This PTO expert wants you to think more creatively about your vacation time

The benefits of taking time off from work are well-documented. In previous coverage, Fast Company has detailed how vacations stave off burnout, promote engagement, and may even help you be healthier.

There are a number of ways to get more out of your vacation days, says time-off expert Jackie Swayze, founder of Maximizing My PTO, a website that helps people use a number of tips and tricks to plan unusual getaways. She says that one size does not fit all when it comes to paid time off. “There’s so much more creativity to be had than the standard, you know, take one week off in the summer,” she says.

Here are some ways others have made their time off distinctly their own.

Honor your personal priorities

Sundie Leigh Jones, a software development engineer, says she makes the most of her PTO by focusing on her priorities. One of the ways she does so is to use time off for her birthday and her daughter’s. “I’m big on spending my free time building up my relationships, and I like to do that by traveling to people I love or with people I love,” she says.

Since her birthday typically falls around Labor Day and her daughter’s is during the summer, those are good times to take a day to celebrate, she says. And if they fall adjacent to a weekend, that’s an opportunity to make the celebration into a long weekend.

Plan a speed getaway

Swayze recommends checking your local airport’s flight schedules. There are likely direct flights that make getting to a particular destination convenient. That recipe for a quick trip may require little to no time off.

For example, she recently flew to Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day. While some might balk at flying several hours to a destination for such a quick trip, she says that changing your thinking about doing short trips can open up new opportunities for adventure. “There’s never enough time in a place ever. I’d much rather go somewhere for just a couple of days than not ever go at all,” she says.

Combine your PTO with flexible work time

Swayze says remote work opportunities can open up other ways to extend your PTO options. While her husband’s job typically requires him to be in the office five days per week, he does have some flexibility to work remotely.

When they found a great deal on a flight to Paris out of Detroit, they flew from Chicago to Detroit the night before. He worked out of the hotel the next day and then they boarded their flight to Europe. “Once in Europe, working East Coast hours tends to mean getting the morning to explore and working from 3 to 11 p.m.,” she says. “Play hard, then work hard.”

(Of course, it’s important to check that your employer allows “work from anywhere” and to also ensure that working in other states or countries won’t create new tax obligations.)

Work on your hobbies or side hustles

Jones owns a number of income properties in other states, so she’ll schedule her PTO to be able to go tend to those properties, taking off a day or two on a given week to create a long weekend. She even planted an orchard during one of her breaks. Because her “day job” tends to make her sedentary, she says she relishes the opportunity to do physical labor when she takes time off.

“I took two weeks off, and we transformed a part of my property . . . [into] a small fruit orchard,” she says. “We worked 10 hours a day on the orchard. Then, on the ‘off’ days, we explored the Pacific Northwest.” While that may not sound restful, she says that she enjoys the trips and the chance to build her property portfolio. Plus, all that physical activity leaves her eager to get back to her desk job, she says.

Be strategic about when you take time off

Cornia Leslie is the public relations manager at email verification service ZeroBounce. While her company has an unlimited PTO policy, she’s concerned about “how much is too much.” Still, she says she needs at least four to five days off to begin disconnecting from work, so she planned a long vacation last year, spending nearly a month in Europe. “It was my first ‘real’ vacation in seven years. I was able to fully relax and stop checking my email compulsively,” she says. To prepare, she made plans for her tasks to be covered and wrote some content in advance.

Leslie says that she actually felt more secure about taking vacation time when she had a set amount of PTO. “I don’t want to abuse this policy, so I try to plan ahead: Batch my time off, use it less often, but make it count,” she says. “Longer vacations are more restorative for me than scattering single days here and there.”
In addition to a longer-than-average vacation, it may also be possible to use your time off to plan a sabbatical to learn something new, travel, or work on a personal project.

Swayze encourages people to think about being strategic and use the PTO that they are due. “I plan trips pretty far in advance, so I’m looking at my whole year of PTO all at once,” she says. By thinking through the time off you have available to you, as well as holidays and seasonal fluctuations in your work, you can create times for rest, experiences, and adventures throughout the year in the ways that best suit you.