For those who are working, how long are your visits every year?

[mangoluverin]

For those who are working and in cross country/international relationships - how long do you wait between visits and how long are those visits usually? I get only three weeks of vacation at my job and my boyfriend is 10000 miles away - so it seems that I can only do one visit a year for two weeks. Is this usual for other people with jobs? How much time off do you get?

[kittyo9]

I'm headed into a similar situation so I'd also like to see input from other members. (although right now it is looking like 2-3 weeks/year)

[Moon]

I have 4 weeks vacation (only had 3 until hitting my 5 year mark at work 2 years ago), I take one two week trip in the summer, then use the other weeks one at a time for 2 more trips, usually. So yeah, that's all we get, it's not ideal, but what can ya do? It could be worse, but those stupid 4 weeks are, in some ways, keeping me at a job I hate.

Also, it's totally normal. Working people just don't get much time off, once you're out there in the "real" world, those months long visits are over, and you're stuck with what you've got, for the most part.

[Jazi]

I work casual shift work so I can take off as much time without pay as I like (although I don't get any money coming in... and they don't like me very much for taking time off!)

My SO on the otherhand works a regular job, he gets 4 weeks off a year but he also can work overtime in exchange for more time off (instead of working overtime for pay) so he works a lot of overtime/some weekends to make up the time for his trips to be longer/to have a few days off when I come to visit him. In the past we alternated who visits, with him visiting twice a year and me visiting twice a year, although my visits to him are around 5 weeks each, where as his to me were about 3 weeks each.. (some shorter, some longer)

Although now we are very close to closing the distance so we aren't planning to do anymore trips, just wait out those 6ish months until we close the distance

[MattDavies86]

Similar with me, I get 22 days a year vacation (originally 20 days but 1 extra day for every 3 years worked at the company), but, I am a little lucky, I am going for 2 days in May, but I booked so one day is a bank holiday, only needed to use 9 days instead of 10, then going for a week in August, but this is only to pick my SO up so she will come to the UK with me for 6 months, yea I'll still work, but she will have plenty to do here, I've arranged guitar lessons for her from my brother, english lessons to perfect her english, my mother will spend time with her, i've made other Thai connections with Thai women here and their husbands so she can talk to them, so many things

Then go back in February next year with her once her 6months is up, then 2 months and it'll be April, start of a new business year, start of new holidays 22 all over again, and then I'll go in April, and go in june and then we will work on a finacee Visa and get married When she's here and then she will stay

[Kiyama]

I am lucky. I'm a teacher so I get lots of vacation. Doesn't mean I'm off to the US constantly though. Flights are so expensive and the immigration officers don't like it when people come too often. And i still have to do work during the holidays. I've been to the US four times within one "working" year now.
My visits are usually between one or two weeks, in summer about 5 weeks.

[Bex2804]

I don't know if I can answer this but both my SO and I are in school. We met when he did a 3 week exchange here at the start of July 2012. In my school we get a week's holiday between 4-7weeks of school then for easter and christmas we get 2 weeks and then Summer is like 6 weeks? But my boyfriend only gets Christmas, Easter and Summer( although he gets over 2 months of summer holiday!) so finding a time when we are both off school is hard. I flew over to Spain for the first time last October for 5 days only because his school had a couple of teacher days, he took one day off school and then had the weekend. The next time I went over was December for a week. But now our next holidays off school are in Easter and he has family coming to visit and also has a week long school trip to Italy so meeting up is not possible. The fact that we are both doing important exams in April/May/June time means our next visit is going to be planned for the start of July when he comes here for a month

[snow]

I am a teacher aswell, so I have much more vacation than he does - for instance I am visiting in the easter holidays which are 12 days for me and he is taking 10 days off (excluding the day I fly to him, since I arrive late in the evenings).
Other than that he has 2 more weeks (3 in total) off a year - one is reserved for the christmas holidays.

Since I am the more flexible one I am the one who is going to visit and stay while he's going to work

[redapple]

I'm presuming three weeks as in 21 working days?

If so my advice is be smart with your days. I try to fly on a Thursday night so take the Friday off and time my flight so I can be back into work on the Tuesday. This makes work think I'm not missing much more time as its only one day of each of those weeks and flights are cheaper BUT importantly I get an extra 3ish days with my SO! Obviously depends on length of your flights etc. but works for me and doesnt seem to piss the boss off!

also bank holidays are good to try and work around!

[lucybelle]

While LD I took a week trip to visit him and him to me per year. That was the most we could do. He quit his job to come "visit" me for 6 months.

[Malaga]

I work flexi time which allows me to take a couple of days off every few weeks in exchange for working on Saturdays. His schedule is much more rigid.
So it's mostly weekend visits (4 days) every 6-8 weeks and then 1 longer one (2-3 weeks), usually during summer.

We deal better with having more shorter visits than one longer. My job handles it better too - I have a few deadlines I have to meet every month and the best way is to steal a couple of days between them.

[squeeker]

I work part time so I can take off work whenever I want, without pay, and it's okay. I made sure to talk to them about it first, for my longer trip, but otherwise I just had to book it off in the book that's used for such purposes. I've had a 2 week stay (first visit) and then a 4 week stay and then a 3 1/2 month stay (15 weeks), and now I'm looking forwards to a 7 week stay. But I'm going to be quitting my job before this next visit, and going back to university because I finally know what I'm going to study.. and this new thing will help us more realistically close the distance. My boyfriend has already started his university course. It was really the only thing we could do since neither of us have great jobs. He couldn't get any job, and I have a not-so-great part-time job that I don't like! So yeah anyways... not that my post helps much because I didn't have a full time job so it was easier to book off time. Though the visits were not very often, between the first and the second was the shortest period of time of 6 months. Between the second and the third was almost exactly 1 year. And between the third and this next visit it will be about 9 months.

[snow]

I'm presuming three weeks as in 21 working days?

If so my advice is be smart with your days. I try to fly on a Thursday night so take the Friday off and time my flight so I can be back into work on the Tuesday. This makes work think I'm not missing much more time as its only one day of each of those weeks and flights are cheaper BUT importantly I get an extra 3ish days with my SO! Obviously depends on length of your flights etc. but works for me and doesnt seem to piss the boss off!

also bank holidays are good to try and work around!

Yes 21 working days, however he works 6 days a week, so doing the weekend trick doesn't work

[Ahava]

So far we have managed long weekends (Fri-Mon), I went there in October and he came here in December.
The following visit (I'm going there for Easter) will be a little longer (6 days/5 nights) and our longest so far.
Because we both have kids we can't really take our summer holidays and buzz of to sea the other person, but I'm hoping an even longer visit could be arranged

[TwoThree]

I get five weeks/year but our company has a policy of not taking more than two weeks off in a row, so our visits are usually two weeks long.