*CNY day 2, Hari Raya Puasa and National Day are all gazetted holidays. The actual public holiday falls on Sunday, but we get the Monday off.

Also, note that two out of the 11 PHs fall on Saturdays. Don’t worry though, your employer should give you a day off-in-lieu for those.

So what does all this mean for your travel plans? Well, apart from the seven long weekends, there are also four key periods that are best for taking “long” leave (at least a week)…

… So that’s four decently long breaks with 16 days of annual leave. Not too bad at all.

If you don’t have enough annual leave, you can still enjoy three long breaks with 11 or 12 days. Even if you have the bare minimum of 7 days, it’s possible to finagle two long breaks. Hooray!

Okay, so this is not really counted as part of the 2020 holiday allotment, but since New Year’s Day falls on 1 Jan 2020, we’ll cover it. As everybody knows, the Christmas and New Year’s Day public holidays fall exactly on the same day, one week apart. In 2019, Christmas falls on a Wednesday, and so does New Year’s 2020:

There are no long weekends here, so to make both public holidays vacation-worthy, take four days’ leave on:

• Thu 26 Dec
• Fri 27 Dec
• Mon 30 Dec
• Tue 31 Dec

This gives you eight uninterrupted days of leave, which is enough for a nice overseas trip.

Bear in mind that travelling tends to be pretty expensive during this period, since it’s peak holiday season in Singapore. However, we’ve noticed that air fares on 31 Dec / 1 Jan are sometimes unusually low, perhaps because no one wants to count down in mid-air. (How do you even know what the time is?)

CNY is the only holiday in Singapore that gets not one but two public holidays. In 2020, Chinese New Year day one falls on Saturday 25 Jan, which makes that the public holiday. Since CNY day two falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is a gazetted make-up public holiday, resulting in a three-day long weekend.

Don’t panic if you work in a typical Monday to Friday job. Actually, it’s an MOM requirement for employers to “return” you the public holiday if Saturday is a non-working day for you.

MOM requires employers to either give you extra day’s pay (hah, fat chance of that) or a day off-in-lieu, sometimes abbreviated as “OIL”, which you can take after the holiday.

If you want to take a long holiday this Chinese New Year, you can totally use your OIL the following day and take the next four days off. That’s nine days of no work for the low, low price of four annual leave days! Worth it right? So actually, having a public holiday on a Saturday is a good thing.

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The Christian holiday Good Friday always falls on the Friday before Easter Sunday, which varies from year to year but is usually in April. (There is no PH for Easter, only for Good Friday.)

This time round, Good Friday public holiday falls on Friday, 10 Apr 2020, making it the second three day -long weekend of the year. Perhaps enough time for a short Johor Bahru getaway?

After Chinese New Year, the next “public holiday season” falls in May, thanks to Labour Day (1 May) and Vesak Day (7 May) being mere days apart in 2020. Labour Day falls on a Friday, while Vesak Day is on the following Thursday. Although slightly disappointing that we can’t get two long weekends back-to-back, we predict that tons of Singaporeans will be taking the entire Vesak Day week off unless they have religious commitments.

To get a whopping 10 days’ break, you need only take 4 days’ annual leave on:

• Mon 4 May
• Tue 5 May
• Wed 6 May
• Fri 8 May

The best part is that the May break comes before the (local) June school holidays and (international) summer break, so travelling should be quite affordable during this time compared to peak periods like Chinese New Year and Christmas — as well as more peaceful.

However, note that this period falls smack in the middle of Ramadan (23 Apr to 23 May).

We’re already looking forward to May 2020, because there are not two, but three(!!) public holidays in the same month. Yes, right after the killer Labour Day + Vesak Day combo comes another long weekend thanks to Hari Raya Puasa. In 2020, Hari Raya Puasa falls on a Sunday, so we get the following Monday off.

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After Hari Raya Puasa, there’s sadly going to be a dry spell from June all the way to July. The next holiday season is in August, with Hari Raya Haji (31 Jul) and National Day (9 Aug, make-up PH is on 10 Aug) only about a week apart from one another. Yes, that’s two long weekends back-to-back!

If you’re not celebrating either holiday, you could also take the week between the two public holidays off to block out a super-long 11 days of travelling.

• Mon 3 Aug
• Tue 4 Aug
• Wed 5 Aug
• Thu 6 Aug
• Fri 7 Aug

But since it “costs” five annual leave days, it’s the most expensive of the possible long breaks in 2020.

After August 2020, we have to contend with another dry spell from September through October. In November, we will finally get relief in the form of Deepavali, which falls on a Saturday…

Again, as with the Chinese New Year public holiday, don’t worry about “losing out” on your public holiday entitlement. If you don’t work on Saturdays, your employer is supposed to give you a day off-in-lieu.

If you use your OIL day on the following Monday, you can make it a long weekend.

Finally, we come full circle back to Christmas 2020 and New Year 2021. In 2020, both public holidays fall on Fridays. You know what this means — two back-to-back long weekends. If you’re planning a year-end trip, the 2020 Christmas break is actually better than the 2019 one. That’s because four days’ leave will net you 10 whole days of travel:

• Mon 28 Dec
• Tue 29 Dec
• Wed 30 Dec
• Thu 31 Dec

That’s super worth it, considering that doing the same in 2019 will get you only eight days of leave.

Again, the same caveats for travelling during the year-end peak period apply — it’s just an expensive time to travel in general. But if you plan and book early, you might be able to benefit from early bird fares.

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