Holiday Optimizer 🏖️

Optimize your vacation days using Dynamic Programming! Maximize your total days off by strategically placing breaks around weekends and public holidays.

Live Demo: Try it here

Install (npm)

npm install @fineanmol/holiday-optimizer

import { optimize, formatReport, getPreset } from "@fineanmol/holiday-optimizer";

const params = getPreset("germany");
const result = optimize(params);
console.log(formatReport(result, params));

Related: @fineanmol/public-holidays — standalone holiday lookups (isHoliday, nextHoliday, etc.) with the same regional data, usable on its own without the optimizer.

What It Does

This tool helps you plan your vacations optimally. Given:

• Your total paid leave days
• Public holidays in your country
• Your preferences (minimum/maximum break length, spacing between breaks)

It finds the best schedule that maximizes your total days off by leveraging weekends and holidays.

Features

• Dynamic programming to find the best possible schedule (not greedy, actually optimal)
• Germany and India holiday presets out of the box, easy to add more
• Control over min/max break length and minimum spacing between breaks
• Detailed output showing every date and how many total days off you get
• Runs fully in the browser — no server needed

How It Works

The optimizer uses three key techniques:

1. Dominance Pruning - For each starting day, keeps only the most efficient break options
2. Binary Search - Efficiently finds next valid break that satisfies spacing constraints
3. Dynamic Programming - Optimizes for maximum total days off within your constraints

Usage

1. Select your country from the dropdown
2. Set your preferences:
   • Year to optimize
   • Start date
   • Total paid leave days
   • Minimum break length (days)
   • Maximum break length (days)
   • Time between breaks (days)
3. Click "Calculate Optimal Schedule"
4. Review your optimized vacation plan!

Example

With 19 paid leave days and default settings:

• Result: ~52 total days off
• Breaks: ~12 breaks throughout the year
• Distribution: Approximately 1 break per month

Adding New Countries

To add holidays for a new country, edit country-presets.js:

newCountry: {
  name: "Country Name",
  year: 2026,
  defaultPTO: 10,
  holidays: [
    { date: "2026-01-01", name: "New Year's Day" },
    // ... more holidays
  ]
}

The country will automatically appear in the dropdown!

Algorithm Details

• Time Complexity: O(n × m × P) where n = candidates, m = max break length, P = PTO days
• Space Complexity: O(n × P) for DP table
• Optimization Goal: Maximize total days off (including weekends and holidays)

Tech Stack

• Pure JavaScript (ES6 modules)
• No dependencies
• Works in all modern browsers
• GitHub Pages compatible

Inspiration

Inspired by Ankit's vacation optimizer - converted from Python to JavaScript for browser deployment.

License

MIT License - feel free to use and modify!

Made with ❤️ to help you maximize your vacation time!