Never went on a summer vacation. Kids went to camp. Day camp from ages 3-8. Overnight camp for 8 weeks from 9-15. Then they worked as camp counselors. That’s pretty typical around here. Almost every one of the girls friends went to camp all summer. Here vacations are usually one week over spring or winter. Europe occasionally done in August for 10 days.
We enjoy going far so we’ve taken a number of 3 week vacations over the years. Six weeks would be too long for me personally. It does seem like your dh could come home and you could stay longer if the two of you have such different ideas about how long to be away.
Ten days is the longest for us, but usually shorter. It seems like the OP could stay longer with whatever kids can also stay and H could go home early.
Six weeks sounds like a dream! DH has never been able to be gone from work longer than 2 weeks and we’ve only done that a handful of times. Usually we go 7-10 days.
Three weeks for European trips and I could’ve stayed longer. Seems like at 10 days I’m feeling ready to go home and at 14 days I’m feeling ready to stay longer.
We take quite a few long weekend type trips (3-4 days).
Six weeks away from my house would be my personal nightmare. Lol. Confirmed homebody here!
When kids were living at home, we went away for 2 weeks right around July 4th every year because their summer camps usually started after July 4th. We typically went abroad and Italy was our favorite place to visit. In between we did Disney or Club Meed beach vacations.
Now the kids are out of the house, we are still keeping up with family vacation (minus their dad), but now it is around one week. We are going to northern Spain this April. We also do vacations with my extended family - siblings and their adult kids, and my mom.
I would love to do a 3+ weeks vacation some day, maybe after I retire.
We spent 5.5 weeks in Europe last summer and head to Australia for 3.5 weeks in March. H retired December 31 and for the first time ever we are not constrained by the University semester schedule for our travels!
We go to Europe for 2-2.5 weeks because my vacation time is limited, and even this means I have hardly any time left for the rest of the year. When I was working from home, we stayed in Europe several times for most of the summer, but DH was working, so we mostly stayed in one place and took shorter trips, that was wonderful. I have a chronic travel bug, so I’d love to spend a whole summer traveling, but I wouldn’t rush and try to see several countries in a short time. Can you send DH home and stay for a bit longer yourself?
Six weeks would be amazing! I have a lot of vacation time but there is no way I’d be able to take more than 2 weeks off at once. I only did that once, for a trip to Europe with my girls. But so much work had piled up that I’m not sure I’d do that again until I retire.
The longest vacation I can remember was 2 weeks plus the weekends for me, and whatever conference dh was on taking up a 4 to 5 of those days. Most commonly we do a week plus two weekends and might hit two countries - like the summer we went to Scotland, but took in a couple of days in Germany to see a rock concert for one of my son’s favorite bands that never tours in the US. We did lots of weeklong beach vacations which is all that I can stand. This fall we did two full days in Taipei as one trip, 4 days in Shanghai and Huang Shan as another trip, and 8 days in Beijing, Xi’an and Guilin as a third trip. The two Chinese trips were with tour guides so we weren’t wasting a lot of time figuring out how to get places.
When we go to family cabins we never seem to find time more for the week plus weekends. DH is a professor so summer ought to be slow time - except for years he had to teach a course which started in August. But he still has to oversee students in his lab and as an architect my summers tend to be busy too.
DH was a visiting prof in Hong Kong this fall - hence all the China travel. It was pretty much a 2.5 month vacation for both of us. A very welcome break, that just happened to work out. But yes, despite our best efforts (mail forwarded to our son), a few things arrived anyway. Including the newspaper once about a month in - I guess the delivery guy just spaced out! Luckily we have neighbors (who have imposed on us a lot, so we didn’t feel guilty! ) who came and watered plants and generally kept an eye on things.
When son was a teen we dropped trips since he was a horrible person to be with- and he wasn’t the only one who stayed in the car when we went to see the trees near San Francisco. When son was younger we would do the vacation for the whole week when H had a major conference in a kid friendly city for most of the time. Plus pure vacation road trips where we often did not make all hotel reservations because we did not know how far we would get on our way to the destination. A couple of bad memories before cell phone/internet searching available.
The two of us discovered that allowing two weeks for a road trip (many possible from the middle of the country) always meant returning days before we needed to. We get road weary- wanting to be home. When we fly we have allowed enough time for plans plus travel time. Now retired so we have the time. Last road trip (now in FL) we again chose to ignore some on the way home stops because we had done enough. Last trip to London (had gone once before with son 20 years before) was a week and I am done with the country, unlike H. I can’t imagine spending the time you will in Switzerland. We have “been there, done that” a lot by our ages although so differently than H’s sister. btw- now with adult kids I have heard that some of their vacations were not all pleasantness all of the time. One of the things we do when we return is to go our separate ways a few days after sooo much time together.
I would say one to two weeks is typical for us.
We also take a jar of peanut butter plus bread/jam for sandwiches since restaurant food get tiring. That can be any meal depending on the mood.
@wis75, we like to explore local markets in the places we visit so we can have a light meal/munchies instead of three meals a day. We’re very fond of local breads and cheeses.
I could never get more than a week off at a time. That would mean doing extra work the week before and catching up the week I came back. Never had the luxury of a 6 week vacation in this lifetime.
I don’t see how someone can take more than two weeks off from work at a time but if one is retired than any amount of vacation time is possible. While on vacation I don’t like to cram a full schedule in everyday. That I imagine for 14 to 17 days would be exhausting not relaxing. What you are describing I would split into two separate vacations but that’s just me. I would not be happy taking a vacation more than two weeks at a time.
I think it’s fair to say that yes, you could be retired or just not be working to get that much time off - in America anyway! In some other countries they seem to have generous “holiday” time off.
Not everyone on CC works outside the home - whether that’s a stay at home mom or dad.
For me, I would think that 2 weeks - especially if changing cities and places to stay all the time would be my max.
Now a couple weeks at our cottage…that sounds wonderful - one spot, one place with day trips or a quick overnight in there somewhere - that sounds like heaven! Someday…right now I’m a one man show for my particular program so it’s tough to leave for more than a week - even that is pushing it.
I have always worked while on vacation - with work phone and laptop, even when they were tracking our usage (to make sure we weren’t working because of regulatory requirement), they would ask for my private # so they could get in touch with me. I usually worked for few hours in the morning while everyone was still asleep. My family actually asked me to turn off my laptop on a flight because the glare was effecting their sleep (I am sorry, this is paying for your trip).
We usually take 1 week vacations, but if we go to Hawaii, it’s 2 weeks, because it takes so long to get there. We usually take at lest 2-3 week long trips a year. Right now we are spending a week in the Caribbean. In September we are spending 8 or 9 days at Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. We will likely do a couple of long weekends, and maybe another week long trip.
A six week vacation! You must not have pets!
I agree with @abasket: 6 weeks vacations is something Europeans shoot for, and Americans can barely fathom. Very atypical in this country.
Since having children, DH and I never vacationed as a family for longer than two weeks. (But we did much longer trips - 3-6 months in our youth.) Most of it had to do with the realities of vacation policies in America.
That said, I also think your husband going home alone, and you staying longer with the kids is a solution that a reasonable couple could make work.
Our longest family vacations have been 6 weeks in Europe, 3 weeks in Tibet, and a few 2 week trips. Today DW and I will return home from 17 days in SE Asia, but longer would have been better. IMO, the best vacations are when you have time to settle into new locations as opposed to doing the “If it’s Tuesday this must be Belgium” craziness.