HOW DO YOU PLAN YOURS - PART 1 : HOLIDAY ALLOWANCES

The best way I've found is to set aside some time to plan the whole year out in one go! and I personally chose to do this over the Christmas and New Year holidays (usually when Dave is hung over).

Now, when I say the 'whole year' - It's worth remembering that Holiday allowances start and end in either May or April dependant on your companies policies so it's up to you for whether you plan 'April-April' or 'Jan-December' just be sure you've worked out your allocations accordingly for whichever you pick. I tend to work Jan-December.

I start by filling in my self made 'holiday allowance spreadsheet' with all the pre determined holidays that I HAVE to book off - so any weddings, gigs, birthdays etc - and then at the end it will show me a tally of how many days I have left to spread around the year (picture example below).

To do this, I  use a standard Google Sheets doc with basic subtraction formulas - but any form of list, paper or electronic will do just fine.

I then make a list / consult my list of all the main places we might want to go that year – for example,  the Lakes, Wales, Scotland etc and allocate the appropriate amount of days possibly needed - including travel time – for each trip – even if they're a '0' - (Friday afterwork to Sunday PM trip) 

After, I print off a calendar – ensuring it starts on a Monday as its easier to see visually where the weekends fall – and lay it all down on a nice flat surface so that I can see the whole year at a glance - If you use something like Google Calendar this is great as it will already include all pre arranged engagements and birthdays to be aware of - If not, not to worry there are many free downloads available like this one here  just make sure you add in all your pre arranged dates, birthdays and the relevant local Bank Holidays - such as Easter!

Easter is great as you can usually get 10 days away, by just using 4 days holiday - perfect for those further away destinations!

Then using post-it notes for the locations I slot them in where they'll fit around the other pre determined engagements and once Dave and I are in agreeance with what sits where, we'll transfer it into a hard copy and book off all the days we need from work. Job Done! and it's great knowing that there's always something planed in to do.

Yes things may and do change occasionally - and you obviously can't guarantee you're going to get nice weather but this is the UK after all - there's never a guarantee of nice weather! So we just make sure we pack and plan for all weather conditions - you can find more on this here in our 'top 5 camping in the rain tips' or here in our 'what we pack' post.