is seeing multiple different cities, states, national parks, etc. in one whole trip by changing up the scenery! I’d recommend limiting the number of spots you want to get to as too many can be overkill and stressful but I would at least try to make it to a couple different destinations within a day’s drive from each other.

Strategy #4

Consider a weekend getaway

I love a good week-long trip so I can see all kinds of different places over one vacation. However, something can be said about a weekend getaway. Pick a place that’s about a half-day’s drive and leave on a Friday after work. This way you’ll get all of Saturday and most of Sunday to go exploring! By traveling this way you get to fit some traveling in without dropping a lot of cash and you won’t have to use any vacation days!

That’s it-that’s how I do it, folks! If you love traveling as much as I do, where there’s a will there’s a way so try these out this year to meet your traveling goals. Comment below how you manage to travel often while working full time!

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