I agree with those who say there are two separate issues here - fewer vacation days are being taken, but I don't think it has anything to do with terrorism. The overall pace of work these days is far more frantic than it was even 5 years ago - I think that causes a lot of people to curb their time off. At my company, we don't have any set number of vacation days - I tend to take about 3 weeks total, plus the holidays. But five years ago, I won't at a place that did have set numbers of days, and I took my allotted four weeks (plus holidays) religiously, and almost always tried to put in a two-weeker in the spring or fall.

Also, these days when I'm on vacation, I notice that people still try and reach me via cell phone or email. If I want a real vacation, I get out of the country and make it well known to all of my clients that I'm truly gone. (I've been tempted to fib about this - tell 'em I'm going to a remote Nambian village with no high-speed connectivity, even if I just want to go somewhere mellow, like Minnesota.)

As for drive vs. fly, the only change I've made has to do with how hard the legacy airlines attempt to punish you for being non-elite. I don't mind doing it by myself, but I refuse to take my family onto one of the legacies where none of us hold status. It's not like we need to be pampered - AA Gold and UA Premier don't get you that - but to get basic, humane bare-bones respect from a legacy, you must be at least a low-elite. So where UA and AA aren't available, we try and fly WN or YX. Yes, flying cattle car is a far better experience than a legacy non-elite trip. And even though YX does have elite levels, they don't get up in your face about it every 5 seconds if you just want to take a trip or two a year with them. You still get to select seats online before you buy, and you still get passable airport treatment whether checking luggage or not.

The threat of terrorism or the security rules at the airport haven't affected the trips I take one bit. No, I don't like taking off my shoes or (now) having to ask my hotel for toothpaste, but it isn't going to stop me from going the places I want to go. And it doesn't impact my drive vs. fly decision on shorter trips - from KC, with UA, AA, YX, and WN being my four choices, those decisions are pretty clear-cut as it is. If I had NW status, then MSP would be a tougher call... As it is, I don't mind the drive.