You deserve a holiday. No matter who you are, what you do, or the year you’ve had, there’s no doubt you’re feeling deserving of a little vacation, and we think it’s time you gave in to the wanderlust.
Not only would a holiday help our struggling tourism industry following a year derailed by bushfires, a pandemic, and flooding (what’s next, a mouse plague? Oh wait…) but a trip away would be equally good for you, with the benefits reaching just about every area of your life.
New data from Tourism Australia‘s Annual [Leave] Report finds a holiday can positively impact your mood, relationships, social life, wellbeing, work performance, even your sex life. And if that isn’t an excuse to lock away some annual leave and Holiday Here This Year, then we don’t know what is.
The report shows Australians who have recently embarked upon a long holiday of five or more days are more likely to be productive at work (83% of returning holidayers) and actually take fewer sick days.
Not just a better work-life, but social life sees out-of-sight improvements following a getaway also. 78% of Aussies who took a big trip noticed positive changes in their relationships once returning home, and when it came to our romantic relationships, returning travellers were twice as likely to want to jump in the sack after a trip.
Generally speaking, holidays make us feel happier and healthier. Mood improvements were noted for 53% of Aussies who took a big holiday — a whole 19% uplift from people who have not holidayed recently. And physically, happy vacationers were 32% more active and 93% more likely to eat healthy food during the week.
So all of this is to say you should absolutely consider a big holiday in the coming months. Not just a weekender, of which we’ve had plenty. Australians took 29.4 million holiday overnight trips during 2020, with 82% of these lasting one to four nights. But in order to see the above benefits, we really need to be going away for five nights or more. And thankfully, data would show we all have plenty of annual leave to spare right now.
Below, Tourism Australia has wrapped up the remaining public holidays in 2021 for each state. By cleverly booking annual leave around these, you can easily turn as little as four days off work into an 11-day trip.
| State | Days to take off | Leave taken | Length of holiday |
| ACT | Tuesday 1 June – Friday 4 June 2021 | 4 days | 9 days |
| WA | Tuesday 6 June – Friday 9 June 2021 | 4 days | 9 days |
| ACT, NSW, NT, SA, TAS, VIC | Tuesday 15 June – Friday 18 June 2021 | 4 days | 9 days |
| NT | Tuesday 3 August – Friday 6 August 2021 | 4 days | 9 days |
| ACT, NSW, QLD, SA | Tuesday 5 October – Friday 8 October 2021 | 4 days | 9 days |
| TAS | Friday 22 October – Monday 25 October 2021 | 2 days | 5 days |
| VIC | Monday 1 November, Wednesday 3 November – Friday 5 November 2021 | 4 days | 9 days |
| ACT, NSW, NT, QLD, SA, TAS, WA, VIC | Wednesday 29 December – Friday 31 December 2021 | 3 days | 10 days |
| ACT, NSW, NT, QLD, SA, TAS, WA, VIC | Monday 24 January – Tuesday 25 January 2022 | 2 days | 5 days |
| ACT, NSW, NT, QLD, SA, TAS, WA, VIC | Tuesday 19 April – Friday 22 April 2022 | 4 days | 11 days |
| QLD, NT | Tuesday 3 May – Friday 6 May 2022 | 4 days | 9 days |
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