Many of us have a long bucket list of places that we’d like to travel to. But how do you find time to travel when you have to hold down a job? Most companies offer two weeks of vacation if you’re lucky. This makes it hard to pursue travel goals. Yes, you could quit your job. But without saving up a lot of money beforehand, how will you afford to travel and continue paying any bills?
Fortunately, there are ways to maintain a career and also spread your wings. This post lists some of the different ways to balance travel and a full-time job.
Find a job that requires you to travel
In some jobs, travel is part of the job description. This includes traveling sales jobs, flight attendant jobs, location scouting, stagehand work, trucking, and cruise ship jobs. You may not always get to choose where you travel, but you will constantly be seeing new places. Just be wary that trips to these places will be brief and you’ll spend most of your time there working or recovering.
Some jobs can require you to take much longer trips and you may even live somewhere for a few weeks or months. For example, if you have nursing experience, you could explore travel nurse careers where you can work temporary periods at different hospitals in different locations – often with accommodation paid for. Armed forces jobs may also require you to spend time at army bases in different countries for long periods. Other jobs that may require extended stays in different locations include archaeology, travel rep work, construction site management, and certain journalism jobs.
Take advantage of remote work
Some jobs can be worked remotely from any location. This includes digital jobs like web design, graphic design, copywriting, and online customer service jobs.
Providing you have an internet connection and access to power, you can work such a job from anywhere in the world. While you’ll spend a lot of your trip working, you’ll be able to spend your evenings and days off exploring a different location.
Find a company that offers more vacation leave
Some companies offer unlimited vacation leave. Examples include Zoom, Oracle, Netflix, and Microsoft. This means that you can take as much time off as you want.
This vacation leave is not always paid for (although some companies like Netflix do pay for it), and you will usually have to arrange cover and provide enough warning. However, it’s still a lot more flexible than only having two weeks in a year.
Plan short breaks over weekends
Short weekend breaks can be a brief but fun way to explore new places. By traveling over the weekend, you can reduce the amount of time off you need to take. Of course, you may still want to take the Friday before and Monday after off to maximize the trip – otherwise, you could just spend the whole weekend traveling there and back. It may also be possible to take advantage of bank holiday weekends but be wary that travel on these weekends is likely to be busier and more expensive.
Using this travel strategy, you may be able to plan a multitude of short weekend breaks throughout the year – which could even include city breaks abroad. Certain destinations may be too far to travel over a weekend, however, there are likely to still be many exciting places within a few hours range.
Take all your holiday at once
Taking all your holiday at once could allow you to enjoy a lengthier trip (which could also allow you the freedom to travel further afield). Every year you could plan a big annual trip to somewhere new. You may even be able to plan a multi-stop trip – allowing you to see lots of different places.
This does mean that you may not have time off available for other odd events like weddings or birthdays and therefore may not be practical for everyone. Leaving a couple of days free for other events could be worthwhile.
Ask about taking a sabbatical
A sabbatical is an extended leave from a company – usually only available after working at that company for a long period. Traditionally, sabbaticals involve giving someone a year off after seven years of working at a company.
Few companies have a sabbatical policy, but many employers are likely to be open to the idea if you have been loyal for many years and plan to continue working for the company after your leave. Besides, you do not have to ask for an entire year off – a few months could be more reasonable while giving you the time you need to travel more extensively and freely.
