PTO Hacks: How to Maximize Your PTO in 2025
When it comes to traveling while still maintaining a full time job, PTO hacks are key. However, it be tough to learn how to maximize PTO. Personally, I love the stability of having my 9-5 even though I travel a ton, sometimes up to 11 trips in a year. (Yes, some are weekend trips but still.) Naturally, people ask, how do you do this on limited PTO? How can I maximize PTO?
So, I make it work with a series of PTO hacks I’ve discovered over the years. I’m here to make a series of them so that you can read through and up your travel time without needing to increase your PTO!
When it comes to traveling without quitting your job, your biggest challenge/limiter is most likely time. To make the most of your time, here’s my number 1 hack to traveling more with a full time job: maximizing PTO.
This is part 1 of a 4 part series on learning how to travel with a full time job via travel saving hacks.
What PTO Hacks Do You Need?
To be fully transparent, it’ll be easiest to travel if you have a remote job. However, it’s not impossible to find a way to incorporate travel in your life if you work fully in person as well.
The biggest PTO hack is to use your PTO in combination with holidays & company days off. DO NOT use all of your PTO on one trip/year (unless it’s a huge trip).
This will enable you to have up to 68 days worth of traveling if used wisely. Though most people have 10 days on average, here are all of the options to take to accommodate everyone’s calendars:
PTO Days Listed
In case you prefer a list view, here it is:
- *January, MLK weekend (2 PTO days, 6 day trip)
- *February, President’s day weekend (2 PTO days, 6 day trip)
- *May, Memorial Day weekend (2 PTO days, 6 day trip)
- July 4th weekend (4 PTO days, 7 day trip)
- *September, Labor Day weekend (2 PTO days, 6 day trip)
- *October, Columbus Day weekend (2 PTO days, 6 day trip)
- *November, Veteran’s Day weekend (2 PTO days, 6 day trip)
- November, Thanksgiving week (3-4 PTO days depending on policy, 9 day trip)
- I recommend taking 1-2 extra days on top of this and flying out the Thursday before and the Monday back. This is one of the busiest travel days of the year
- December, Christmas week (6-8 PTO days depending on policy, 16 day trip)
- I recommend taking only one of the holidays instead of both. On that trip, 1-2 extra days on top of this and flying out the Thursday before and the Monday back. That way you don’t blow all of your PTO on one trip.
- This is also one of the busiest travel times of the year
Real Life Example of How to Maximize PTO
Planning 9 Trips in One Year with a Full Time Job
Now that you know the dates… how do you actually apply these PTO hacks?
Before I go into a real life example, let me set some ground rules to give context. This example has facets that are based in my life, and some that I’ve changed to relate to others as well. In this example, let’s assume I:
- Live in San Francisco
- Have 15 days of PTO in the year, in addition to US holidays
- Have a few travel credit cards and some points racked up from the previous year
- Like to experience new things, engage with the local culture, try new foods, and like adrenaline based activities
With that in mind, this is how I’d go about planning my PTO for 2025:
Step 1: Assess your PTO Situation.
The first step is to map out PTO in your mind. You want to figure out if there are any restrictions from work and the general times you can take it. Things to consider:
- Which days work best for you to take off based on your work schedule?
- How many PTO days do you have?
For me, I am generally okay to take PTO throughout the year, so I’ll probably do a few weekend trips and save some up for one longer one.
Step 2: Look into the types of trips you want to take.
Decide on how many international trips vs domestic trips you’d like to take.
This will help weigh which travel dates are more or less important to you. (You’ll likely need to invest more PTO into international travel)
Things to consider:
- Is it more important to you to go far?
- Or do you want to travel more frequently throughout the year but closer?
For me, I want to take at least 1 international trip. Otherwise, I’m down for a bunch of domestic trips. That means I’ll probably do 1 long trip and a bunch of shorter ones over long weekends.
Step 3: Actually determine my travel dates.
Use the calendar above to see when is the best time considering the factors from the two steps above. Map out exactly which dates you want to travel based on work availability and trip type preference.
Things to consider:
- If you’re okay with shorter, more frequent trips, spend most of your PTO on long weekend trips.
- If you want to do a big long trip in the year, plan on investing it around big holidays for a longer stretch.
- For long weekends, fly out Thursday night, and fly back Tuesday morning.
With that in mind, I picked these travel dates for myself and why I chose them:
- January 17 – 21. (4 day trip, 0 days PTO)
- I’m just starting out the year, I don’t need to take the rest yet.
- February 13 – 18. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- It’s Valentine’s day and we want to treat ourselves.
- May 22 – 26. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- It’s been a few months, we want to take a break.
- July 3 – July 7. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- Some people get more of this off, we don’t, but still want to take advantage of the great weather.
- August 28 – September 2. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- Again, great weather timing.
- October 9 – 14. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- Why not?
- November 6 – 12. (6 day trip, 2 days PTO)
- Veteran’s day is a weird holiday… but why not take advantage of it.
- November 21 – December 1. (10 day trip, 3 days PTO)
- Thanksgiving week is a great week to go abroad since they don’t celebrate the same holiday. It could work out for some deals.
- December 19 – Jan 2. (14 day trip, 5 days PTO)
- This is the ultimate week everyone takes off. We should too.
Believe it or not, that’s a full 9 trips that you can take in just one calendar year WHILE you’re working a full time job. And that’s not considering anyone who is fully remote or hybrid and can go for longer.
Step 4: Pick my destinations
Pick destinations based on desire, time, price, and travel dates.
Book book places closer to you for the 5 day trips, and places that are farther for the longer ones.
Leveraging seasonality, look into how much it’ll cost to go to different locations based on this date. Plug the dates into google explore and see what locations come up!
Based on that, here’s what I chose:
- January 17 – 21. (4 day trip, 0 days PTO)
- Since this is the shortest, I’ll go close to home. San Diego is only an hour flight and super doable. Plus, it’s one of the places that won’t be too cold!
- February 13 – 18. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- We’ll treat ourselves and go to Catalina Island (longer drive or quick flight) to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’ll give us the vibes of Italy without having to leave California.
- May 22 – 26. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- We’ll hit up Vegas to let off steam from the past couple of months at work. Plus, it’s relatively good weather for this time of year.
- July 3 – July 7. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- This is one of the most beautiful times to go to Vancouver or Seattle!
- August 28 – September 2. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- Napa or Paso Robles since it’s only a 2-3 hour drive and I like wine. Plus, it’ll be nice and warm without getting way too hot.
- October 9 – 14. (5 day trip, 1 day PTO)
- I’d spend time on the river in Chicago, or even go to New Orleans.
- November 6 – 12. (6 day trip, 2 days PTO)
- Mexico City would be fun to adventure in the dry season! It’ll be perfect weather. I might even take more PTO if I can afford it (if your company gives more time off during this week that’s even better!)
- November 21 – December 1. (10 day trip, 3 days PTO)
- Anywhere in Europe is great for this, but I’d land on Morocco since I was able to study abroad in Europe and see a ton of it. Marrakech seems like such a unique place, I’d want to go there or Istanbul!
- December 19 – Jan 2. (14 day trip, 5 days PTO)
- This is some of the best times to visit Asia because it’ll be the least humid out of the whole year. I would go to Goa, India or Tokyo, Japan!
Okay, that was a lot. BUT I hope it helped show you exactly what steps to take to realistically get in 9 trips. If you work remotely, you can even get more travel time. But even without it, this is a real life example of someone with limitations that still made it work and then some. While the rest isn’t easy, I personally think the above is the hardest part because it’ll decide the main part of your experience.
Step 5: Scope and Book Flights
This process is probably the easiest of them all because there are limited options. For most trips, you’ll be flying on a Thursday night and coming back on a Monday night or Tuesday morning.
While this depends on the destination, google flights is the easiest tool to use. Just search your dates and pick the best option based on your budget and timing.
It doesn’t show points though, so you’ll have to either scope out airlines where you have points manually or find an award booker. Regardless, look to fly or drive immediately after or before work to maximize your time. I recommend booking on Travel Tuesday for the best deals.
Step 6: Search and Book Hotels
This is a bit harder because there are almost too many options. I wrote up a full guide on how exactly to find what’s right for you and your trip here, but it’s basically up to your preferences.
I personally always do a search of the neighborhoods in the places I visit to get the vibes to see which one matches me the most.
Once you know where to look, either book with points or use search engines to look for hotels like Expedia, Kayak, and hotels.com. I recommend booking on Travel Tuesday for the best deals.
Step 7: Build Out Your Itinerary
There’s a few ways you can do this. I have some time saving hacks here which can help you build some nice itineraries here for ease. It’ll walk you through the basic process of how to build an itinerary for any trip. The main points are to search by your main interests, book in some staple tourist experiences, and sprinkle in some local ones.
Other PTO Hacks
On the way out: Fly Thursday night after work to get the most out of it as long as you can get the hotel deal for that night. Otherwise, fly Friday morning.
On the way back: Fly back Tuesday evening if you can.
*Fly from Thursday Night to Tuesday Evening
The weekend trips where you fly from Tuesday to Thursday are the ones that will get you the most bang for your buck. You’ll be able to get the best discounts as well as use the least amount of PTO for the most amount of consecutive time.
Leave your luggage at the hotel at the times you check in/out, and if you’re staying at an Airbnb, try to get a friend in the city to host your luggage in the downtime or find a luggage locker.
Conclusion
This is the main PTO hack you can use to get the most out of your time off. It definitely requires planning, but I like to try to make it fun by taking a day to plan everything out over the holidays!
This is part 1 of my time hacking series. If you want to see part 2 of the series, all about reducing your travel time, see here. It’ll lead you to a bunch of hacks that you can string together.
Otherwise, feel free to continue learning the hacks 1 by 1 below.
