When I was a kid, vacation meant sunshine and three months of freedom from school. Those summers did have the added bonus of taking what I would then have called a “real vacation,” which was going out of town for a whole week of family fun.

When I got my first job, my employer defined my vacation as two weeks with paid leave with the caveat that my time off fit well with everyone else on my team’s schedule. That’s when I learned that vacations didn’t always last a whole week, and more importantly, they didn’t always take place in the summertime.

When I left full-time employment to run my own business, I redefined my vacations as anytime I left my home city and didn’t check my email. My how times had changed.

For most of us, what we consider a vacation has changed a lot over the last decade. With busy, 24×7 work schedules and new realities, such as year-round schools, the traditional, two-week “summer vacation” just isn’t practical for many travelers, particularly families. In the case of my friends and family, weekend or long weekend getaways have become more of the norm.

According to the Travel Industry Association, the average length of a vacation has dropped from about five days in the 1980s to four days in the ’90s to less than 3.5 days now. At the same time, the number of annual vacations is rising, as people take shorter but more frequent trips.

With their two- and three-night minimum stays, I think vacation home rental property managers have the right idea about vacation getaways. For many of us, it really takes two or three nights to feel like we’re doing something different than what we’d be doing at home in our everyday lives.

Don’t get me wrong, longer vacations are wonderful and offer even more chances to relax and build shared memories with family and friends; yet the reality of our ultra-connected worlds makes it necessary for us to choose which is right for us at which point in the year, and which point in our lives.

So this weekend, I’m going on what I currently define as a vacation: Two nights away without my computer, but with my cell phone. I’ll be enjoying the company of family and friends, some of whom I’ve known since kindergarten, relaxing and recharging.

Interestingly, Webster’s definition of vacation is “a respite or a time of respite from something; a scheduled period during which activity (as of a court or school) is suspended; a period of exemption from work granted to an employee; a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation.”

It never mentions how long a vacation is or has to be. I like that. Vacations are what you want them to be. How do you define vacation? Leave a comment and let me know.