Great news for those of you trying to maximise your overseas trips next year now that leisure travel from Singapore is finally unlocking – the Hari Raya public holiday in July has been shifted by one day in the official public holiday calendar for 2022, unlocking an additional long weekend to enjoy.
Both 2018 and 2019 offered only four long weekends, and with 2020 and most of 2021 being a write-off for travel due to COVID-19, the good news is that 2022 now has six long weekends to treat us with, where public holidays are observed either on a Friday or a Monday.
There are also two additional opportunities to maximise Tuesday / Wednesday public holidays by taking just a single day off work, so there should be no shortage of options for leave-efficient trips.
With travel opportunities finally back on the agenda, it’s definitely time to map out your annual leave strategy to maximise your overseas trips if you haven’t done so already, in what could be the year of “revenge travel”.
Extending long weekends
Happy with 4 or 5 days off for taking just a single annual leave day?
Here’s our rundown of nine opportunities to do just that in 2022, now including the new Hari Raya Haji holiday observed on Monday 2nd July 2021 (previously falling on a Saturday and therefore with no benefit).
Leave-efficient 4/5-day options
| Observed Date(s) | Apply for leave on | Days for a trip | |
| New Year’s Day | 1 Jan (Sat) | No benefit | |
| Chinese New Year | 1 Feb (Tue) 2 Feb (Wed) |
31 Jan (Mon) |
5 days |
| Good Friday | 15 Apr (Fri) | 14 Apr (Thu) or 18 Apr (Mon) |
4 days |
| Labour Day Hari Raya Puasa |
2 May (Mon) 3 May (Tue) |
29 Apr (Fri) or 4 May (Wed) |
5 days |
| Vesak Day | 16 May (Mon) | 13 May (Fri) or 17 May (Tue) |
4 days |
 Hari Raya Haji |
11 Jul (Mon) | 8 Jul (Fri) or 12 Jul (Tue) |
4 days |
| National Day | 9 Aug (Tue) | 8 Aug (Mon) |
4 days |
| Deepavali | 24 Oct (Mon) | 21 Oct (Fri) or 25 Oct (Tue) |
4 days |
| Christmas Day | 26 Dec (Mon) | 23 Dec (Fri) or 27 Dec (Tue) |
4 days |
| New Year’s Day | 2 Jan 2023 (Mon) | 30 Dec (Fri) or 3 Jan 2023 (Tue) |
4 days |
The final one here takes advantage of New Year’s Day in 2023 falling on a Sunday, meaning Monday is observed as a public holiday and therefore giving you a long weekend to take advantage of at the very end of 2022 using a 2022 leave day, or by dipping in to your 2023 allowance if you prefer.
If you’re happy with a 3- or 4-day weekend, you can also take advantage of these ones without taking any leave at all, and of course you can always extend them slightly too with an extra leave day (2 leave days in total) to make them 5-day or 6-day trips.
3 days of leave over CNY or Hari Raya will score you 9 days off
Interested in a longer trip next year?
While we’re still not 100% sure which destinations will open up regionally, the first batch of Vaccinated Travel Lane destinations are mostly far from home and probably won’t be justifiable for a long weekend.
Again there’s no need to waste your holiday allowance – there are two great opportunities to earn 9 days out of the office, while taking just 3 days of leave.
Leave-efficient 9-day options
| Observed Date(s) | Apply for leave on | Days for a trip | |
| Chinese New Year | 1 Feb (Tue) 2 Feb (Wed) |
31 Jan (Mon) 3 Feb (Thu) 4 Feb (Fri) |
9 days |
| Labour Day Hari Raya Puasa |
2 May (Mon) 3 May (Tue) |
4 May (Wed) 5 May (Thu) 6 May (Fri) |
9 days |
You can also consider a longer break over Christmas and New Year right at the end of 2022, with this 10 days off for 4 days of leave option.
Leave-efficient 10-day option
| Observed Date(s) | Apply for leave on | Days for a trip | |
| Christmas Day | 26 Dec (Mon) | 10 days | |
| 27 Dec (Tue) 28 Dec (Wed) 29 Dec (Thu) 30 Dec (Fri) |
|||
| New Year’s Day | 2 Jan 2023 (Mon) |
Best dates for a long trip
Planning a long trip in 2022?
The VTL already allows quarantine-free round-the-world options like Singapore – South Korea – Canada – USA – Europe – Singapore, and with further travel relaxations there could be even more places to tag on like Japan, but you’ll likely need a longer break to justify trips like this.
The most efficient time to do this is in the first half of May, to take advantage of Hari Raya Puasa and Labour Day early in the month at the beginning of your trip and Vesak Day mid-month, which you can pin to the end.
Leave-efficient 17-day option
| Observed Date(s) | Apply for leave on | Days for a trip | |
| Hari Raya Puasa Labour Day |
2 May (Mon) 3 May (Tue) |
17 days | |
| 4 May (Wed) 5 May (Thu) 6 May (Fri) 9 May (Mon) 10 May (Tue) 11 May (Wed) 12 May (Thu) 13 May (Fri) |
|||
| Vesak Day | 16 May (Mon) |
You’d then score a whopping 17 days off by taking just 8 days of annual leave.
Summary
Don’t waste your annual leave in 2022, with several options available for stretching out a number of overseas trips next year, including two great opportunities for 9 consecutive days off with only 3 days scrubbed from your leave balance!
There are plenty of options for shorter 4- and 5-day trips too (even 3- and 4-day ones with no leave needed), plus a chance to score 17 days off by taking 8 days of leave in May, if you have a long-haul adventure in mind.
Obviously we’re assuming here that most of our readers are office-based ‘Monday to Friday’ types, so you’ll have to examine the leave calendar yourself if you normally work on a different pattern of days, to identify where your personal ‘sweet spots’ lie in 2022.
While it’s still not 100% clear exactly where we will be able to travel next year, we’ve already got some initial options and the list will hopefully continue to grow, especially to include more countries closer to home like Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Bali, Vietnam and Japan.
Wherever you’re hoping to jet off to, it’s worth locking in your annual leave now to maximise your days off, then work out where to go later, once a (hopefully) wider range of leisure travel options is revealed.
(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)
Public holidays are really great recreation place to the people. The places are always crowded during vaccation. People would love to spend their time very much.