Your handy guide to all the holidays and extended weekends in 2016!

If you’re employed and spend seven to eight hours in front of the screen working furiously, your two favourite words have to undoubtedly be ‘extended weekends’, isn’t it?

Well lucky for you, the year of 2016 has finally heard all your prayers and thanks to the calendar featuring atleast 14 long weekends (No kidding!), you can finally ensure that your wanderlust finally pays off!

To help you plan your holidays better and not have you run to find a calendar, we at Business Insider drew up a list of all the extended weekends that can act as your handy guide while you’re busy shortlisting destinations and making your itinerary!

1. The New Year’s Day Weekend (1st- 3rd January)
There’s nothing like starting the new year with holidays, and thanks to 2016 you can do just that from Friday to Sunday.

2. The Republic Day Weekend (23rd to 26th January)
All you have to do is take the Monday off, as Republic Day falls on Tuesday and behold! You have your four day holidays wherein you can either laze around in bed or go explore!

3. The Shivratri Weekend (5th to 7th March)
Always wanted to attend the International Yoga Festival, but never could because of work? Well, now you can with this three day weekend! Lose yourself in asanas and relax to the hilt!

4. Holi/Easter Weekend (24th to 27th March)
Who doesn’t love a three day week? Well everyone! Thanks to Holi and Easter you’ll have your Thursdays and Fridays off. GET SET GO!

5. Gudi Padwa Weekend (8th to 10th April)
Here’s another extended weekend that’ll increase the difficultly of you believing that you might not get a holiday on a Friday every week. But then again…

6. Ram Navami weekend (14th-17th April)
Work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and be rewarded with a weekend that’ll start from Thursday and end on Sunday and will seriously dampen any dreams of you being productive. Uh oh!

7. Independence Day Weekend (13th-15th August)
Oh man, 2016 will be the year we celebrate Independence Day in the true sense of the word independence- ie with holidays. Also, thanks to it falling on a Monday, we can bid goodbye to those Monday blues, as well!

8. Janmasthami Weekend (25th-28th August)
We’ll admit there’s a catch. You’ll have to take the Thursday off, but that is a small price to pay for getting the next three days off and a four day weekend, isn’t it? Get your approvals sorted, we say!

9. Ganesh Chaturthi Weekend (3rd-5th September)
Even Ganpati Bappa thinks you deserve the Saturday-Monday off. Can’t argue with that, can we?

10. Bakri Eid Weekend (10th-12th September)
We could get used to having Saturday, Sunday and Mondays off. Ah, the happiness!

11. Dussehra/Durga Puja Weekend (8th-12th October)
There’s no better way to celebrate Durga Puja and Dussehra than with a healthy dose of food and holidays!

12. Diwali Weekend (28th October-30th October)
Another Friday off? Thank you Universe.

13. Guru Nanak Jayanti Weekend (12th-14th November)
Monday is a holiday. Repeat after me. No working on a Monday. YES!

14. Id-e-Milad Weekend (10th-13th December)
You could end this glorious year with a holiday from Saturday to Tuesday, only if you manage to take a leave on the Monday. Totally worth it!

Happy travelling!

Image credit: Indiatimes