A recent analysis of Visual Capitalist has remitted the United States at the bottom of a ranking in which they often end badly: that of free time paid. The comparison takes into account 185 countries and sums the annual holiday provided by law to the paid holidays. The average is 30 days a year; France and Spain arrive at 36, the United Kingdom at 28 and Iran, first in the standings, at 53. The United States is penultimi, in front of only Micronesia, with 10 days.
In the United States federal law does not even guarantee a day of paid holidays: the Fair Labor Standards Act does not oblige companies to pay holidays, holidays or other days when they do not work. Even in the state of New York, for most private workers, holidays depend on contract or business policies. Federal holidays are holidays for federal employees, not days of compulsory rest for anyone who has a job.
In 2025 80 percent of American private sector workers had access to paid holidays and, among those with a traditional vacation days system, the average after a year of seniority was 11 days. 81 percent also had at least some paid holidays, on average eight per year. The American problem is therefore mainly the absence of a national minimum threshold: two people with similar jobs can have very different free time simply because they work for different companies.
For those who have a classic schedule from Monday to Friday and a company that recognizes the main federal holidays, the months that remain of 2026 are organized quite well. From here to the beginning of January there are four particularly convenient combinations.
Columbus Day falls on Monday, October 12th and is both a federal holiday and a holiday recognized by the New York State calendar for the affected state employees. Taking free Friday, October 9th you will get four consecutive days, from Friday to Monday, spending only one day off.
It is also one of the few bridges of the year that coincides with a season in which going out of town makes especially sense. In the Hudson Valley the period of maximum foliage falls historically between mid-October and early November, while in the Adirondacks arrives first, generally between late September and early October. The weekend of October 12 is therefore probably more reliable for Catskills and Hudson Valley than for the northernmost areas of the state, where part of the leaves may have already fallen. I LOVE NY publishes during the season weekly updates because the dates change a lot according to temperatures, rain and altitude.
Veterans Day falls on Wednesday, November 11. It is an uncomfortable position if you take only the festive day, but rather useful by adding Thursday 12th and Friday 13th: two days of holidays allow you to stay home for five consecutive days, from 11th to 15th November.
For a short trip is probably a window more suitable for a city than a seasonal location: Philadelphia or Washington, for example, can be reached from New York without turning half the holiday into a move. Alternatively, there are Catskills and Hudson Valley, now off the busiest period of foliage and therefore more suitable for a weekend built around a hotel, a spa or a few days without particularly complicated programs.
Thanksgiving in 2026 will be Thursday 26 November. Those who are already free on Thursday can only take Friday 27 and get four consecutive days until Sunday. If the goal is to have all week, you have to use four days of holidays – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday – getting nine consecutive days from Saturday 21 to Sunday 29 November.
But it is the least clever bridge to improvise a trip. Thanksgiving is traditionally the period of the year with the largest number of shifts in the United States: in 2025 AAA made almost 82 million people traveling for at least 50 miles, the record of the series used by the organization. The return of Sunday was particularly congested and, at airports, Sunday after Thanksgiving was the busiest day of the week in each of the last five years. Those who want to use the bridge for a real holiday should therefore book before or avoid the most obvious days to leave and return.
The calendar becomes much more generous in December. Christmas falls Friday 25 December: taking Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 you can build a five-day break until Sunday 27 with two days of holiday. But the most convenient combination is another.
On 1 January 2027 it will fall on Friday. Taking free Monday 28, Tuesday 29, Wednesday 30 and Thursday 31 December connect Christmas and New Year, getting ten consecutive days without working, from Friday 25 December to Sunday 3 January, using four days of holidays. The three-day account circulating in some guides to the 2026 calendar comes from an error: it treats the 2027 New Year as if it fell on Thursday, while the official calendar correctly places it on Friday.
For those who want to go far is the period that really changes the possibilities: ten days allow a trip that would be difficult to slip into a normal long weekend, from South Florida or the Caribbean to a destination with more stages in the United States. It is also the window in which to book late tends to cost more, just because Christmas and New Year focus a substantial part of the year’s late shifts.
In the end the most useful account is therefore not that of the “five weekends with nine days of holidays” which is simply making the sum of the holidays. Christmas and New Year overlap and New Year 2027 falls on Friday. For those who have all the holidays considered, eight days of holidays – one in October, two in November for Veterans Day, one for Thanksgiving and four at the end of December – can produce four breaks of 4, 5, 4 and 10 days respectively. It’s 23 days away from work in four periods, counting weekends and holidays. And for once, it’s the calendar to do a part of the job.
L’articolo You can extend a few weekends with holiday places well proviene da IlNewyorkese.
