I feel the same. But doing a half day each works great for me.

Ski 8-noon, then work in the warm.

Desert hike 6-10 then work in the cool.

That way if work is engaging - maybe you get into a nice flow state - you can keep going into the evening and your body already got the outdoors it likes.

I really like this mode a lot.

I have done a variation on this. Take a vacation, drive to a national park, and go camping. Then go to an airbnb with good natural beauty, work thursday and friday, go hiking on the weekend, then take a travel day to come home.

This allowed me to take a longer vacation while still separating work time from hiking time. The emotionally draining work days coincided with much-needed recharge time in between the strenuous camping/hiking days and the weekend of more hiking.

I had coworkers who worked east coast hours but lived on the west coast, so they were off at 2 every day. A lot of them initially had all kinds of plans for what they would do with their free afternoons, but in the end, seemingly all of them did about what those of us who work til 5 do after work, just with an earlier bedtime.

Thats a good observation - the capacity to appreciate something is probably as important as just being (in this case) in a beautiful space.

Different strokes for different folks. One of my favorite vacations involved working out of hotels during the day and driving around the Colorado Rockies in the afternoon/evening.

Workation doesn't work...

You can still go on hikes on the weekend

Sure, but in the parent's post, the family is able to enjoy the camp time, and they're able to somewhat enjoy the time, not have to drive 3-5h on Friday during rush hour when everyone else is doing the same, and not have to turn around and pack up camp <48h later.

I've had good and bad remote work vacations. My best was when I was able to link together 11 days out of town and only have to work 2 of them.

That's what I was thinking. Enjoyment is often benchmarked more by sharing the experience with other people. While I begrudgingly must admit this as an introvert, my introversion makes it no less true!

I always dislike the European vs American commentary. There are tradeoffs and we could easily go back and forth on those.

I do agree when comparing developed wealthy nations the US ranks poorly on average vacation days per worker.

But on a global standard across all peoples, even those in the informal economies? US probably works out better.

Not that being a bit better off than subsistence farmers in extreme poverty is a high standard to cross, it's still a pretty low bar. I'd still recommend scoping your claims accurately.

The demographic of Americans who use a Starlink to work from the wilderness probably has more vacation days than the mean European.

Joke's on you, I have "unlimited" vacation days...

That explains European economic growth vs the US over the last decade.