Many of you will know that despite taking 15 trips in 2016, I have a full-time job, and just work on my blog and freelance writing projects on my evenings and weekends. With a love for travel, I always knew when I finished Uni and started working five years ago, that I would have to be very careful with my holiday days to make the most out of them.
Over the years I’ve had a lot of questions about how exactly I travel so regularly while holding down a full-time job. In 2016 I took 15 trips, including visits to;
Paris,
Thailand,
New York x2,
Antigua,
Milan,
Lisbon,
Geneva,
Dubai,
Oman,
Qatar, and Australia.
To be fair 2016 was an unusual one because I finished my job in August to move to Australia in September, so had some extra time to take a few more tips. However, in 2017 I’ve worked the whole year and even with working 9-5 in
Sydney and having just 20 holiday days, I’ve had trips to/have trips booked in to;
Melbourne x2,
Perth,
Singapore,
Cambodia,
Hong Kong,
London x2,
Paris,
Canberra,
Great Barrier Reef,
New Zealand, New York, Iceland. This still amounts to 14 trips in one year!
There are multiple ways I take so many trips in a year while having a full time job, and a lot of it is just being really smart with the holiday days, weekends, and public holiday days.
1. I Use Weekends & Public Holidays
I’ve always been very smart with my holiday days and public/bank holidays. I quite often take a Friday or Monday off work, or days either side of bank holidays. I always make sure I book the days off work far in advance before my colleagues can get in there first (pretty sure they all hate me, haha).
2. I Visit Multiple Countries In The Same Location
A great example of this is my recent Asia trip. I’m not a fan of staying in one place for an entire week unless I’m just chilling out on a beach. I like to always be on the move. In one week I visited
Singapore,
Cambodia, and
Hong Kong. Singapore was a long stopover, so I had a night there and the
5 hours to see Singapore. I’ve been to Singapore numerous times before so I just saw the main sites, but I pretty much saw everything (apart from Sentosa and Little India).
I then had 2 nights in
Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, and 3 nights in
Siem Reap where
Angkor Wat is located. After that I flew to
Hong Kong and had
2 nights to explore Hong Kong. Again, I’d been to Hong Kong before so had already seen a lot of the touristy stuff. This style of travel isn’t for everyone, but I love it and love being on the go as I find it just makes the whole trip feel like more of an adventure!
3. I Work In Offices In Other Cities
I’m very lucky that the company I work for is a global company, which allows me to work days in offices in other cities in Australia and around the world. This means I can fly to
Melbourne for a weekend and take advantage of cheap evening flights on Thursdays and Mondays, because I can then work in the Melbourne office on the Friday and Monday etc. Whenever I work in an office in another city, I can still use my lunch break and extra evenings to explore!
I also did this when I went to
Perth for Easter – I had the long Easter weekend off, my birthday day off, and then worked in our Perth office for 3 days. This meant I could go back to Perth to see family and friends, but only had to take 1 holiday day to have 9 days, and two weekends there!
I also worked in the London office for three weeks
when I was back in London, as all my friends and family work full-time anyway, so I worked and then saw them all in the evenings and weekends! It allowed me to go back home using just four holiday days (the 3 days I needed for flying, and then one day off to go and visit my grandma in Wales for a long weekend).
4. I Take Red-Eye Flights
I’m one of those weird people who can sleep anywhere. I fall asleep in cars, on boats, on trains, and on planes pretty easily. Because of this I tend to take red-eye flights, so I’ll work a full day in the office, then get a taxi to the
airport and get on a 9pm
flight somewhere. Because I’ve been working all day I’ll be tired and ready for sleep as soon as I get on the plane! Depending on time difference and the flight time, I’ll then either land in the afternoon/evening/morning, and be ready to get some more sleep or hit the ground running!
5. I Go Into Work Straight From The Airport
Similar to taking red-eye flights, this is another one some people just can’t handle. I’ll often take a red-eye flight from overseas or Perth, land in Sydney around 7am, and go straight into the office ready to start work at 8:30am. We’re super lucky at work that we have flexi-hours, so if my flight gets in at 8am or 9am meaning I won’t get into the office until 9/10ish, I can then just work through lunch or work late to make up the time.
Sometimes this one can be really tough, especially when I went straight into the office after travelling for 30 hours from London, but I find it helps loads with jetlag. Instead of going home at 9am and wanting to shower and fall asleep, it forces you to stay awake until the evening so it gets your body back into your normal routine and body clock pattern.
Travelling so often with a full time job is exhausting but worth it
My travel style is definitely exhausting, and I only tend to take one or two ‘relaxing’ slow-paced trips a year compared to multiple other fast-paced trips, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! It allows me to travel as much as possible while working a full-time job, and although it sometimes costs me a lot more money because I’m limited with the dates I can travel, I love my job and my routine far too much to ever give it up for full-time blogging/travelling!
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a round of applause for #5, that is true commitment!
I seriously wish I could sleep anywhere!! What great advice for people with full time jobs.
This is such an interesting post!! I definitely want to start travelling more and these tips are amazing!!
Abi | abistreetx
It's great to read about someone doing the exact same thing as me. I do struggle with the balance some times. I fully rate that you go straight to work -that's incredible! Working full time really does take its toll some times whilst trying to travel but the one thing I truly miss, is working for a company with international offices, which would definitely make things easier. Good Luvk with all your travels for the upcoming year!
You little jetsetter you! How many days holiday do you get a year? 🙂
Really provides an unique insight as I also do a full time job and still need to fuel my passion for Travel. Though not a good sleeper – would love to do some red eye flights.
Clever use of the other offices is an inspired way to see around. If I have an interesting trip I will go out for the weekend first – did that for LA in May. But more often I end up sightseeing on an evening run because the rest of the time I'm in the office!
Wow these are really good ways to make the most out of it!!
Just the standard 20, which has to include 3 over Christmas…so actually 17 🙂 xx
I absolutely love these tips Catherine. If you want to travel you will make it a priority.
Wow going straight into the office from the airport is dedication! But makes sense if you want to maximise travelling 🙂 I always try and take advantage of bank holidays and weekends, something that I have done this year a lot more.
Holly x
http://www.ldnmuse.com
I'm confident that everyone can incorporate at least a few of these into their life in order to travel to the max… even if they don't have a remote/flexible aspect to their job. Thanks for putting these together and being an inspiration for that!