Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?
This was one of the major draws for me for moving to Europe in my early 20s (from the US).  After working one year in the US and having one week of vacation, it was bordering on surreal to have 6.<p>That said, most Americans wouldn't like the European pay scales.  While a developer gets 3-6 times the vacation in Germany, they make half as much money.<p>For me it was a great trade; I still had a middle class income and spent my 20s bouncing around the world visiting more than 30 countries on 5 continents, with zero gaps in my employment.<p>Now that I'm an employer, I still see it as a great trade:  employees are a lot cheaper here, and seem to be happier.  But again, while most American software developers would love to have more vacation, I've heard them also repeat ludicrous things about how they can "barely survive on $60k/year".