Here’s how to get a longer vacation in 2025

You need a vacation.

No, not one of those “Frankencations” where you cobble together a few sick days with a weekend and act like it’s the real deal.

I mean a real vacation. A week, two weeks, maybe even a European getaway for a whole month.

Or maybe more.

According to the latest figures from Expedia, Americans are taking the least vacations. We only get an average of 12 days off per year, and only 53% of Americans use all of their vacation days. Expedia found that 65% of respondents feel like they don’t give themselves enough time, which is the highest level in 11 years.

Wait, do you call this a vacation?

Perhaps it’s no surprise that travel itself is becoming less and less satisfying. Tourists check into their hotels and spend the rest of their few days off walking around and trying to make the most of their precious days off. That’s not what most people have in mind when they think of a vacation.

“Travellers are looking for ways to truly immerse themselves,” says Alex Chatzieleftheriou, CEO of Blueground, an operator of flexible furnished apartments.

How does it work? Well, it turns out you can extend your next vacation and your timing might just be perfect. Not only is this the right time to think about your summer vacation, but with slow travel emerging as one of the big trends of 2025, you might also be thinking about a longer vacation.

“People are moving away from shorter stays and toward longer stays in a particular city or state,” says Bill Smith, CEO of Landing, a company that offers memberships that allow travelers to rent furnished apartments.

Times are changing

Robert Li, director of Temple University’s US-Asia Center for Tourism & Hospitality Research, says Americans feel more comfortable with longer vacations. He has studied America’s vacation deficit, which he attributes to the perception that employees who take time off are less hardworking and engaged.

But the pandemic may have sparked a cultural shift in which employee wellbeing has become an increasing priority.

“Ideally, this shift will be accompanied by policy changes at the national level to better support paid leave and work-life balance,” he says.

While on assignment in Scandinavia this summer, I was curious about America’s vacation deficit. Vacationing there is like a religion. You get about a month off, and people actually take the whole month off.

I’ve also noticed that there’s an unspoken cushion a few days before and after a long vacation when people tiptoe around you. “I’m about to go on vacation” or “I just got back from vacation” gives you leeway to be late for an appointment or cancel a meeting entirely. So you actually get a month plus a few days less work. And it’s okay.

That’s seven weeks of vacation. Now you’re talking!

Here are some strategies to extend your vacation

But how do you extend your vacation next year? Here are a few professional tips:

• Combine holidays for more vacation time. Most people try to extend their vacation in the wrong way. You focus on a holiday – like Memorial Day or the Fourth of July – and take a day off before and after. However, Henri Chelhot, CEO of FlightHub, says it would be more effective to book it with other holidays. “Try combining holidays like Christmas and New Year,” he says. Also try looking outside the United States for places where you’re unlikely to find other vacationers, such as the Middle East. I mean, who doesn’t love shopping in Dubai?
  
• Try a “workcation” or sabbatical. “As more and more people realize they have a vacation deficit, interest in working longer hours and working from anywhere is growing,” says Toni Frana, career expert at FlexJobs. A workcation is exactly what it sounds like: staying in a remote area and still working. Frana says workcations can allow you to work from anywhere and still get a change of scenery that you can’t get on the great American microvacation. Many employers now allow their employees to do their work remotely. They also have more generous sabbatical policies, allowing you to take even more time to work.
  
• Don’t be afraid of commitment. One of the big obstacles to a longer vacation is accommodation. If you extend your stay beyond a month, you will need to find practical and affordable accommodation. And that’s difficult in some places where short-term rentals are a hit-and-miss business. If you can commit to a month, you can use a platform like Blueground, which offers apartments in 48 cities worldwide, or Landing, which has a strong presence in the US. Airbnb also offers cheaper prices for monthly rentals. “If you’re planning a long-term stay, it’s important to define your priorities,” says Chatzieleftheriou, CEO of Blueground. “Do you prefer a central location, a quiet environment or proximity to public transport?”
  

How do you extend your vacation?

But how do you do that? Richard Campbell and his wife decided they wanted more vacation after spending a few days hiking in the Rocky Mountains this summer. He says he loved Colorado, but after going to the same place for four years, “we wanted something new.”

Campbell plans to spend next summer in Europe – like all of next summer. As the founder of a travel booking site, he can take his work with him. Lucky guy.

“We will spend our time in four cities in France and Italy over two months, with a week-long vacation in the middle and another vacation at the end,” he says. “What really excites us is that every evening and every weekend we feel like we’re on vacation, exploring a new city, trying new foods, trying new dishes and just enjoying a new place instead of doing gardening or scrolling on our phones.”

The Campbells can stay in Europe for three months without a visa, so that’s the plan.

Perhaps the key to a truly satisfying vacation in 2025 is simple: more of it. Whether you opt for a month-long European-style getaway or a strategic vacation-work combination, it’s clear that more and more travelers are forgoing “microcations” and opting for longer stays.

Christopher Elliott is an author, consumer advocate and journalist. He founded Elliott endorsement, a nonprofit organization that helps solve consumer problems. He publishes Elliott Confidentiala travel newsletter and that Elliott Reporta customer service news site. If you need help with a consumer issue, you can reach him here or send him an email at [email protected].