Is A Two-Week Vacation Normal?

Royal Palace of Brussels: Was I traveling or on a vacation? Are the terms synonyms?

In early June 2025, I saw a HARO request for industry experts to share their opinions on why people are choosing 10-day vacations instead of two-week vacations. From the details of the request, it didn’t look like the topic was about taking time off of work. Rather, it appeared that the topic is leaving your house and staying somewhere else as a way to have fun.

​Is it normal to take a two-week vacation? 

Growing up, three to five days was the normal length of a vacation for my family. As an adult, five days is a long vacation. Three to four day trips are most common. The only time I’ve gone away for two weeks is when I visited family on another continent and had to fly 24 hours to get there. 

Incidentally, I don’t consider visiting family to be a vacation. Even if I like the people, there’s still an element of duty inherent in the trip that prevents it from meeting my definition of leisure time. 

The journalist’s request compared to my experience has me questioning my biases. I realized that I thought of a “vacation” as something upper-middle class people do. Two-week vacations are for people who can afford to rent a house for the entire time, pay for tickets for experiences, and to eat out every day. 

If it is true that people are shortening their vacation time to 10 days compared to 14, then I have two questions: 

1) Is that a significant enough change to warrant investigation?
2) What is the demographic of the people displaying this behavior?

I Might Be the Wrong Demographic

I wonder if I’m part of a different demographic than the (unnamed) study that inspired the HARO request. 

In my world, “taking time off work” is something the average middle class person does. Maybe you use that time to catch up on health appointments. Maybe you use the time to work on home maintenance. You probably go away for 12-25% of the nights, but the biggest relaxation comes from not having to get up early, commute, or otherwise do your normal routine. If you voluntarily go stay someplace that is not your house, then taking time off of work becomes “taking a trip.”

My Time Off From Work Lexicon

Time Off (of Work)

Anytime you are not working at a time when you normally would be, can be for any reason

Minimum Duration: 8 hours/1 working day
​
Financial Mindset:
     A) I’m really glad I get PTO.
OR   
​   B) I wonder how much overtime I’ll have to work to make up for losing pay today?

Traveling

Sleeping away from your home in another town, either voluntarily or from duty. Intentions may be     
​    A)  Fulfilling a duty (e.g. visiting family, going to a conference)
OR
  B) Experiencing something different; Learning, accomplishing a goal, and actively pursuing novel experiences are the primary motivators
 
Minimum Duration: 1 night
​
Financial Mindset: Stick to the budget; Have fun, but be aware of the cost

Vacation

Voluntarily sleeping away from your house in a location of your choosing and with the intent of
    A) Enforcing so much leisure that you are bored out of your mind by the end of it
OR   
​    B) Doing so many activities, usually paid, that you come home exhausted

Minimum Duration: = 7 days
​
Financial Mindset: = Spend whatever you want; Money is no object

A travel group I’m in tried to define the differences between “travel” and “vacation.” Opinions were divided. That, combined with how acquaintances use the word “vacation” tells me that my definitions are not the common ones. 

If I drove 4 hours one way and had to stay in a hotel to attend a wedding, was I traveling or on vacation? Does it make a difference that we only did wedding things, no tourist things?

How Has My Travel Behavior Changed Since 2015?

I got married in 2015 and started my first career job, so that made a huge difference in how I travel. Over the past 10 years, my travel has steadily gotten more expensive. I used to think Motel 6 was luxury because the other option was staying in a tent. Now, an updated Comfort Inn is the bare minimum. I only go camping for camping trips, not as the default way of spending the night when moving from point A to point B. I also eat out at least once a day, sometimes twice. Before, a splurge was buying pre-made food from the grocery store. Before, I did one paid activity and looked for free options to fill the rest of the time. Now, I can usually afford one paid event per day. 

The destinations have not changed much in the past decade. Most trips are still road trips to places 2-8 hours from where I live. There have been a few international trips, but most vacations, or time off, or whatever you want to call it, have been within the U.S. 

The length of my vacations has remained stable. Three to five days is all I can psychologically or physically handle. If I travel for longer, there is a reason, like flying internationally or tacking personal time onto the end of a business trip. Also, when you’re used to independence at home, being with a partner 24/7 is not always conducive to relational health. We’ve found that after three days of constant contact, we start to need plenty of alone time and after five days we just want to get back to normal life.

Has Vacationing Among the US Population Changed in the Past Decade?

I don’t know. I’ll leave that question to the researchers and journalists. All I ask is that they define their use of “vacation” so that I know whether or not they are talking about people like me.