AC

It's not just higher airfares and escalating hotel fees that will cause some Americans to forgo a summer getaway. The nation's nose-to-the grindstone culture — which only intensified during the Great Recession— has resulted in many Americans leaving vacation days on the table. "Americans are a hard-working lot, and they're ambitious and have a lot of priorities," says Carroll Rheem, senior director of research at PhoCusWright, a travel industry research firm. Its survey of more than 2,000 U.S. travelers found that nearly four in 10 didn't book a vacation within the past year. That number was much higher than in 2008, when just 28% didn't buy a vacation. "Sometimes they forget to take care of their work-life balance." Not taking all the vacation time that's available to workers has become an American trait. A poll conducted last September by Harris Interactive for JetBlue found that 57% of employed respondents said they would have unused vacation time at the end of the year....