Group items tagged

Recession-scarred families are still not ready to go out and splurge on vacation. In fact, many are still cutting back on their big summer holidays.

Last month, Brandi Greygor did the unthinkable for an entrepreneur just starting out: She took a weeklong vacation. "I needed one because I ran myself into the ground," says Ms. Greygor, a 35-year-old mother of two who also works part-time for a consulting firm from her home in Union, Ky.

At least as a short-term solution.

"Later this year, a marketing manager will sit down for his first day of work at HomeAway, a company that helps people rent their vacation homes online. In the firm's sleek Austin, Texas, headquarters, a glass-wrapped building decorated with travel souvenirs, the marketer will flip on his computer and do his job - a job no one has done before. This, you see, will be a brand-new job, one of the most coveted commodities of economic recovery. "

Solo entrepreneurs, freelancers and other self-employed professionals have always struggled to take vacations, and the recession is making it even harder. Being out of pocket can mean missing one of a diminishing number of business leads, and the rising tide of unemployed professionals has heightened competition for freelance work.