Holidays 2025: Tips for Planning Vacation with Bridge Days

In this article, I will show you how to travel more in 2025 and save vacation days by cleverly utilizing bridge days. The year 2025 is perfect for maximizing your vacation by smart planning around holidays and bridge days. I will show you when you need to take off to get the most free days.

My favorite for 2025? Easter, because with just 8 vacation days, you can take a full 16 days off to travel. You can be traveling even longer during Easter if you take off beyond May 1st. Then you will have 23 travel days with only 12 vacation days. Absolutely amazing.

Pentecost and Ascension Day are also great: for 4 free days, you can travel for 14 days; alternatively, taking 13 vacation days lets you enjoy a full 23 days off.

There is no nationwide holiday falling on a Saturday or Sunday in 2025.

Christmas - New Year's 2025/26 at the end of December: take 7 vacation days, get 16 free days.

My favorite during Easter 2025: For 8 vacation days, you will receive 16 free days; with 12 vacation days, you could even get 23 free days.

Pentecost - Ascension Day: take 4 vacation days, get 9 free days. Alternatively: Receive 23 free days with 13 vacation days.

Would you like to print the calendar with all holidays and bridge days? You can download it for free here. Even better: Save this image on Pinterest so you can find it later.

Next year, there are a total of nine public holidays available in the United States, which apply in all states (see highlighted in bold and red in the image above). The best part: No nationwide holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday in 2025.

New Year's Day, January 1 (Wednesday)

Good Friday, April 18 (Friday)

Easter Monday, April 21 (Monday)

Labor Day, May 1 (Thursday)

Ascension Day, May 29 (Thursday)

Pentecost Monday, June 9 (Monday)

National Day, October 3 (Friday)

Christmas Day, December 25 (Thursday)

Boxing Day, December 26 (Friday)

Why is December 24 (Christmas Eve) and December 31 (New Year's Eve) not a holiday? Most people don't know that according to federal vacation law, neither Christmas Eve nor New Year's Eve are holidays. On these days, you are only off if you take vacation. However, there are often special regulations: at all my previous employers, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve counted as 1 vacation day. Ask in your HR department how it is handled in your company.

Clever vacation planning can work wonders. With just 15 vacation days, you can achieve up to 41 free days. But how do you plan it best? Here are a few tips on how to make the most out of the holidays in 2025.

New Year's falls on a Wednesday in 2025. This presents an excellent opportunity to extend the first week of the year with minimal vacation time. If you plan January 2 and 3 as vacation days, you can enjoy a total of five free days.

For an even longer vacation in January, you can achieve a total of 12 to 13 free days with 5 to 6 vacation days. This way, you start the new year refreshed and relaxed, taking a well-deserved break right at the beginning.

Easter offers a great opportunity in 2025 to maximize your free days. Good Friday falls on April 18 and Easter Monday on April 21. With smart planning, you could gain up to 17 free days using just 8 vacation days.

By scheduling your vacation days around these holidays, you can enjoy a long break and fully experience the springtime. This provides the perfect opportunity for a longer trip or simply to relax at home and enjoy your time off.

My tip around Easter is Uzbekistan.

Pentecost is another excellent opportunity to effectively use your vacation days. Pentecost Monday falls on June 9, 2025. With smart planning, you can achieve up to nine free days using just four vacation days.

If you additionally consider Corpus Christi on June 19, 2025, you could enjoy a total of 16 free days with just eight vacation days. This way, you can take a long summer break even before the summer holidays and fully enjoy the warm season.

Christmas is the perfect time for a longer break. Christmas Day falls on a Thursday in 2025 and Boxing Day on a Friday. This gives you the opportunity to enjoy a total of 16 free days at the year's end by taking just seven vacation days.

This lengthy break offers the ideal chance to wind down the year calmly and relaxed while preparing for the new year. Use this time to celebrate with family and friends and simply unwind. My favorite over Christmas and New Year, as always, is: South Africa. Nowhere is better to escape the gray winter. Alternatively, I can recommend Sri Lanka, India, or Colombia.

Bridge days are an excellent way to stretch your vacation days and gain more free time. With targeted planning, you can reach up to 55 free days in 2025. Particularly around Easter and Christmas, there are great opportunities for extended breaks.

By combining holidays and bridge days, you can maximize your vacation days and create longer contiguous periods of free time. This is ideal for extended trips or simply for relaxation.

About the time to make the most of New Year's Eve, you can plan December 30 and 31, 2024, as well as January 2, 2025, as vacation days. This results in a total of nine free days, allowing you to start the new year feeling refreshed.

This is a perfect opportunity to combine the holidays and bridge days to maximize your free time.

Here's how you should make the most of the time around New Year's Eve: Plan December 30 and 31, 2024, along with January 2, 2025, as vacation days. This gives you a total of nine free days, allowing you to start the new year feeling refreshed.

This is an excellent opportunity to combine the holidays and bridge days for maximum free time.

Labor Day falls on a Thursday in 2025. Utilize this holiday by taking Friday, May 2, off as a vacation day to create an extended weekend.

With just one vacation day, you can enjoy a total of four free days and give yourself a little break.

Labor Day falls on a Thursday in 2025. Take this holiday by taking Friday, May 2, as a vacation day to create an extended weekend.

With just one vacation day, you can enjoy a total of four free days and give yourself a little break.

Ascension Day on May 29, 2025, and Pentecost Monday on June 9, 2025, offer excellent opportunities to combine holidays. With just 10 vacation days, you can enjoy up to 18 free days.

Plan your vacation strategically to achieve the maximum number of free days and make the most of the spring and summer time.

Ascension Day on May 29, 2025, and Pentecost Monday on June 9, 2025, offer excellent opportunities to combine holidays. With just 10 vacation days, you could enjoy up to 18 free days.

Strategically plan your vacation to achieve the maximum number of free days and fully utilize the spring and summer seasons.

National Day falls on a Friday in 2025. This provides the perfect opportunity for an extended weekend. With four vacation days, you can enjoy up to nine free days in a row.

Take advantage of this opportunity to enjoy a longer break and make the most of the autumn.

Bridge days are an excellent option to stretch your vacation days and gain more free time. With targeted planning, you can achieve up to 55 free days in 2025, especially around Easter and Christmas, providing great opportunities for longer breaks.

By combining holidays and bridge days, you can maximize your vacation days and create longer contiguous free time periods. This is ideal for longer trips or simply for relaxation.

National Day falls on a Friday in 2025, offering the perfect opportunity for an extended weekend. With four vacation days, you can enjoy up to nine free days in a row.

Take this opportunity to grant yourself a longer break and fully enjoy the autumn.

This year, all regional holidays in the United States for employees optimally fall on a Monday or even Friday. Often, you do not need a bridge day to get a long weekend. Between the years 2024/25, you need only 4 vacation days to have 9 days off in a row. By cleverly planning your vacation for 2025, you can double your time off compared to usual.

The best time is around Easter and May 1. Here you can travel for up to 23 days with just 12 vacation days. Cool, right?

In 2025, there are a total of 21 public holidays in the United States. The special thing is that none of these holidays fall on a weekend, which significantly eases the planning of bridge days. This offers an excellent opportunity to schedule vacation days cleverly to maximize contiguous free days.

By skillfully integrating the public holidays into your vacation planning, you can achieve the maximum relaxation. Thus, the year 2025 offers ideal conditions to create long weekends and relaxing breaks with just a few vacation days.

The 'classics' for vacation on bridge days are city trips and short trips. Particularly popular are cities Berlin, Rome, Prague, London, and Paris. The North Sea Island Sylt, the Lake Constance, and the East Frisian Islands like Juist or the Baltic Sea coast are also quite popular.

People from Bavaria love to go to the Alps, the Lake Garda and the Zugspitz region.

Are you looking for more inspiration for hidden gems on short trips, road trips, or long-distance travel? Check out our travel calendar: month by month, we reveal which destinations are worth it.

-> Here you can find exciting and the best travel destinations for this year (our recommendation)

Inspiration for Every Month

Bridge days are days between a holiday and the weekend. If a Thursday is a public holiday, the day between the holiday and the weekend is called a bridge day.

This day (in this case a Friday) is particularly suitable as a vacation day. Some businesses close on bridge days, and employees must take off and could travel.

By the way, there is no legal reason that an employer must approve vacation requests on bridge days.

In the United States, every employee is entitled to 24 paid vacation days annually. According to § 7 BUrlG, each employee is entitled to at least two weeks of consecutive vacation.

This means: Everyone has the right to 4 weeks of vacation per year. On average, Americans, however, have 28 vacation days available per year. I am self-employed and theoretically do not have paid vacation days.

For your vacation planning, I found a school holiday calendar for 2025 (overview of all states) available for download. Click here to access the 2025 school holiday calendar.

Note: Sorry, dear friends from Austria and Switzerland. Unfortunately, I do not have an overview for you. This is not my expertise, as I live in the United States.

In 2025, there are uniformly 11 public holidays in the United States that all fall on weekdays, creating ideal conditions for vacation planning.

By considering regional holidays and clever planning, you can achieve up to 41 days of rest with just 15 vacation days.

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