I think it really depends on the culture of the company. Some companies seem to be afflicted by an unspoken pressure to keep up with one's colleagues in terms o

I think it really depends on the culture of the company. Some companies seem to be afflicted by an unspoken pressure to keep up with one's colleagues in terms of putting in extra hours and not missing too many days. In these situations, I think a defined amount of vacation days may actually be a better policy - when you have a set "three weeks" of vacation in a year, it can be more socially acceptable to use the three weeks allotted, especially if they don't rollover. With an "unlimited vacation" policy, employees may feel pressured not to abuse the system and actually take fewer days off, because they're trying to match the average number of days off taken by all employees rather than a set time span of three weeks, or perhaps a little less in order to appear exceptional. However, in a healthy company culture which encourages employees to take time off, it can be great. Particularly because long trips are really a different beast than short ones, and it's hard to do a long trip with 15 vacation days. Solution: take 7 vacation days one year, and 30 the next.