As Memorial Day is typically considered the kick-off to the summer holiday season, I’m sure many of you are already planning a personal or family trip. For those of you with solid ideas or have travel already booked, you require no reminder from me to take advantage of this cherished long weekend. For the rest of the working public, this blog post is a simple reminder to use every public holiday like a vacation day.
Since this holiday like many others is on a Monday, you only need to use four vacation days to take an entire week of escape from work and home. One question I hear repeated often is how to avoid crowds and high prices during a major U.S. holiday period. The basic answer is flexibility on start and end dates and flexibility on destination. Try leaving a day early or returning a day late, or shifting the entire week by one day to avoid the mad rush that often accompanies a long weekend. Instead of going to a popular beach, amusement park, or the big city, consider a less obvious location such as a state park, historic smaller city, or offbeat tourist town. Want to really get away? Heading to another country is the smart option to consider since they won’t be celebrating the same holiday as us and everything will be open for business as usual.
Check out TimeAndDate.com to view yearly holiday calendars for the U.S. and countries around the globe. I also recommend visiting the Holiday-Weather site to view the monthly average forecasts and rain totals for holiday destinations around the world.
My suggestion is to visit Canada Tourism which offers a range of cities, parks, and regions for every type of traveler. Many are only a short plane ride away. Late May and early June brings warm weather and while the exchange rate isn’t what it used to be, many bargains can still be had at top rated places such as Toronto, Vancouver, Banff, Montreal, and Quebec City.
Travel Help: U.S. News & World Report magazine ranks their top cities to go on vacation in Canada.
For pricing and other overseas ideas in general, I recommend Kayak which let’s you view actual fares discovered by other people and group by city/airport and month of the year. Give it a try to start maximizing your Memorial Day time off now!
Happy Traveling…
-Scott
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