---
title: Why Short Trips Beat One Big Vacation (What the Research Says)
description: Research suggests short trips taken often beat one long vacation. Why rest and fun work better as a practice, plus four rules for planning a quick getaway.
image: https://lawaltravel.com/hubfs/20250814_094413.jpg
---

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# Why Short Trips Beat One Big Vacation (What the Research Says)

[Jenita Lawal](https://lawaltravel.com/blog/author/jenita-lawal)

 October 3 2026

[Travel Tips](https://lawaltravel.com/blog/tag/travel-tips), [Wellness](https://lawaltravel.com/blog/tag/wellness)

Last year a few of my friends and I were on a Messenger group call, the kind that starts as catching up and turns into something else. Every one of us was carrying something. Nobody said the word burnout, but it was sitting there on the call with us. What we kept saying, in different ways, was that we needed to push pause.

I mentioned that Playa del Carmen was a cool spot and a quick flight from Nashville.

Within a couple of days [we had dates confirmed](https://www.instagram.com/p/DemO5BJHO7X/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&exln=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==&srtk=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==), a hotel booked, and flights purchased.

That trip did exactly what it needed to do. Everyone got what they came for, which was not the same thing for any two of us, and we got each other back for a few days. Total planning time: less than a week. Total PTO burned: barely any.

I think about that trip often, because it runs against the way most accomplished people handle rest. We save it up. We treat it like a bonus that has to be earned, deferred, and then spent all at once in one enormous annual outlay. And the research suggests that is close to the least effective way to do it.

## **The problem is not that you don't have the days**

You probably do have them, and you are probably not using them.

Pew Research Center [surveyed more than 5,900 U.S. workers](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/more-than-4-in-10-u-s-workers-dont-take-all-their-paid-time-off/) in 2023 and found that 46% of those with paid time off take less than their employer offers. The pattern gets more pointed the higher up you go. Upper-income workers leave more unused than middle- or lower-income workers. Salaried workers leave more unused than hourly. Managers leave more unused than the people who report to them.

The reasons are familiar if you have ever been the person everything routes through. About half say they don't feel they need more time off. Another 43% say they would feel bad about colleagues picking up their work. In the same survey, 89% said paid time off was extremely or very important to them.

So: we want it, we have it, and we don't take it. That is not a scheduling problem. That is a permission problem wearing a scheduling problem's clothes.

## **What the research actually says about how long a vacation should be**

Three findings, and together they change the math.

### **The benefit fades faster than almost anyone expects**

Jessica de Bloom and colleagues ran a meta-analysis of vacation studies and found that vacations do improve health and well-being, and that those improvements fade after people go back to work. A 2023 follow-up meta-analysis in European Psychologist, which re-analyzed the earlier data and added studies through 2020, found that by the end of the first week back, well-being had returned to roughly where it was before the trip.

One week. Whatever you felt on day six of your beach vacation is largely gone by the following Friday.

### **Longer does not mean better**

This is where it gets useful. De Bloom's research compared short vacations of four to five days against moderately long ones of nine days and found similar effects on health and well-being. The 2023 meta-analysis likewise found that vacation duration did not moderate the benefits.

Doubling the length of the trip does not double what you get out of it. You are paying twice the PTO for roughly the same return.

### **The happiness is front-loaded**

Jeroen Nawijn and colleagues [studied 1,530 Dutch adults](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-009-9091-9), 974 of whom took a trip. The vacationers were measurably happier than the non-vacationers, but the difference showed up before departure, not after. Anticipation, in other words. The pleasure of having something on the calendar.

After the trip, there was no significant happiness difference between people who went and people who stayed home. With one exception: travelers who described the trip as very relaxed did show a post-trip boost. Neutral or stressful trips showed nothing.

Put those three together and the arithmetic suggests something that runs counter to how most of us plan: if the effect fades in about a week regardless of how long you were gone, if a four-day trip delivers close to what a nine-day trip delivers, and if a meaningful share of the joy lives in the looking-forward, then four short breaks across a year will likely do more for you than one two-week epic.

## **Rest is a practice. So is fun.**

There is a version of this conversation that stays strictly in the language of recovery: burnout, restoration, resilience, filling the cup. All real. All insufficient.

Because the research on joy is just as concrete. Sarah Pressman and colleagues measured 1,399 adults on something called the [Pittsburgh Enjoyable Activities Test](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19592515/), a scale of how often people do things they simply like doing. Higher scores were associated with lower blood pressure, lower total cortisol, smaller waist circumference, lower body mass index, and better perceived physical function.

Not rest. Enjoyment. Fun is doing measurable work in your bloodstream, and it does not require that you first be depleted enough to deserve it.

This matters because the high achievers I work with have usually accepted the rest argument intellectually and still treat fun as frivolous. Rest gets scheduled as maintenance, like an oil change. Joy gets postponed indefinitely, pending some future condition of having earned it.

What are you waiting to deserve? Whose permission are you holding out for? And what, precisely, do you think arrives on the other side of the waiting?

I have never once seen that permission show up on its own. It gets taken, usually on a Tuesday, usually by someone who decided a group chat was enough of a reason. You don't need a week off to rest well. 

## **Four rules for a quick trip that actually works**

These are the ones I use personally and the ones I give clients.

### **Keep it easy**

No elaborate plans. Nothing over-scheduled. This is not an optional nicety; recall that the only travelers in Nawijn's study who gained anything after the trip were the ones who called it very relaxed. An itinerary stacked with reservations is how you return needing a vacation from the vacation. Pick two or three things you genuinely want to do and leave the rest open.

### **Keep it close**

Within about a four-hour drive, or a nonstop flight. Travel time is not trip time. A connection in Charlotte eats a day on each end of a long weekend, which is a third of the trip spent in transit. Proximity is what makes the short trip viable at all.

### **Keep it fun**

Go somewhere that is not on your bucket list.

I mean that seriously. Bucket-list destinations carry expectations, and expectations carry pressure, and pressure is the opposite of the point. Go to the cute little college town in Kentucky. Go to the Black-owned inn on the coast. Go to the mountain town with the amusement park nobody writes essays about. Low stakes is a feature. Save the once-in-a-lifetime for the trip where you have the time to meet it properly.

### **Keep it short**

Protect your PTO, and protect yourself from the workload math. The longer you are gone, the more there is to hand off before and dig out of after, which is exactly the anxiety Pew found keeping people at their desks.

Thursday to Monday is golden. Four days, two of them weekend days, one or two PTO days spent. Build around a federal holiday and you may spend none at all. Do that quarterly and you have taken four real breaks on roughly a week's worth of leave.

## **Three ways we help people build the rhythm**

Not every break is the same size, and the rhythm works best when you have more than one gear.

### **Quick Trips to Mexico**

Mexico is a short flight from most of the United States, which makes it the rare destination where a Thursday-to-Monday actually works instead of being mostly airports. It also offers enough variety that you could book multiple trips for multiple experiences - wine in Valle de Guadalupe, artisans in Oaxaca City, mole in Puebla, shopping in Mexico City, Caribbean and Pacific beaches. You choose the dates and the kind of place you want; we handle the research and the logistics. [Book Now!](https://quicktrip.lawaltravel.com)

### **Custom Journeys**

For the trips meant for exploration rather than recovery. Longer stays, more ground covered, more depth. This is where we go when the goal is to come back having seen something, not just having rested. [Get Started.](https://plan.lawaltravel.com)

### **Sabbaticals**

For when the depletion has gotten well ahead of the maintenance. These run from a couple of weeks at the short end to multi-month, multi-destination itineraries. A different instrument entirely, and the right one when quarterly long weekends are no longer closing the gap. 

Need to some inspiration? [Learn More](https://lawaltravel.com/sabbatical-design)

## **Frequently asked questions**

### **Are short trips really as restorative as long vacations?**

Research by Jessica de Bloom and colleagues found that short vacations of four to five days produced effects on health and well-being similar to nine-day vacations, and a 2023 meta-analysis found vacation duration did not moderate well-being benefits. The benefits of any vacation length tend to fade within about a week of returning to work.

### **How many short trips a year should I aim for?**

There is no clinically established number. Given that benefits fade within roughly a week of returning and that anticipation itself improves well-being, spacing breaks across the year (quarterly is a practical rhythm for most working professionals) keeps something restorative always behind you and something to look forward to always ahead.

### **How do I take a short trip without using much PTO?**

Build around the weekend and around holidays. A Thursday-through-Monday trip costs one or two PTO days. Anchoring a long weekend to a federal holiday can cost none. Choosing a destination within a four-hour drive or a nonstop flight keeps travel from consuming the days you did take.

### **What is a Quick Trip to Mexico?**

It is Lawal Travel Services' short-getaway offer, designed around a Thursday-to-Monday window. Mexico is a short flight from most of the United States, so four nights at the right resort delivers real rest without consuming much paid time off. We handle destination research, resort and room selection, and the logistics.

### **What if I need more than a long weekend?**

We work in three gears. Quick Trips are the short, close, low-friction option. Custom Journeys are for longer travel built around exploration and depth. Sabbaticals run from a couple of weeks to multi-month, multi-destination itineraries, for when rest needs to be substantial rather than periodic.

## **Put something on the calendar**

The trip to Playa del Carmen was not impressive. It was not a milestone. Nobody is going to ask me about it at a dinner party. It was four tired women deciding, on a weeknight phone call, that waiting until they felt they had earned it was not working.

That is the whole mechanism. Not a bigger budget, not a cleared calendar, not some future quarter when things calm down. A decision, a date, and people you want to see.

Rest as a practice means it recurs. Fun as a practice means you stop treating it as the reward and start treating it as part of the equipment. Both are easier to sustain in four-day pieces than in one annual heroic effort.

[Pick a Thursday](https://quicktrip.lawaltravel.com). We will take it from there .

 

---

*Jenita Lawal, MBA, VTA is the Founder and CEO of Lawal Travel Services, a boutique travel firm serving mission-driven organizations and consultants. She is a member of the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) and Travel Planners International, and Signature Travel.*

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