The days of summer when Mom and Pop stuffed Junior and Fido in the yellow station wagon, pumped a tiger in their tank and set out to see the U.S.A. in their Chevrolet are over. Kaput.
Today's travelers are weekenders - working couples who don't have the time to get away for long stretches; executives who can't synchronize their power schedules; working parents too guilt-ridden to leave the kids for more than three days; thrifty adventurers who say it's easier to shell out $300 for a weekend than $1,500 for a two-weeker.As Americans chart more and more three- and four-day courses in lieu of extended family vacations one question remains: is it healthy?
Don't we, oppressed wage slaves, need to wring every milli-second we can from a 14-day jaunt to relieve the stress of the work-a-day world rather than try to suck brief relief from three days in Cancun?
That depends.
"I personally think that short vacations, short refreshers, are better for harder workers (workaholics)," said David J. Sumanth, a productivity specialist and associate professor of industrial engineering at the University of Miami.
"These high-momentum workers, from anecdotal evidence, need short weekend vacations or they loose the momentum if they stay out for long periods of time."
The theory is that on Monday morning, worker bees are barely humming, gradually building speed until we peak on Wednesday, then taper off Friday morning coming to a dead stop by Friday afternoon. Our body clocks adjust to the roller coaster of the workplace. Interrupt the cycle and we find ourselves taking more time to readjust.
Taking short trips rather than long ones has its advantages and disadvantages.
Frank Masur, a clinical and health psychologist in Memphis, Tenn., says you can take more shorter vacations that "nicely break up the work pattern," but sometimes "it's not enough time to relax."
"Physicians complain they often need two weeks because they spend the first week getting used to the idea they are not on call," he said. "But when you take two weeks off it's hard to get back in the full swing of things. It might take four days to mentally re-program yourself to relax, then four days to re-program to start back at work. With a short three- or four-day vacation you can pretty much bounce back. Whether it's better or worse for you - I don't know."
Sandy Painter, a shipping agent, says she is a type-A personality who works sometimes up to 60 hours a week. Though she is eligible for three weeks of vacation, she hasn't taken the whole chunk in 17 years. She took one week off a few years ago.
"I like spreading it out," she said. "When you do work of any nature that has any intensity it helps to have breaks. Sort of like recess when you're in school. Usually, two to three days to unwind and refresh and you're ready to come back."
Ms. Painter says that her productivity is greater if she has had a short break. She is more rested, more relaxed, ready to face new challenges. But there are no studies to back up that theory.
"I haven't seen any studies to indicate that people are more or less productive if they take a weekend or two-week vacation," Sumanth said.
"To gain total productiveness the employee must take family into consideration. I strongly believe in a separate personal and business life. Unless there is a balance of both, it can have a serious impact. If you want to be productive on the job you must be productive with your family."
For each of past 27 years, Loyd and Peggy Templeton have taken off a full month and withdrawn to Block Island, Rhode Island. Templeton, an administrator at Rhodes College in Memphis, said that at the end of the month, he is ready to return home.
"The benefit to a month-long break is it gives you a total change of pace," Templeton said. "You forget about day-to-day demands of the position and you go to a different world, recharging your batteries in a totally different environment.
"That compensates for any disorientation you might have when you come back. But I find that I am rather excited about coming home. Believe it or not, after awhile you are missing your normal responsibilities. We're always ready to go, but at the end of the vacation we are always ready to come back."
Lillian Powell is a mother of two and a full-time lab assistant. She and her husband, Don, prefer long weekends to get away from the kids, the pressures and to save money.
"It's cheaper for us to go to New Orleans for the weekend than it is to take the kids on a vacation for two weeks," she said. "There is no chance that both of us would get that much time off work at the same time in the summer when the kids are out of school."
Mrs. Powell said that weekends away reinforces her relationship with her husband. "We relate when we are away," she said. "After work there are too many things at home to do. We never get a chance to be ourselves and talk."
But some argue that weekend escapes are more stressful than longer vacations. It takes time to prepare, pack, get there, unwind and have fun. Some experts say that the pressure of trying to do too much too soon in a short time makes the traveler weary.
"There are radical questions in this regard that haven't been raised, researched or addressed in terms of productivity and psychological impact," Sumanth said. "But the question should be raised and researched:'
"Is the traditional concept of vacation relevant to us today?"