The last Tuesday of January every year is "National Plan for Vacation Day", which encourages those who get paid vacation days at work to book that time off as early in the year as possible, and then use those days for travel!

It's estimated that over 700 million vacation days are left unused every year, and that means people are left working in their offices more than they should be, and those big vacation dreams may never become reality. The benefit to getting your holiday time booked as soon as possible, even if you don't have travel plans, means that you will get to use that well-earned time off, you won't have to worry about whether or not you'll be able to get that vacation time on short notice, and it gives you plenty of time to get those vacation plans together when you are ready to travel again.

I'm happy to say that I have managed to get all of my vacation time booked at the start of this year! I have travelled a lot pre-pandemic, but I used to book my holidays more spontaneously, about two weeks in advance each time. It was always a gamble to find out whether or not I would actually get those days off, especially if I had planned my getaways before booking the time off work. This year, that is all planned out, my co-workers know when I'll be away so they'll be able to fill in for me, and even though I don't have big travel plans yet, I can still look forward to when I can take a well-deserved break so I can come back to work refreshed afterwards.

If you get paid time off, do you book those days well in advance or at the last minute? Do you have big vacation plans for this year? Call or text us on the Canadian Tire Text Line at 306-773-0971, comment on Facebook or Twitter, or record a voice memo and send it to us at magic97@swiftcurrentonline.com.