What Millennials and Europeans Have in Common

Geraldine Campbell
Geraldine Campbell
Geraldine Campbell was the Managing Editor at The Kitchn. She loves semi-colons, em dashes, and serial commas. She lives in Brooklyn with her dog, Charlie.
updated Dec 17, 2019
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Americans aren’t good at vacations. Isn’t that what all the reports say? We can’t put our phones away, we check our work email and take work calls from the beach, and that’s if we even take our vacation days to begin with. According to career site Glassdoor.com, the average U.S. employee only takes 54 percent of their vacation days. In other words, we’re all leaving half our PTO on the table.

Well, maybe not all of us. Millennials are apparently taking vacations — and really long ones at that.

According to data compiled by TravelInsurance.com for the first half of 2017, millennial travelers took longer trips than any other age group. And when we say longer, we mean really long.

Older millennials (31 to 35) spent 17 days away, while younger millennials (18 to 25) went on epic voyages lasting 22 days.

22 days! What are they, European? We say this with great respect for Europeans, of course. Their vacation ethic is, indeed, admirable. In France, for example, they take a minimum of 31 days of vacation — and they’ll often take it in one go, say, the entire month of August.

We have to confess: We’re not 100 percent sure we can believe this statistic. Does it include Junior Year abroad? And what about contradicting reports that millennials are actually really bad at taking vacation?

As a non-millennial (I’m somewhere in the nebulous region between Gen X and millennial), I am about to take a vacation for — count ’em — 12 days. That feels like an eternity to me! Will I go away and come back and find my desk covered in moss? My collection of desk Oreos gone soft and stale? I can’t even imagine taking off for another 10 days on top of that.

Perhaps, however, this statistic is right — and millennials have something right. Who among us could not use more vacation?

Some Other Things TravelInsurance.com Reported

  • The top 10 destinations for younger millennials include Peru and Thailand.
  • The top travel destinations for all travelers are the United States, followed by the U.K., Mexico, Italy, France, and Spain.
  • Millennials also love adventure and “extreme sports” like scuba diving, surfing, white water rafting, and mountain climbing.

What’s the longest vacation you’ve ever taken?

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