Crave More Adventure? Travel More While Working Full-Time

Love travelling, but hate being held back by a full-time job and limited annual leave allowance?

Most people think it’s impossible to travel more while working full-time and carving out a career.

Spoiler alert, it’s not! I’m going to show you why, and share tips on how you can enjoy more exciting adventures using only weekends, bank holidays and your precious paid time off.

I visited 25 countries in 2024, all while working my regular 9 to 5 job. I did this by learning how to maximise my travel adventures on my days off using smart planning techniques, like combining trips. I also used money-saving tricks including taking full advantage of travel rewards programmes. And you can too.

So if you’re a full-time worker who wants to see more of the world without sacrificing your pay packet, grab a coffee and pull up a comfy chair because you’re exactly where you need to be.

Plan Your Travels Strategically

There are 104 weekend days in each year. Add to that the number of paid days off and bank holidays, and there’s definitely some travel potential there, right?

If you’re smart about when you travel, you can enjoy long weekend trips without having to take any time off work.

Utilise Bank Holidays and Weekends

By combining public holidays with weekends, you can take longer trips without missing work.

For example, by travelling on the weekend before a Bank Holiday Monday, you can extend your trip without needing to ask your boss for a day off.

Here are the dates for public holidays in England and Wales in 2025 – when you can travel for longer while working but without needing to take any annual leave:

Date	Day of the Week	Occasion	How to Maximise
April 18, 2025	Friday	Good Friday	Travel April 18 – 21 for 4 days away
April 21, 2025	Monday	Easter Monday	As above
May 5, 2025	Monday	Early May bank holiday	Travel May 3 – 5 for 3 days away
May 26, 2025	Monday	Spring bank holiday	Travel May 24 – 26 for 3 days away
August 25, 2025	Monday	Summer bank holiday	Travel August 23 – 25 for 3 days away
December 25, 2025	Thursday	Christmas Day	Travel December 25 – 28 for 4 days away
December 26, 2025	Friday	Boxing Day	As above

You may also be able to extend your trip further by taking an evening flight on the Friday, and/or returning on an early morning flight on the Tuesday.

Of course, this doesn’t work so well if you’re a shift worker, and regularly work weekends and bank holidays. Although the good news is that with weekdays off, you can take advantage of cheaper day trip flight deals. Which leads me nicely onto my next tip.

Prioritise Shorter, More Frequent Trips

By opting for more weekend getaways and fewer long vacations, you can travel more often and to more destinations, even with a career. Ok, so that’s hardly rocket science! But that’s exactly what I used to do.

This is easier within Europe, of course, where so many countries are just a short, budget flight away. This has given rise to ‘Extreme Day Trips’, a growing trend in travel that involves jetting to and back from a destination in the same day.

Most of my trips are one or two-day visits. But I pack a fair amount into each one when planning them, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out. And I know I can always return to my favourite places later.

You’ll be surprised at how cheap a weekend abroad can be, if you know the tricks for finding cheap flights and bargain accommodation deals (more on that later). For me, it’s usually cheaper to fly to another country than take a train across the one I live in, which is just silly. But it’s true.

I recently flew from Manchester to London Gatwick via Jersey – because it cost less than HALF the price of going by rail. Plus I got to enjoy a beautiful sunny day exploring a new island. It had to be done!

Combine Trips

Much of Europe is so well connected, and it’s so easy to hop between countries by train, bus, boat or short flight. And this is how I’ve been able to travel more with a full time job.

Many of my trips have been cross-border adventures, either starting in one country and ending in another or with day trips included into my itinerary. Travelling this way means using fewer annual leave days than visiting different countries on separate trips.

Train travel can be really affordable if booked in advance. Or take a Flix Bus – they cover 3,000 destinations in more than 40 countries and at low prices, making European adventures really accessible. I used Flix Bus to travel between between Tirana in Albania and Struga in North Macedonia, the ride was comfortable and the views beautiful.

Flix Bus also offers overnight journeys, making it easier to access airports further away. Which in turn opens up more flight routes and travel opportunities.

Optimise Your Work-Life Balance

These options won’t be available to everyone, but are worth considering as a way to travel more while working. And sometimes it could just be a case of if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Negotiate Flexible Working

Talk to your manager about the possibility of working flexible hours or a compressed working week.

For example, you may be allowed to work your weekly hours over 4 days, or fortnightly hours over 9 days, either as standard or as required.

If you can be flexible on which non-working day you take, you can better take advantage of cheaper flight deals.

Buy Additional Annual Leave Days

Some companies offer a salary sacrifice scheme where employees can buy additional annual leave days each year.

While not tax-exempt, usually you save money by not paying National Insurance contributions on the leave purchased and the cost is spread across 12 months.

This can be a great way to boost your travel time and travel more around a full time job. And it works out more cost-effective than unpaid time off – if that’s allowed.

Embrace Remote Working

Your employer may allow you to work remotely for short, or longer periods. Although while this offers some advantages for longer trips and could work well combined with flexible working, the obvious disadvantage is missing out on sightseeing while working your paid hours.

Alternatively, there are jobs out there that include travelling – if you have one of these, I’m so jealous! I know these don’t always offer much free time for exploring, but if you get some say in your flight dates you could wrap the trip around a weekend or day off to see the destination in your own time. It’s always worth an ask.

And of course there are fully remote work opportunities and location independent jobs. More ‘digital nomads’ are combining travel with working online than ever before, mostly through self-employment or as small business owners.

This may be worth exploring if you are knowledgeable and disciplined enough to make it work for you. This truly could be the ultimate way to travel more while working.

If you’re working and travelling, an eSIM (like aloSIM) can help you stay in touch at a more affordable rate than charged by many UK network providers.

Budget and Save Smartly For Travel

Of course, travelling more costs more. But it doesn’t have to bankrupt you.

There are many ways to save money for travel, through budgeting smartly. And if you can keep costs down while travelling, that allows you to take more trips.

Create a Dedicated Travel Fund

Set up a separate savings account or pot dedicated to travel costs, and automate regular transfers in.

I use Monzo to create custom pots for my travels, with specific goals and even a custom name and image. Monzo also offers the option to round up spending on your purchases and add it to any pot. For example, if I buy an item for £1.79 using my debit card, 21p automatically gets added to my travel pot. I don’t notice the difference at the time, but it soon adds up!

Join Monzo using my link and you’ll get a mystery reward of up to £50* to start you off *

*ts&cs apply, current promotional offer could end at any time

Track Expenses and Cut Unnecessary Spending

Grab your bank statement and a highlighter pen and get to work. See that streaming subscription you never watch? Cancel it. That gym membership that you signed up for in January but never use. Get rid. Your daily coffee shop takeout? You don’t need it, take a flask of good coffee from home instead.

It’s surprising how much the savings add up when you start prioritising affordable travel over other little treats and luxuries. And simply cutting out costs for things you don’t need or use can make a big different in being able to travel more with a full time job.

By monitoring your spending habits and expenses, you can identify where you can cut costs. Add these savings to your travel pot, and you’ll find it easily equals another trip.

Make Extra Money Online

Woah there! I don’t mean selling photos of your feet on a subscription website – although if you want to do that, that’s cool, there’s no judgement here!

But there is money to be made selling your unwanted items on sites like Vinted, eBay, Etsy and similar. I try to do this as often as I can, and it really helps boost my travel fund.

If you have a skill or area of expertise, or you’re good at design, then consider producing and selling digital products using Canva or similar. You can see some more examples on my Freebies page.

Take Advantage of Travel Reward Programmes

I wish someone had told me this sooner, but you can tap into free flights, hotels and other travel perks by simply doing your regular spending.

By signing up for and using credit cards like the American Express British Airways Premium card, you can collect Avios points to use on flights and hotel stays.

I opted for this particular card based on my regular spending. The annual fee offset against the welcome bonus, the 1.5 Avios for every pound spent and the free companion voucher offer makes it worthwhile. I use it as much as possible – for groceries, bills, meals out and all our usual spending, and by adding my partner as a secondary cardholder those Avios have racked up fast. The biggest difficulty is deciding where to fly to!

Sign up via my referral link and get bonus welcome Avios points.

For purchases where Amex isn’t accepted, then the fee-free Barclaycard Avios Mastercard credit card is more widely accepted and gives 1 Avios for every pound spent. I use this abroad too, avoiding the card’s foreign spending fees by using it via Curve Pay.

Combine your spending with offers in the Avios app, and via cashback websites like Topcashback and Quidco, and you’ll really be getting the most for your money.

Many hotel websites and travel firms offer discounts and loyalty rewards too. The more you use them, the greater the loyalty reward. For example, Booking.com offers a Genius discount of 10% or more with its free membership.

You’re leaving money on the table if you don’t take advantage of these easy yet smart ways of spending.

Travel Hacks and Resources

I promised I’d talk about how to find cheap flights and bargain hotel prices, and I’m not going to let you down!

Use Travel App Hacks

The Skyscanner app is my favourite tool right now for finding affordable flights. My FREE guide goes into more detail and contains handy screenshots, but essentially there are three ways to quickly and easily find the best deals:

• Search ‘Explore Everywhere’ and ‘Anytime’. This will bring up the cheapest destinations and flight dates for them. If you can be flexible, this is a great way of spotting the cheapest deals. Otherwise there are ‘weekend’ and ‘long weekend’ filters, for when using fewer annual leave days is vital.
• ‘Drops’ is an app exclusive, and lists all flight price drops of at least 20% that day from your chosen airport. Sometimes the price is still on the high side, but often there are some steals in there too!
• If you have specific flights in mind, you can watch and track the price and receive alerts of price changes. However, prices can (and do) go up as well as down. They tend to be cheapest when first released, and sometimes drop in the 3-6 weeks before – this varies based on demand. But this is a great way of spotting if flights hit your target spending limit.

• Remember, travelling off-season, on weekdays and in school term time will almost always be cheaper. But that’s not to say there aren’t great weekend deals to be had too. One of my cheapest trips last year was on a weekend in the middle of August.
• And, keep costs down by packing light and skipping seat selection fees.

Check out my detailed post on how to find lower-priced flights to travel more often.

Compare Accommodation Types

Sometimes renting a house or apartment can work out cheaper than booking a hotel room. And as many provide cooking and washing facilities, this allows you to save money at your destination.

Vrbo and Booking.com are my go-to sites for finding the best-value accommodation on my trips. You can use the filters and map to find your ideal place to stay within your budget. Or download the app to add to your travel planning tools.

If you’re unsure what accommodation type might suit you best, you can compare them all here.

Book Tours to Visit Multiple Destinations

As well as utilising services like Flix Bus, always check sites like Get Your Guide for day trips at your destination.

I’ve been able to visit bordering countries by joining organised tours, which has often worked out less expensive, safer and easier than taking public transport or hiring a car. Plus you get to meet other travellers too.

My favourite cross-border Get Your Guide adventure was a small group day trip from Riga in Latvia to the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania. I was able to visit both countries in just the two days I had available this way.

Travel Off-Season

Many destinations are just as beautiful and enjoyable out of peak season. And the cost of getting, staying and eating and drinking there will be much less. The same is true when visiting budget travel destinations, where generally costs are much lower than in the UK or other affluent countries.

My flights to and accommodation in Athens were much cheaper at the end of January than later in summer. Being a sunshine-starved Brit I found the weather was plenty warm enough to sit out well into the evening, and enjoy the mild temperatures from a rooftop bar.

Also, consider destinations that are cheaper in general, like the locations detailed in this post.

So don’t let the time of year put you off. It can rain on a summer’s day, and a winter’s day can be as nice as July if you choose the right destination. But either way, a day travelling and exploring in any weather is still better than spending a day at your desk!

Embrace the Great Staycation

Finally, travelling doesn’t have to mean hopping on a flight – although I’m not going to lie, I prefer it when it does!

However, there are some great days out to discover in the UK, and with just one night away you can make a memorable weekend of exploring some of the best sights our own island has to offer.

To save on costs, drive (if you can) and book a hotel a little further out of popular cities where rates are cheaper. Or pitch your tent and set up camp, if you’re into the great outdoors.

Many campsites offer excellent facilities at a fraction of the price of a hotel stay, and it can be quite cute drinking hot chocolate and toasting marshmallows on a camp fire or barbecue.

How To Travel More While Working Full Time – Conclusion

Hopefully I’ve shown you that travelling more while working a full time job and shaping a career is possible – with some smart forward planning and determination.

By maximising your annual leave and budget using these tips and hacks, you’ll soon be jetting off on far-flung affordable travel adventures more often than ever before, without missing many days in the office.

The world is waiting, so start today. Pack your bags, sort your travel insurance and go explore it! Happy travels!