How many days do you allow when returning home?

This is a question that is best answered by yourself and your past experience when traveling. If this is your first international trip and you don't know yet how you will feel after coming home then you may just have to do what you think you'd like to do and hope it works for you. I know maybe I'm not saying this very well, but everyone is different in how they feel after a long west-bound flight (jet-lag) and what I call "post-vacation let down". My daughter is one of those that suffers worse jet-lag coming home than she does going and so she's pretty worthless for the first few days back home and usually tries to schedule some days after coming home before returning to work. I, on the other hand, do not have a problem with jet-lag when coming back from Europe and when I was working (am retired now), I usually planned to return to work the day after I get home. I always wanted to squeeze out every minute of Europe time that I could. Fortunately this worked ok for me, but so many people I know need time to decompress after coming home and would never come home needing to go to work the next day. And then there's always the normal after vacation chores to do such as laundry, restocking fridge with food, etc - those things need to be taken into account when planning how much time you need before returning to work.

I'm sure you'll get answers going either way and there is no one 'right' answer that works for everyone.

After an 89-day trip, I used to fly back to the US and show up at the office that afternoon, but flight delays and cancellations are now so widespread that I fly back the day before.

I suffer terribly from Returner's Remorse, so why start that any earlier than I have to?

I also depart directly from work, I call it take-your-suitcase-to-work day.

Love your style Zoe!

I also stay as long as possible and return to work the morning after I get back. I hate coming home... that's the worst part of the trip for me lol. "Returners Remorse" says it perfectly.

I would love to unpack, sleep, wash clothes etc upon returning from a trip..but I also like to be in Europe as long as possible. We usually get home on Sunday *drive home from LAX-2 hours) and go to work Monday. Jet lag usually hits me around 3:00pm for about three days, then I am normal, but it's a rough 3 days.

I would try to squeeze in a trip to London, if I were you. Two days at home to "decompose"(a la 'Seinfeld') is plenty, I think. Do some chores and stock the fridge before you leave. Happy travels! I bet you'll like Prague the best. So, screw decomposing, spend two more days in Prague also, then pull a "Zoe" and go from the airport straight to work. That's what coffee and Red Bull are for.

Nancy's post is spot-on. I'll just add that it often takes one day for each hour of time change to get over "jet lag". If you need to be "sharp" at work on your first day back, then I would add a buffer of 1-2 days at the end of your trip. I am retired now, but when I was regularly travelling overseas on business trips, jet lag for me from Europe was not quite as bad as coming from Asia. However, I often felt worse on the third day home than I did on my first day back (after waking up at 4 a.m.). I think if it were me, I'd save London or Berlin for another time and really enjoy Prague.

Kathleen,

When I was working, I liked to allow at least five days before going back to work. I found that I was affected more by jet lag on the way home than going to Europe, so I needed time to adjust. I also wanted to have a few days to get the house back to normal, re-stock the fridge and so on.

I used to fly home on a Sunday and be back at work on a Monday (I live on the west coast. This was partly based upon the fact that my long-time employer routinely required me to work the day after arrival (or even the day of arrival) on overnight business trips overseas. If they expected me to do that without time toacclimate, I sure was going to maximize my vacation time, jet lag be darned. But being slightly over 50 now, I just decided that I need a day to recover. I don't think another day or two would make that much difference. At my current company, I just pitched it to my boss that I wanted two weeks plus a buffer day, and she was fine with it.

Ideally I fly home on Saturday, which means leaving Europe on an AM flight and an evening arrival in the US-eastern time zone. Sunday is then for rest, unpacking, and whining about going back to work. My jet lag isn't too bad going east (so I arrive in Europe and am tired but a night of sleep fixes that), but going west I have trouble. It takes close to a week to be normal again going west, so I like a little buffer. I'd like to come back as late as possible, but I need that day.

I find jet lag worse returning home than going. Since my flights home usually get in later in the evening, I usually go straight to bed after getting home. So I always give myself at least one day to get unpacked, shop and just deal with that worst day of jet lag. Plus that gives me a day to think happy thoughts about my trip and talk to others about it before the shock of getting back in the work routine.

I go to work the next day. I have the money to travel often, what I don't have is the time so I maximize it. Suggest you spend 4 nights in Budapest. You probably don't arrive before 1pm and you will be jet lagged so the first day making it with about 1/4 day. Then you will have 2 full "good" days before your departure day on the boat. Budapest is at a minimum a 3 full day town, and 4 is better. 3 nights works for Prague, but if you add a night there are a lot of good day trips and overnight trips out of Prague. You will have invested $800 to $1500 and 30 to 40 hours to get to Europe and back so maximize the return on the investment.

Kathleen,
It depends .... depends on sooo many factors.

How much rest/sleep you actually get on the trip, which often depends on how well your adjust to the time change arriving in your travel destination. For some people, it takes about 3 days to get used to their vacation destination time zone, and then once their bodies are just about adjusted, wham: soon time to fly home for another time zone adjustment.

But, it also depends on how well you can rest on your flight home. Will you be crammed into a middle seat in economy, or will you in in business class? Even in business class, you could have a screaming kid in the cabin (which means almost no chance for a cat nap, even with ear plugs).

If you get a case of airplane air traveler's crud, that can also take a bit of wind out of your sails.

Sometimes I bounce back completely in about three days....sometimes it seems to take almost a full week to be back to 100% feeling normal. There are times I can get in the car and drive to the grocery the next day, and there are other times I feel somewhat foggy and won't drive a day for several days. All depends.

If you have the flexibility and if your job is mentally demanding or you interface with people on very important negotiations, etc., I would suggest allowing yourself a minimum of 2, but better yet 3 days. If you will just be sorting thru your mail and email at your office and can make people "think" you are still gone (when you record your out of office greeting on our phone, pad it by a day stating you will be "back and taking calls on X date"), then you could probably slide back into the office the next day and just leave early if nap time is really calling to you.

But, it's important to take care of yourself (the ole eat right/get lots of rest) while traveling, and it is also important to take care of yourself (allow your body/mind time to adjust) upon return.

And, I will add, that if I can get a two-leg flight going and coming, that helps me to bounce back more quickly. The three-leg returns are what seem to do me in (3-4 hour connections just waiting make me melt quickly). Lucky are those who live in/near hub cities with direct flights to Europe and can fly on direct flights :)

I've always been pretty hard core. Although it's no fun to get home Sunday night and have to be at work Monday, I'd rather rest when I get home and spend as many days on the road as I can.

All our past trips we arrive home (not at the airport) around 9pm. on a Friday night. Work is very early Monday morning. I have all day Saturday and Sunday to relax and adjust.

I'm in hopes that our Lufthansa Premium Economy seats help even a bit more this year.

Paul

We always maximize our time in Europe. We've gotten home at 11 or even midnight, and I've been in the office by 7 the next day. It sucks, but I'd rather a day in Europe than a day sitting on my couch recovering. This absolutely depends on your preferences and your abilities. But as James points out, you've spent a good deal of money on flights and invested a lot of time traveling from the US. My recommendation is, after considering your own preferences, to spend as much time in Europe as possible.

On my trip to France last year, the plane tickets were free but in economy on Delta. The flight over was full and my back was acting up so I didn't sleep at all. On the way back, I slept some but definitely felt jet lagged for 2-3 days after.

I'm an IT manager so my days at work are pretty jam packed and I will be returning about 60 days before a major system upgrade so I need to be ready to go.

I'm staying 3 nights in Budapest in a hotel and then the 1st night the ship actually stays docked in Budapest after doing a scenic river cruise and I'll have more time in Budapest the next day before it departs for Vienna. I'm thinking I want to fly back on Saturday so that would leave 2 nights yet. I'm torn between more time in Prague or a short stop in London. Flying from Heathrow might not be fun but that would be a nonstop.

It also depends on your job and whether its something that allows you to adjust, or requires you to hit the ground running.

I always take a day or two at home after the trip to reconnect.

House rule: One day at home for every week we're gone, plus one day.

Gone one week: two days recovery and acclimatization (1+1)
Gone two weeks: Three days. (2+1)

I admit there have been occasions when travel mates have had to come back one day sooner than I would have, so I have had that extra day to do nothing on occasion, and it was lovely. However, I rarely planned for the day. Oddly enough, my 17th day on a trip is when I am ready to go home (always ready to travel, but I do love my home and activities, too). Your vacation sounds like it will be quite relaxing, and solo allows you not to get overly exhausted and have lovely freedom from stress and do exactly exactly what you want to do every minute...sigh. :) (I've never been on a river cruise, but they sound relaxing). So, my long-winded answer is I would come home the day before and go to work as scheduled. East to west is difficult for me...I am not usually a morning person and it takes me 2 weeks to really get back to my normal routine...but I take advantage of waking up ready to go at 5:00 AM and I'd go to work early because come 2:00 or 3:00 PM my mind would crash. On the other hand, I am on the east coast so my flight usually lands between 6:00 and 8:00 PM, so I can get a good night's sleep that first night. Now that I have graduated from employment, this is a lovely non-issue for me! Your trip sounds wonderful! Wray

PS. I am taking an RS tour next March and I plan to leave the day the tour ends, because it is that magical 17th day for me, and I think once the tour is over, I'll feel Greece is finished for that trip having returned to the same city in which I arrived early. So as others indicated, this is such a personal decision and if you don't know for sure, I'd err on the side of no extra time at home until you figure it out. W.

We (well, hubby since I don't work) are one of the ones who like to drag out Europe to the max. I always figure we have to spend so much to get there, we want to stay as long as possible.

That being said, we always fly home from London, which for us is a 6 hr flight arriving home at about 2pm. So hubby still has part of the day to relax and unwind. If we were taking a flight which required connection and therefore more travelling time (which we may do next year if we fly home from Belgium, which will require a change in Montreal and a later arrival time home) I would prob give an extra day to recover.

I guess it would depend on the job as well - something labour intensive that requires you to be very aware of your surroundings (like, say - a construction worker or air traffic controller), I'd give an extra day to help with jet lag. Hubby sits in front of a computer all day doing lighting layouts, so not as strenuous...

Yes, it is entirely an individual thing. For me, it takes several days to a week to recover from a 12-day trip.

But, I just want to add an idea from a different point of view. A previous co-worker always came back to work the very next day after she got home from Europe. She thought she was fine, but actually she wasn't and everyone else had to cover for her while she recovered from the jet-lag she insisted she never got. Then a few days later she would come down with a terrible cold, come in to work long enough to spread the germs, and then go home sick for a week. So please consider others around you, whether they are co-workers or house-mates or grocery store cashiers.

I value my time in Europe more than my comfort at home for a day or two, so I often go back to work the next day after arrival. It's not really fun, but I can spend a day reading through back-logged email and memos, and then go home and sleep by 6 p.m. Pacific. Since plane tickets to Europe are more expensive from the west coast than the east, we also have a budget reason to stretch our time at the destination.

Looking at the likely return flight times, if I'm fly home from Prague most of the flights on Delta leave early AM around 7 am, connect in AMS and would arrive back in MSP around 1 pm. If I fly home from London instead, the nonstop leaves at 12:55 pm and arrives in MSP at 4:15 pm. I'm feeling like if I want to add London at all I need to add at least one extra day of vacation so I have at least a full day to rest.

I'm of the "stay in Europe as long as you can" school, but as someone else said, I wouldn't push to include London this trip. It's an accessible city that could easily be part of your next vacation. It's also a city where you could probably spend a lot more than 2 or 3 days on that future trip. If your possible add-on was in central Europe, I'd probably urge you to include it.

I always get a return flight that arrives in early-mid afternoon so I've got some productive hours that day--usually able to unpack and go grocery shopping, at least. Ideally I have one or two full days before returning to work and that's been good for me so far.

Before I retired, I needed to maximize vacation time so we always flew home on Sunday and I went to work on Monday. I had my own workload, independent of others, and have never gotten a cold or other illness from a flight, so I did not subject my co-workers to the problems whiskers3 brought up. My colleagues would sent me home around 4 pm when I began to get sleepy ( I was still on UK time so it was midnight for me) but I would just come in early the next day.

This seems like a crazy idea to a degree since I would be backtracking to one of the cruise stops but I'm tempted to take the train to Vienna from Prague so I could spend 2 more nights there instead of only 1 long day with the cruise. I would fly home then on Saturday and have Sunday and would still take Monday off as a recovery day.

Can not imagine going back to work the next day after arriving home from Europe to West coast.

We always have taken about 2 full days. Laundry and rest..

We have always been able to take at least 3 weeks for a Europe trip..its just too far for a week. After 5 years at a job in our province you are entitled to three weeks. Many jobs are flexible about time off.. even when I was 23 my job gave me 4 week off and a 8 week leave of absence .

Hubby can take what ever time off he wants... but we both agree at this point 4-5 weeks is max till he retires( I have just retired).. ...We alternate a 4-5 week holiday to Europe every other year .. and on the "off" year just take a week or two to Mexico.

What if you discover there was a reason the boat only stayed one day in Vienna. Ha!!! I would spend the time in the Czech Republic.

Back when it mattered we were in the one or none days! I'll sleep when I'm dead! I only have so much time in Europe!

We prefer 3 full days at home prior to work. I do nothing for day one, day two do laundry, day three mentally get ready for work. But, my work is physical and mental where hubby might do ok since all he does is drink coffee and talk (sales)!

We are on the west coast and also have a 2 1/2 hour ride home from the airport, or in traffic a 4 hour drive!

Not surprising that answers depend on whether on is retired or in the work force, how much vacation time one has (and wants to allocate between on the ground and recovery), and how quickly one has to ramp back up at work once back. Jet lag also varies so I doubt anyone is at 100% the day or even two or three days after coming back - it's just that some work places are more "gentle" than others.

When I am on Rick Steves tour, I fly home the morning the tour is over and then go back to work the following Monday or next business day. That works well for me when the tour ends on a Friday and even Saturday because I rarely have jet lag coming back to the states (going over I get killer lag though). When it ends on a Sunday, not so much. :-)

I don't worry about flight delays since where I work they are generous enough to allow me to return a day late after a long vacation without any repercussions. I only had to do that once and it was due to a very well published air controller strike in Europe. But I think it might have had something to do with my running into my boss at the airport in Paris where he was stuck also.

I have enough vacation time that it lasts longer than my travel budget does so I am typicallly home at least two days before returning to work.

Once I had to go back the next day. Flight was delayed and we only walked in the door about 3am. Darn near killed me and I should have called in. Never again will I put myself through that.

I also don't care for going straight to the airport from work. Last year I ended up with four days off prior to flying to Dublin. Now that was a relaxing way to start a holiday.

I look forward to that first trip after retirement where this is no issue. Too bad that's likely 14 years away!

"I'll sleep when I am dead." Bravo !

As others said, I never want to cut even one day from a trip so I like to get home on a Sunday to take advantage of the weekend, and go back to work on Monday. Jet lag lasts much longer when I get home than it does in Europe, but I don't feel out of sorts here. I just fall asleep at 10pm and wake up at 6am, which works out perfectly for my job. It's also the only time that I'm ever a morning person!

When we came back from Paris in April, our connecting flight out of Newark was delayed more than 2 hours and we didn't get to the airport in St. Louis until 11pm. Then we had to wait for my sister's suitcase in baggage claim. I got home at midnight after being awake for 25 hours (didn't sleep on the transatlantic flight because I thought I'd be home at 9pm), then had to get up and go to work the next day. I functioned, but not well. Though that sucked, it was the only time I ever got home so late from a trip that I was inconvenienced at work the next day.

Hello Kathleen. In your reply here, dated 7/07/16 at 2:21 p.m. (U.S.A. Central Time zone) you said you are thinking about being at your home for two whole days after the day you fly from Europe (Prague) to Minneapolis. I think those two whole days could be satisfactory for you. And, in your original post you said : after your 3 nights in Prague, post - cruise, you will have 4 additional nights including your travel day back to the U.S., before the day you go back to work. That is, after your 3 nights at Prague, you will have one travel day for traveling from Prague to Minneapolis, plus two days at home. That is three days. You will have one more day. I suggest you put that extra day at Prague. You said, Post-cruise you will have 3 nights in Prague. That would be two whole days at Prague. I recommend that you plan for three whole days at Prague. Your last day at Prague, you could relax and savor being at Europe, and perhaps be in conversation with people who you will meet there at Prague. I guess you would prefer to have an extra day in Prague, rather than one extra day at your home before the day you go back to work. This advice is for you. Some other people may need to be back at their home for seven nights before they feel ready for going back to work. The "experts" (psychologists who did sleep studies) said people need 7 nights to adjust at home.

I can't stand to leave a minute too soon, so I usually fly home one day and am back at work the next day. I did this from the midwest--Chicago and Wisconsin--and from NYC. To be honest it takes a while to get over jet lag and no matter what you do you won't be over it in one day or two days, so I'd rather just fight through it at work. I have a friend who flew back from Paris on Sunday and she was still complaining yesterday that her body clock was not reset. And she had the day to do it.

So, my philosophy has always been to fly home on a later flight on my last day. Stay up until 9PM try to push for 10 PM and then go to bed with a tylenol PM or some such tablet. Don't get out of bed until 5 at the earliest. If you wake up earlier, try to rollover. Work your day and repeat. I find that having to go to work actually helps. When I come home after work, there lots to do to keep me awake--more unpacking or calling family and friends about the trip, catching up on mail. If I were to stay home, I'd crash the second night.

But everyone has their own strategy. I work with people who do this type of travel all the time. Mostly, they seem to go to work the next day or the day after at the longest. And if it is the day after and it's a work day, they are working from home. :)

Pam

'Better to be tired on work time than my time', is often quoted by a friend of mine.
I travel 26-30 hours to get home from Europe. At a minimum 2x12 hour flights, I cry when I read on here of how tough it is from west coast USA. It takes me 14 hours to get to west coast USA, and only then I'm about half way....sob!
But anyway, pity party over, I normally arrive home early afternoon, stay up as late as I can and go to work the next day. I also like to have my first day back as a Wednesday or Thursday, so normally leave Europe on a Sunday or Monday night to arrive on a Tuesday or Wednesday. This gives me a couple of days doing easy catch up stuff at work and a short week, then I'm back to normal for my first full week.

I like to return from vacations late in the week Thursday being almost ideal for me but I have an extremely flexible job. Self employed so my boss is awesome!

That way I can use Friday to put out fires have a relaxing weekend to recharge and hopefully Monday morning finds that I don't have to dig out as much.