Public holidays in 2017

2017 is a good year. I have a good vibe from this year so far. This just got better when I listed all the long weekends we are going to have this year. Public holidays align perfectly with weekends this year to give us plenty of long weekends for traveling in Europe.

Let’s get down to business! I work in Bavaria (Germany), which is pretty good for having a lot of public holidays. Not from Bavaria? Don’t worry. Keep reading. Most of the Catholic regions in Europe will have more or less same religious holidays. Just google your public holidays for 2017 and match them here.

January 1st, Saturday (New years day)

Sorry, already passed. January 6th, Friday (Epiphany)

Passed as well. April 14th, Friday (Good Friday)

Make use of this long weekend. Combine it with Easter Monday and you already have four days here without taking any day off. Last year we were exploring Milan and Lago Maggiore at this time. April 17th, Monday (Easter Monday)

Nothing booked yet but we might plan our South of Spain trip during these four public holidays! May 1st, Monday (Labour day)

My favorite kind of Monday! Club this day with the weekend before to get three days off. Perfect for a city trip. May is still off-season in Europe. So, it is the best time to go somewhere warm before they are crowded in summer, such as, France, Greece or Italy! May 25th, Thursday (Ascension day)

Take Friday off and use these four days to explore Austria or Switzerland. Salzburg is a cute historical city. Bern (in Switzerland) also has a similar vibe of an old historical town. Both cities are located close to mountains and beautiful Alpine lakes. June 5th, Monday (Whit Monday)

Another holiday on Monday. Use the weekend before and plan a nice pre-summer trip to the warm regions of Europe like French Riviera. June 15th, Thursday (Corpus Christi)

You can either use this day for one day trip somewhere in mountains or take Friday off (highly recommended) and take a four-day trip somewhere. I would recommend Black forest and small German cities like Freiburg etc. August 15th, Tuesday (The assumption of the blessed virgin Mary)

Take Monday off and have four days off for a mini summer vacation. I will recommend some offbeat locations in Europe like Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia etc (Remember #Offbeat Greece?). October 3rd, Tuesday (German Unity day)

This is a historical holiday in Germany and offers lots of street festivals and celebrations, especially in Berlin (Well, Berlin is always a good idea!). For historical significance, I will recommend going to Berlin (Do not miss the neighboring Potsdam if you feel overcrowded). If you are taking Monday off, you can start the trip from my new favorite Krakow, spend the weekend there and then come to Berlin for the celebrations. November 1st, Wednesday (All saint’s day)

If you take two days (Thursday and Friday) off, an epic 5-day trip to Iceland would be a perfect option for you! It will already be cold but not freezing cold and hence you can enjoy the Northern lights, hot open baths and of course my favorite, Ice caves on the south coast of Iceland. December 25th, Monday (Christmas)

As Christmas will fall on Monday this year, we have 4 days off (unless you want to take more days off until new year). In 2016, we went to Prague for Christmas and had small trips to Bratislava and Budapest after that. As festive as it sounds, I would not recommend that to anyone. Yes, Prague is beautiful for Christmas but it is too crowded. I would not recommend Paris for the same reason. Maybe Scandinavian countries could be a good call 🙂 December 26th, Tuesday (Boxing day)

Include this day in your Christmas break and explore the Scandinavian countries.

Public holidays might vary

I understand that your holidays might look a bit different depending upon your region and country but in most of the Catholic European cities, it should look similar. Time for some quick calculations now: Bavaria has 13 public holidays this year. With careful planning, we can have about 10 long weekends (three 3-day long, six 4-day long and one 5-day long =38 days off) after taking only 6 days off from work. And I am not even counting rest of the weekends (42 normal weekends). If I count them in, we have about 122 days off with just 6 days of holidays! Come on people, it cannot get better than this!

So, what are you waiting for? Mark your calendars and start booking your 2017 travel breaks. Travel Cheap. Travel Responsibly. You work pretty hard whole year. Take a plunge once in a while. Go and do something you love. Explore the world. Try the weird food options. And as I promised, you don’t have to leave your job for that.

PS: Although I recommend places as per my choices in the article above, I will highly recommend trying Skyscanner for getting the cheapest options for a specific time period. Add your dates, departure airport and enter ‘EVERYWHERE’ for the destination. You can choose which destination is cheaper to fly into. Consider the hidden costs and you have picked yourself a cool destination for the long weekend.

Let me know in comments below if you already have plans for these holidays. Where are you going and when? We might just bump into each other!

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