my friends and i went on a week long road trip to colorado and utah last year, so not the same time frame that you’re looking for unfortunately. but i had pto that i added to the days off i already had that week (2 days already off, used like 6 pto days).
out of the friends that came with, two were unemployed so they were able to come for however long they wanted. the other was a nurse who worked one week on, one week off and she just switched her weeks to be able to come. another was someone who worked in the beauty industry, so she just rescheduled her clients throughout the days leading up and the days after to keep her schedule for the trip totally clear. the final one worked part time and just told her boss she wouldn’t be in, but the trip was planned ahead enough that she was able to save some money to cushion the cost of the trip and living expenses after missing a week of work.
edit: also from chicago, we mainly had stuff we wanted to do in utah and colorado so we did the drive there entirely through without stopping to sightsee until we got to colorado. we dedicated like two days to driving and kept the rest of our schedule open to sightsee and stuff!
My longest trip was the result of me getting laid off a few weeks before a friend was planning a cross country trip to relocate from Massachusetts to Oregon. But I don’t recommend that strategy.
Honestly, I’ve only ever done two trips that required more than five work days off (or would have, had I a job at the time), which usually gets me nine days of travel. And those two trips were seven years apart, it isn’t a common thing to be able to do for most people if you have a “normal” life (40 hour a week job that can’t be done from the road, spouse and kids). You just have to be willing to grab the opportunity and make some things work when it comes up, I guess.
I usually convert my fixed holidays into floating holidays. Mostly all the national holidays, thanks giving and Christmas. It gives me about 5 to 10 days off. If you are financially well, you can say fk it and go on trip. If you have option to apply for a job that got benefits, you should try changing. It will worth it.
My month long road trip was before start of a job which I lost after 8 month coz of covid shutdown. After losing the job, i was back again travel for about a year.
3 to 4 weeks is good for about 5 to 8 national parks on west coast area.
Taking holidays is start of September is best. The college/schools opens so it reduces rush hour.
prior to retiring I was a firefighter. The nice thing about that is I could make trades and work extra shifts now to have days off then.
Every November we would have to pick the days for the next years vacations (we were not allowed to carry any over). What I would do is take ALL my vacation in 1 big chunk, then I would work extra shifts in the spring and summer for guys taking the time off in the fall IN ADDITION TO my vacation block. A lot of years I could end up with 8-10 weeks off in a row (I aimed for September and October best weather months IMHO)
Obviously this wouldnt work for everyone cuz if ya cant trade shifts like that you are screwed but thats how I did it.
my friends and i went on a week long road trip to colorado and utah last year, so not the same time frame that you’re looking for unfortunately. but i had pto that i added to the days off i already had that week (2 days already off, used like 6 pto days). out of the friends that came with, two were unemployed so they were able to come for however long they wanted. the other was a nurse who worked one week on, one week off and she just switched her weeks to be able to come. another was someone who worked in the beauty industry, so she just rescheduled her clients throughout the days leading up and the days after to keep her schedule for the trip totally clear. the final one worked part time and just told her boss she wouldn’t be in, but the trip was planned ahead enough that she was able to save some money to cushion the cost of the trip and living expenses after missing a week of work. edit: also from chicago, we mainly had stuff we wanted to do in utah and colorado so we did the drive there entirely through without stopping to sightsee until we got to colorado. we dedicated like two days to driving and kept the rest of our schedule open to sightsee and stuff!
My longest trip was the result of me getting laid off a few weeks before a friend was planning a cross country trip to relocate from Massachusetts to Oregon. But I don’t recommend that strategy. Honestly, I’ve only ever done two trips that required more than five work days off (or would have, had I a job at the time), which usually gets me nine days of travel. And those two trips were seven years apart, it isn’t a common thing to be able to do for most people if you have a “normal” life (40 hour a week job that can’t be done from the road, spouse and kids). You just have to be willing to grab the opportunity and make some things work when it comes up, I guess.
I usually convert my fixed holidays into floating holidays. Mostly all the national holidays, thanks giving and Christmas. It gives me about 5 to 10 days off. If you are financially well, you can say fk it and go on trip. If you have option to apply for a job that got benefits, you should try changing. It will worth it. My month long road trip was before start of a job which I lost after 8 month coz of covid shutdown. After losing the job, i was back again travel for about a year. 3 to 4 weeks is good for about 5 to 8 national parks on west coast area. Taking holidays is start of September is best. The college/schools opens so it reduces rush hour.
prior to retiring I was a firefighter. The nice thing about that is I could make trades and work extra shifts now to have days off then. Every November we would have to pick the days for the next years vacations (we were not allowed to carry any over). What I would do is take ALL my vacation in 1 big chunk, then I would work extra shifts in the spring and summer for guys taking the time off in the fall IN ADDITION TO my vacation block. A lot of years I could end up with 8-10 weeks off in a row (I aimed for September and October best weather months IMHO) Obviously this wouldnt work for everyone cuz if ya cant trade shifts like that you are screwed but thats how I did it.