2.851×10^6 seconds

One thing that is really nice about staying with the same company for so long is that your vacation time is increased after certain milestones.  I just recently celebrated my 10th year at my current job (and it has been a very interesting ten years…), so I was awarded the maximum amount of vacation you can get here.  Also, I work for a company that is headquartered in Europe, so they are a little more generous with vacation time compared to many American companies. 

So the amount of vacation time I have this year is in the title to this post.  That number of seconds is equal to 33 days, which is a crazy amount of time off.  I get 29 vacation days and carried over 1 vacation day from last year.  I also get 3 floating holidays (normally it is two, but since New Year’s fell on a Saturday, the stock market was open and our company gave us an extra floating holiday to compensate). 

“What am I going to do?” you might be asking.  Well, if you have read many of my ramblings, you know I like to travel.  So with that in mind, here is what I hope to do this year:

1.  In March, I’m going to Phoenix with a friend and then driving to Sedona, Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas.  Tickets were booked this week, so this trip is a definite, baring any emergencies that pop up before then.

1a.  After my friend heads home from Las Vegas (he does not have as generous a vacation policy at his company since he has been there about 4 years), I’m going to continue on to Bryce Canyon National Park, Salt Lake City (to visit a friend from college), and then returning to Las Vegas with a stop at Grand Basin National Park.  That last part might be a game-time decision since it adds about 6 extra hours to my drive back to Las Vegas. 

2.  Heading up to Montreal in April with some friends from New York.  Hopefully, it doesn’t look like this:

3.  I’ll be going to Atlanta in August for my cousin’s wedding, so that should be fun to see family and also get a chance to see the new Aquarium and new World of Coca Cola. 

4.  Hopefully going to New York City at some point to visit friends.  I’ll see if I can go next month, but that will also be weather dependent.

5.  I would like to go back to LA this year.  It has been a while (almost 5 years).  Here is a picture from the last time I was in Los Angeles. 

5.  These next following items are more a list of travel wishes for 2011.  One or two would probably be the most that I could do. 

• Alaska in the fall would be great.  That trip is a real stretch though from both a logistical and economic view.
• Minneapolis, Upper Michigan, and Western Ontario in the summertime.  Again, probably a pipedream, but I’ll keep my eye out for the right airfare deal.
• Italy: Florence, Rome, Milan, Bologna, Siena, Genoa.  Any of those cities would do.
• Madrid and/or Lisbon.
• Budapest
• Vienna
• France that is not Paris
• Amsterdam
• Thailand
• Shanghai
• Japan
• Australia/New Zealand
• Patagonia
• Scotland
• Vietnam
• Great Smoky Mountains Park
• Sweden and/or Norway
• Yosemite
• Austin/San Antonio/Big Bend National Park
• Long weekends taking advantage of great travel deals. 
• I’m sure there is someplace I haven’t thought of, but would would sound good if the right deal materialized. 

Of course if anyone has any advice or suggestions, please let me know.  Thanks and happy traveling!