The new year has only just started, but now is the time to plan your holidays. This is how you get the most out of your days off in 2024.
Holidays
Most people get twenty days of vacation per year, but if you’re lucky you might have an employer who will add five days (or more) on top. 2024 offers many opportunities for a fun trip or a longer period of time off, if you make good use of your days off. If you have a working week that goes from Monday to Friday, you can have as much as 39 days off by working 16 days!
Which days?
We start with Good Friday and Easter: If you take the four days (April 2, 3, 4 and 5) off after Easter, you can enjoy a free period of no less than ten days. So it’s wonderful to be able to get away for a while!
On Ascension Day you can plan a mini-vacation of four days. Ascension Day falls on a Thursday this year, so if you take the following Friday (May 10) off, you can enjoy it from Thursday to Sunday.
If you thought spending your days at Easter was convenient, Pentecost will also surprise you. If you take four days off after Whit Monday, you can take another nine days off. In this case, take time off on May 21, 22, 23 and 24.
The holidays give you a real gift: Christmas Day and Boxing Day fall on Wednesday and Thursday in 2024, and New Year’s Day 2025 also falls on a Wednesday. This means that if you order two days before Christmas (Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 December), the day after Christmas (Friday 27 December), two days before New Year’s Day (Monday 30 December and Tuesday 31 December) and two days after the New Year (2 and January 3, 2025) you are lucky enough to have no less than sixteen days off. That’s a good way to start the new year!
Tips
Not all holidays are ideal if you want an extra day off: for example, King’s Day falls on a Saturday this year, which means that you will not get an extra day off if you have a working week that runs from Monday to Friday. You can also expect that you are not the only one who wants to use this trick: are you too late in requesting your vacation days? Maybe you can do a workation. You can always consider extending your holiday by working remotely at the destination for a week. If that is possible for your job, of course.
