Holiday Guides
Cultural context for the world's biggest holidays — dates over the next five years, history and traditions, what's open and closed on the day, travel timing, and the most efficient ways to bridge each into a longer break.
South Korea
- South Korea
Chuseok
Korean Thanksgiving · 추석 · Hangawi
Korea's autumn harvest festival — three days of family gatherings, ancestral rites, and the year's biggest domestic travel surge.
Read the guide →
- South Korea
Seollal
Korean Lunar New Year · 설날 · Korean New Year
Korea's Lunar New Year — three days of ancestor rites, sebae bows, tteokguk soup, and the country's second great travel migration.
Read the guide →
Japan
United States
- United States
Thanksgiving
Turkey Day
America's harvest holiday — a Thursday-Friday two-day federal close that's functionally a four-day weekend and the country's heaviest travel surge of the year.
Read the guide →
- United States
Christmas
Christmas Day
The single most important Western holiday — a federal close in the US, two days off in most of the Commonwealth, and the year's deepest commercial peak.
Read the guide →
- United States
Memorial Day
The unofficial start of the US summer — last Monday in May, dedicated to fallen service members and producing one of the country's most reliable three-day weekends.
Read the guide →
- United States
Independence Day
Fourth of July · July 4th
America's national day — fixed-date July 4 federal holiday, fireworks coast to coast, and the country's peak mid-summer travel weekend.
Read the guide →
United Kingdom
- United Kingdom
Easter & Good Friday
Easter Weekend · Holy Weekend · Paschal Triduum
The four-day Christian Easter cluster — Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays in the UK and most of the Commonwealth, producing a guaranteed long weekend.
Read the guide →
- United Kingdom
UK Bank Holidays
UK Public Holidays · British Bank Holidays
A guide to the UK's eight bank holidays — what they are, when they fall, and how to bridge them into longer breaks across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
Read the guide →
- United Kingdom
Boxing Day
St. Stephen's Day
The day after Christmas — a UK and Commonwealth bank holiday for the post-Christmas decompression, mass retail sales, and the Boxing Day Test cricket.
Read the guide →
How these guides work
- Dates are derived live from Nager.Date for registry-mapped holidays, and curated for clusters (Golden Week) and meta-pages (UK Bank Holidays).
- Cultural context is editorially written and cross-referenced against primary sources (government tourism boards, .gov calendars, and standard reference works).
- PTO bridges link to the year-specific /bridge guides that compute the optimal day-by-day configurations.
Already know your country and year?
Leavewise maps every efficient PTO window for any country, factoring in every public holiday.
Optimize your PTO