I’ve written previously on the importance of using the time off that your company gives you. It’s so easy to just let it accumulate and it takes real discipline to plan ahead and use it. If you do, you’ll find yourself sharper and more creative at work. If you haven’t read that article, read it now, then continue on.

Using your time off is critical, but how? There are plenty of right answers to this question. I’ve experimented with several ways and have found one that works well for me and my family. I thought I’d use this article to explain what we do.

Large blocks of time

I haven’t always done this, but in the last several years, I’ve taken my time off in large chunks. For many years I never took more than one week off at a time. About twelve years ago, I took my first two-week trip. Then in the past few years, I’ve taken three-week trips.

Why so long? It takes more time to do big things. In one week, I can do an average trip. In two weeks, I can do an awesome trip. In three weeks, I can do an epic trip. Do you want your life to be epic? Then take epic trips. They are more than awesome.

How can you pull that off?

Many think it is impossible to leave a job for two or three weeks without having everything fall apart. I’ve worked carefully for years to arrange my job so that I can. It starts by getting myself out of the critical path of execution. My team can run our operations, deliver projects, and take care of our customers without me.

Even if you aren’t a people-manager, you should be able to achieve this. Find others around you that are capable, train them and share your knowledge, then enjoy the freedom that comes from not being the only one that can save the day.

My job nowadays is focused almost entirely on long-term strategic decisions. Can the organization wait for three weeks without making any strategic decisions in my area? Yes.

A big vacation or trip?

Now that we’ve covered how, let’s cover what to do. Personally, I talk about my time-off, as “taking a big trip.” Not, “taking a long vacation.” I don’t prefer the term “vacation.” For me, it conjures up a vision of sitting on a beach in a chaise lounge chair, reading a book. I feel like the goal of a “vacation” is relaxation. There’s nothing wrong with relaxation, but you typically don’t need two or three weeks to relax, and I’ve never taken a big relaxing vacation.

Why aren’t my trips relaxing?

Two reasons primarily. One is philosophical. The other is practical. I try hard not to work myself so hard to the brink of burn-out that I need three-weeks of relaxation to recover. That doesn’t sound like a healthy way to live, so I try to keep more of a constant equilibrium of work and recovery through my normal routine.

Here’s the practical reason: We have four kids ranging in ages from 13-5. We like to do things together as a family. There’s nothing wrong with taking a trip without the kids. My wife and I have done that occasionally, but much more often we all go together. There’s nothing relaxing about taking a trip with four kids. Nothing. Most days, working in the office is more relaxing than traveling with my children.

If the goal of taking time off from work isn’t relaxation, then what is it?

1. Wilderness: I live in a big city. Working in technology for big companies is almost exclusively a big city kind of profession. While I love the city, I need to get away from it from time-to-time. I love the extreme wilderness. The wilder, the better. I love the extreme climates, exotic wildlife, and breathtaking vistas. Theses places aren’t an hour away from my house. It takes time to get there.
2. Exploration: I love to travel, but more specifically, I enjoy going to places I’ve never been. I’ve been to many places that I am very fond of and would be very inclined to visit again, but there’s something much more alluring about many places I’ve never been. Those places call to me.
3. Adventure: I love the thrill and challenge of adventure, and so does my family. We always try to incorporate some kind of thrill or physical challenge into our trips. We’ve done epic hikes, rock-climbs, extreme jeep tours, and recently surfed some sand dunes.
4. Education: I love learning, and not just about leadership and technology. I love learning about history, natural science, and different cultures. Fun fact: the Hughes family is a homeschool family. My wife, Wendy, is the primary educator in our family, and is great at capitalizing on opportunities to enrich the educational experiences of our kids. We use our trips as experiential learning opportunities. Think of it as a three-week class field trip.
5. Memories: This is the stuff I remember. So much of my daily routine is forgettable. Our epic trips create memories that will last a lifetime. It’s priceless.
6. Context: All of the above is great. None of it is particularly relaxing, as I’ve previously covered, but it is all very different from my regular work routine. That change of context and routine is very renewing for my mind. It refreshes and replenishes my creative capacity, which directly benefits my work when I return.

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.

– John Muir

Some specifics:

I’ve covered a lot of theory, but I’ve left out the specifics. Do you want to have some epic trips with your family? Go ahead and choose your own adventure, but if you want to follow in our footsteps, here’s what we’ve done recently. First of all, we purchased an old class-C RV a few years ago, which is our adventure machine. It takes us everywhere and we love it. It’s pretty cramped for a family of six, but what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

So far, we’ve driven our RV across 35 states and 4 Canadian provinces. We’ve visited dozens of national parks. Here are a few of our past epic trip itineraries:

1. Alaska: Anchorage, Seward, Valdez, Fairbanks, and Denali
2. Glacier in Montana. Banff, Yoho, and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies
3. Badlands, Black Hills, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton
4. East Coast from Virginia to Maine
5. Southwest: 9 national parks across Arizona, Utah, and Colorado

In conclusion, we are all fully-integrated people. Our lives outside of work affect our work, just as our work affects our personal lives. Do the hard work of storing your time-off and your savings to make this sort of thing possible. Do the even harder work of arranging your job so that you can step away from it. It’s hard, but worth it.