Health experts advise against skipping vacations

Survey: About one-third of American workers forego annual leave

‘‘In good conscience, I couldn’t leave for long periods of time,” Goldman said. ‘‘ ... It would just not be conceivable that we would come out on time.”

People like Goldman are not atypical. About one-third of employed adults in the United States do not take all of the vacation days they receive each year, according to a recent annual survey conducted by Expedia.com, an online travel Web site.

Americans on average already receive less time off than others around the world. The French, for example, receive on the average 37 days per year, compared to the United States’ 14 days off annually, according to the survey. And the French use it, too. Only about 20 percent surveyed by Expedia.com in France reported not using all of their vacation.

‘‘It’s a real problem,” said Helen Darling, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Business Group on Health, a nonprofit that focuses on employers’ perspectives on health care issues. ‘‘Americans will eventually get back to realizing that for their physical and mental health, they need to take vacations.”

According to the survey, Americans will not use about three days of their vacation on average this year, the same number reported by those surveyed in 2007.

Catherine Tunis, a Takoma Park resident who works for the federal government, said it took her 13 years to take a dream vacation to Yosemite National Park. While she said she uses most of her vacation time fairly easily — she receives four hours per week of annual leave — most of that has been spent on visiting elderly family members or on family emergencies.

‘‘I felt like I was a person, rather than an employee,” Tunis said of her long-awaited vacation. ‘‘Clearly, I didn’t put myself first for a long time. ... And I even felt guilty for taking this.”

Tunis said that by the time people are settled enough in their jobs to be able to afford trips, other responsibilities take over, such as aging parents, children or home improvements.

But Darling said any break from work was beneficial, whether that was taking a few days off or staying close to home to compensate for the expense of a more elaborate vacation.

‘‘Now, people are so worried about the price of gas, food and energy that they’re worrying in a different way. ... The view is, if you want to be successful, you have to work hard,” she said. ‘‘But we’re saying they should work hard in a smart way. ... It’s very dysfunctional for people to work too long hours.”

Evan Glass, a Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board member who works as a news producer at CNN, said a recent two-week vacation to Hawaii of ‘‘desperately needed and enjoyed time off” followed a number of months of presidential campaign coverage where he donated his nights and weekends to his job. CNN allows its employees a pool of days to work from, rather than sick days or holidays off.

‘‘Any day we don’t want to work, it comes out of the pool,” Glass said. ‘‘I know many colleagues who ... did not anticipate the primary season to go on as long as it did. People had to change vacation days because they were working.”

Takoma Park Councilwoman Colleen Clay (Ward 2), who works as the director of the office of emergency management for the Corporation for National and Community Service, said taking time off was particularly difficult for families in a county ‘‘where it seems like every other day the school system calls for a half day.” Most of her time off had been dedicated to days when her two children, 6 and 10, were off from school.

Goldman said it was difficult even when away not to check e-mail at least once a day and make sure everything is running smoothly in his absence. But eventually, even his bosses tell him to relax.

‘‘Every couple of years, the organization I work for says, ‘If you don’t use a certain amount, you’re going to forfeit it by this particular date,’” he said. ‘‘At that point, I’m forced to take off. ... Who wants to lose their leave time?”