How Do Americans Struggle With Vacations? Let Us Count the Ways.

This week’s Onion chronicles a few ways, with stories such as Longtime Married Couple Subjected to Excruciating ‘Romantic Weekend Getaway’ and Acid Trip Better Planned Than Vacation. While the latter headline seems just a tad ridiculous, a recent AP story suggests that many Americans just aren’t planning long vacations at all these days. (Not surprisingly, the AP neglected to cover acid trip preparation habits.) “A recent study by Orbitz, the online travel company, found a drop in the number of people taking three-week or two-week vacations and an increase in those taking a week or less,” the AP reports. “One-third of respondents said they took five or fewer days of vacation in the past year. One in four of those surveyed said they felt their bosses did not encourage them to take vacations, and one in three said they stayed connected with their office via phone or computer while on holiday.” Further evidence, sadly, that for too many Americans, summer has become the “vacation deprivation” season.

Photo by Whining Pom via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

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