Which country loves to work? See who doesn’t take vacation time

by Tom Johansmeyer on

A friend of mine asked me a few days ago when I last went on vacation – a real one. I struggled to remember the last time I went on a trip and didn’t write or, before that, keep up with what was going on at the office. After stopping and focusing, I remembered a four-day trip I took to Orlando back in late 2005. Even there, I’m not sure that I didn’t work, I just don’t remember spending time behind the laptop. Before that, my last vacation was probably four days in San Diego in 2002 (again, I don’t remember working but probably did) or the two weeks I took off when being reassigned from South Korea to Georgia in 1998.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Lots of people don’t take vacations, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos study. Ask any employee in the world if he uses his vacation time, and a there’s a 33 percent chance the answer will be a resounding “no.”

In a survey of 12,500 people from 24 countries, the French, unsurprisingly, are most likely to take advantage of the vacation days they are given, with 89 percent using all they are given. Argentina comes in next at 80 percent, followed by Hungary (78 percent) and Britain (77 percent). Think about it: in the top four, up to 25 percent of a country’s employees don’t blow through their vacation days.

Now, consider how grim the situation is at the other end of the spectrum. The workaholics in Japan are least likely to use all the vacation time they are given, with only 33 percent using it up. South Africa is next up from the bottom at 47 percent, followed by South Korea (53 percent). The United States is next, with a mere 57 percent of employees using up all their vacation time. That’s akin to leaving money on the table, when you think about it, since vacation time really is a part of your compensation.

Interestingly, income level makes little difference in whether one uses all available vacation time. It isn’t just hard-core investment bankers, work-addicted consultants and client-committed attorneys. According to Ipsos, two-thirds of high- and low-income workers took all available vacation time. Age makes some difference, with workers over 50 more likely to take all their vacation days. Unsurprisingly, business owners and senior executives are least likely to consume all their time.

So, why are the world’s workers so insanely dedicated to their jobs? Reuters says:

“There are lots of reasons why people don’t use up vacation days but most often it’s because they feel obligated to their work and put it over other more important things, including their own health and welfare,” said John Wright, senior vice president of global market and opinion research firm Ipsos.

Below, you can see the full results of the survey:

  1. France: 89 percent
  2. Argentina: 80 percent
  3. Hungary: 78 percent
  4. Britain: 77 percent
  5. Spain: 77 percent
  6. Saudi Arabia: 76 percent
  7. Germany: 75 percent
  8. Belgium: 74 percent
  9. Turkey: 74 percent
  10. Indonesia: 70 percent
  11. Mexico: 67 percent
  12. Russia: 67 percent
  13. Italy: 66 percent
  14. Poland: 66 percent
  15. China: 65 percent
  16. Sweden: 63 percent
  17. Brazil: 59 percent
  18. India: 59 percent
  19. Canada: 58 percent
  20. United States: 57 percent
  21. South Korea: 53 percent
  22. Australia: 47 percent
  23. South Africa: 47 percent
  24. Japan: 33 percent

[photo by archie4oz via Flickr]

Top five cities for taxi drivers (and the bottom end, too)

by Tom Johansmeyer on

When you step into a cab, you never know what you’re going to find. The driver could be knowledgeable, helpful, pleasant and safe. Or, he could lead you into a fender-bender in minutes. It’s a real roll of the dice, of course, though some cities’ cabbies are certainly better than others – at least that’s what hotels.com found.

In a study of world’s taxi drivers, hotels.com found that London’s are tops. But, you get what you pay for: London‘s taxis were also the most expensive. New York came in second, with 27 percent of the vote (compared to London’s overwhelming 59 percent). New York’s drivers ticked up 10 percentage points, but this still wasn’t enough to break the tie it scored with Paris for having the rudest cabbies. Rome picked up the dubious distinction of having the worst drivers.

Tokyo (26 percent), Berlin (17 percent) and Bangkok (14 percent) round out the world’s top five.

Madrid took sixth, followed by Copenhagen, Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris. So, Denmark may be happier, but Spain has better cab drivers.

Of course, there’s always one you should look out for …


[photo by Ben Fredericson via Flickr]

Photo of the day (8.5.10)

by Meg Nesterov on

This photo by narinnr from Kagoshima, Japan (the Naples of the East, says Wikipedia) captures a Ferris wheel built atop a shopping center next to the train station. How fun is that? Imagine if you could kill time between trains at Penn Station riding high above New York?! I’m partial to the Gravitron when choosing an amusement ride, although spinning around against centrifugal force is probably not so fun before a long train ride.

Even more interesting are the statues in front of the Ferris wheel, part of the Satuma students’ monument, dedicated to 19 Japanese students smuggled into Britain in 1865 to learn Western technology. Imagine being the first in your country to study abroad and being responsible for the start of the industrial revolution. Kinda makes a semester abroad in Prague drinking as much beer as humanly possible seem a little weak.

Do you have a photo that will inspire many Google and Wikipedia searches? Or maybe an interesting monument or an unusually-located amusement ride in your travels? Upload it to Gadling’s Flickr group and we might use it for a future Photo of the Day.

Two blogs that inspire travel: l’antipodeuse & Sarah Goldschadt

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Information, to risk stating the baldly obvious, is essential to travel. Timetables, schedules, iPhone apps, hotel review sites and Foursquare check-in updates all deliver very specific information of immediate and inarguable value to travelers. Travel blogs that pursue listings- and information-based missions provide the nitty-gritty details that travelers need, the basic and essential information they require to get their holidays off the ground.

But very often, such blogs do not inspire. The actual work of inspiring people to travel is a different beast, and it materializes in unexpected places. It can be found through all sorts of stimuli: an image; a map; a novel; an overheard conversation; a random Wikipedia dérive. Such sources can help energize broad thinking about places and things and the enticing aesthetics of travel.

Here are two blogs that accomplish just this aim remarkably, by dint of their creators’ strong aesthetics more than anything else.

Exhibit A: l’antipodeuse. New Zealand photographer Mary Gaudin, resident in Montpellier, is the motor behind this blog. Gaudin’s l’antipodeuse showcases all sorts of objects and sites, with a broad eye toward design, interior spaces, and landscape. Many of the images depict Gaudin’s travels. She captures the seasons and food particularly evocatively. Among the places so beautifully captured by her lens are France, London, Finland, Japan, and New Zealand.

Exhibit B: Sarah Goldschadt. American Sarah Goldschadt, born and now resident in Denmark, follows a craftsier impulse in her blog. There are plenty of DIY projects detailed here. What really sets her blog apart from so many others is her well-honed eye for culturally and geographically specific sorts of objects: Danish cake, the shade of red seen on buildings in Sweden; a line of small flags overhead; the milky waters off Møn; London’s chimneys. I especially love her narration of a journey to Köpstadsö, Sweden.

(Image: Sarah Goldschadt)

5 reasons to be a tourist

by Meg Nesterov on


After three months living in Istanbul, I’ve gained a stable of a few dozen Turkish words to string into awkward sentences; learned some local intel on what soccer teams to root for, where to get the best mantı, and the best Turkish insults (maganda is the local equivalent of guido); and have come to avoid Sultanahmet with the same disdain I used to reserve for Times Square when I lived in New York. Then a funny thing happened while wandering the Asian side or the city with some visiting friends: I stopped worrying and learned to love being a tourist. Letting your guard down and realizing you will ultimately always be a tourist no matter how “local” and “authentic” you can live, no matter how long you explore a place, is remarkably liberating, even fun. The old traveler vs. tourist debate is one of the most pernicious and tiresome in the travel world, and while there’s a lot of truth and value in being an independent traveler, tourists are a good thing, and being a tourist can be a lot less annoying and worthwhile than the travel snobs would have you believe.

  1. Get unabashedly lost – When I make a wrong turn in Istanbul, I’m so self-conscious about being “caught” as someone who doesn’t belong here, I find myself hiding in alleys furtively studying maps, seeking out street signs from the corners of my eyes, and acting as if that wrong turn was entirely planned for and intentional. Yet on a recent trip to Prague, I was on the hunt for a cafe recommended to me by David Farley, and after giving up on the hopes of finding a wifi connection, I started going into bars and shops and asking directions. Eventually I found the (excellent) Meduza Cafe, saw some interesting dive bars/casinos along the way, and got over my shame of toting a map around.
  2. Do something you could do at home – Sure, you came to Paris to see the Louvre and absorb the cafe atmosphere, not to sit in your hotel room and watch pay-per-view movies, but seeing the everyday abroad can be a great window into another culture. I’ve wandered malls in Buenos Aires, gone to the movies in Turkey, and had coffee at a Chilean McDonald’s (I’m also a big fan of zoos). Each place I have been surrounded by locals and experienced a surreal clash of the foreign familiar.
  3. Eat foreign foreign food – Sushi is great in Tokyo, but so is Korean, Chinese, Indian, and Italian; pretty much everything other than Mexican, which for some reason is a total fail in Japan. Just because something isn’t a “native” dish doesn’t mean it isn’t widely enjoyed by locals or “authentic” to the region. If you are insistent on only eating the national foods, you could miss out on great pizza in Colombia or cheap French food in Lebanon.
  4. Speak English – Learning please and thank you in a foreign language will get you a long way and it’s always a good idea to know a few key words, but English has become the lingua franca of the world and using it abroad is often easier and can lead to good conversations. My fractured Turkish is often met with English responses and I’ve met shopkeepers, bartenders, and taxi drivers eager to practice their English, discuss politics (apparently many Turks would like Bill Clinton to be president of their country, who knew?), or ask if the cafe they frequented while studying abroad in Raleigh is still around.
  5. Stop, gawk, and take pictures of stupid things – Another thing New York instills in you is to not look up, watch street performers, or act as if even the most ludicrous spectacle is anything other than commonplace. Remember when virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell played in the D.C. Metro? I’d bet that more tourists than locals stopped to listen. Or what if I’d let my embarrassment prevent Mike Barish from taking a picture of this sign in my neighborhood subway station? Could have been tragic. Soak up as much of the sublime and the ridiculous as you can.

Maybe one day we can eschew the traveler and tourist labels, shed our fanny packs and backpacks, realize we’re all a little obnoxious, and embrace the wonder and fun of exploring a new place in whatever way we want.