The official start of summer may be just days away, but for many small-business owners, relaxing at a beach resort, touring a foreign city or camping in a remote forest is still tough to picture – at least not without a cell phone, laptop or other communication device by their side.

But with “staycations” being a low-cost alternative to traveling—just 8% of respondents say they’re planning vacations at home this year—business owners who never break from work may only have themselves to blame.

“They feel they’re too important,” says Rod Means, a district director in San Diego for SCORE, a nonprofit small-business mentoring and training organization. “They’re afraid to leave the business with their employees. Nobody can make a decision but them.”

Yet that kind of attitude can actually hurt a business’s long-term success, he warns. “Teams win and individuals lose,” says Mr. Means.

Besides, he adds, the basic principle behind entrepreneurship and working in general is to be able to afford a healthy and happy existence off the clock.

“Work is but to feed the fun of life,” says Mr. Means.

And that’s why some business owners have come up with strategies for taking vacations—real ones that involve no contact with their workplaces other than in cases of grave emergencies. Here’s how they do it, and their best advice for other entrepreneurs.

Source: WSJ.com