I am among the guilty.
Today’s New York Times story “The Rise of Shrinking-Vacation Syndrome” cites a startling statistic: “40 percent of consumers had no plans to take a vacation over the next six months—the lowest percentage recorded by the [Conference Board] in 28 years”. A May Gallup poll found that 43 percent of Americans planned no summer vacation. I’m among them.
One quote sums up the problem:
‘The idea of somebody going away for two weeks is really becoming a thing of the past’, said Mike Pina, a spokesman for AAA, which has nearly 50 million members in North America. ‘It’s kind of sad, really, that people can’t seem to leave their jobs anymore’.
My summer has been monumentally busy at work. I wouldn’t even consider taking a vacation. Ditto for 2005. I took days at the end of last year to avoid losing them. My family formally vacationed in 2004 and also 2000. I’m thinking of taking a couple days off for the Labor Day weekend, but that would be more to help my wife finalize our daughter’s home school preparations.
The photo was taken day after my daughter’s birthday two summers ago, when the family vacationed in San Diego. Given our previous pattern of 2000 and 2004 vacations, we’re due for another week out of town in 2008.
Editor’s Note: On July 29, 2017, this post was recovered, using Archive.org Wayback Machine, from a snapshot of joewilcox.com during 2006, when months of content was lost while changing blogging systems and webhosts. Date and timestamps are authentic.