Remarkable how little vacation allowance the US gets. No wonder only around a 3rd of Americans own passports.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2015/11...
The US also has a ton of attractions within its borders. And other than going to Canada or Mexico, you're talking about relatively expensive flights to travel internationally.
Travel in Europe is expensive when you're there so a lot of people from Europe travel to SE Asia and similar destinations (althought the cost differential is reducing)
You're not finding flights in the US between major cities for less than 3 digits, and buses take several hours. In Europe you take a 2 hour bus ride and end up in a completely different country whichever way you go.
There's a reason your stereotypical university student backpacker goes to Europe.
I meant the total cost in Europe. Food, accommodation etc.
Looking at my bookings in northern Europe and US major cities, they're also roughly the same price, but there's a lot more cheap hostels in Europe if you're willing to go that route.
Southern Europe is cheaper by over 50% though.
Interesting how we could come to basically opposite conclusions given the same data.
That's 'nuts', why's that? If £12 short haul flights between cities works in Europe why not in the US? Obviously the US is a lot bigger than the UK, but so's Europe, I could book a flight right now for today to (checks) Ibiza for £9.99, Milan or Barcelona for £12.99, and so on. Why's it 10x that (actually 29x for today, but ae little as 5x (mid two digits) if we push the date out and go mid week, call it 10x, whatever) for NY to Chicago? Naively I would think within one country it should be possible to run it if anything even cheaper.
It just adds up to a lot of competition among no-frills airlines because there's a sizable group of price-sensitive travelers who are fine with talking a budget flight for an hour or two.
In any case I’m hundreds of dollars to fly in the US.
As does everywhere, which is why people travel.
You should checkout flights to Cancun or the Caribbean. Even South America is cheap, and flights from the East Coast (of North America) to Europe are a few hundred bucks.
If what you were saying had any merit, surely Australians and New Zealanders wouldn't explore outside their country much.... but they do in droves.
To be clear I've traveled internationally a lot. But I also understand why fewer Americans are inclined to do so than someone who lives in a small European country who might drive across a border.
I’m actually traveling to Europe in about a week but it’s about $1K.
No, we established that flights to Cancun and the Caribbean are extremely cheap, and flights to Europe can be had for the same price as flights to the far coast of North America.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/01/11/the-sh...
I have used each passport exactly 1 time in the last 20 years, once to the British Virgin Islands and once, recently to Vietnam.
But I keep one handy because the process to get one is months and frankly, there may be scenarios where you may want to leave the country without months of beurocratic delays first.
Our PTO year runs from 1 April, so the only (unwritten) rule about vacation is that we should try to spread it over the year. This is because we're only allowed to carry over 5 days to the next year, not taking PTO is frowned upon, and HR don't want everybody to be using up their PTO at the same time at the end of the year.
A few days ago we had a Zoom town-hall meeting where our CEO thanked everybody for taking time off.
Generally you'd have a similar amount of time off here, 4-5 weeks, and it would run April-April as you said for your own.
The biggest difference is that you must take two consecutive weeks at least once a year.
That said there are pluses I think I'm allowed to stay home to care for a sick child 11 days a year, paid. That's a nice bonus, and it has been useful as a parent. When our child was a baby, or toddler, sickness mostly meant that he stayed asleep all day and was lethargic and quiet. Now he's older there's no chance that I'd be able to work from home and take care of him, so those days come in useful. (Helps that I get my 11 days, and my wife gets a similar amount too.)
Otherwise it feels like most Finnish people take a month off in the summer, to the extent that a lot of shops/places in the city close down due to no staff, so there's often a bit of negotiation within teams about who can be away, to make sure there is cover. But it feels pretty relaxed and friendly.
I had this in the UK when I worked in finance. As I recall the two-week rule was commonly written into employment contracts in banking. There was some FCA guidance around this, possibly in the wake of the Jérôme Kerviel scandal (I am not sure, it's been a while).
The idea was to make it a harder for a single rogue trader to perpetrate fraud as they would have to collude with someone to look after their books while they were out for two weeks.