I just sent off an email to a friend. He was asking for my thoughts on Lisbon, Portugal as he’s considering visiting the city on his upcoming trip to Europe. Here’s a quote from his email:
For now I plan on doing Ireland to Portugal to Spain to France to Belgium to Switzerland to Germany to Scotland and than [sic] back to Ireland. 10 cities. Dublin Cork Lisbon Madrid Barcelona Paris Berlin Bruges (Brussels maybe) Zurich Edinburgh than back to Dublin (not necessarily in that order)
My first thought was: Lisbon… hell yes! (It’s my favorite city in Europe.)
My second thought was: That sounds EXHAUSTING!
Granted, he’s taking a month off, which is a long time for us Americans. We get so little vacation time, so I recognize his desire to maximize every opportunity and travel as far and as wide as you can. When you love to travel you want to go everywhere and it’s hard to cut out potential stops. I’ve done my share of packed itineraries, including one last year that left me dead tired and eager to come home. And that was AFTER we made the conscious decision to reduce the number of destinations and scheduled ourselves a full four weeks!
When seasoned travelers talk about packing for a trip, the common thread is that the more you travel, the lighter you tend to pack. The further you go, the more you see a heavy suitcase as a burden and something that detracts from your experience. I think the same principle is at work with speed of travel. The more you travel, the more time you want to spend in one place, learning and experiencing it as much as possible before moving on. This “slow travel” philosophy really resonates with me. I’m sick of coming home exhausted with endless questions left unanswered.
Some travelers take this to the extreme. I’ve seen online discussions akin to, “You don’t know anything about a country if you haven’t been there for at least 3 months.” OBVIOUSLY, the more time you spend in a place, the more you’ll experience and I respect their desire to truly immerse themselves in another culture, but this isn’t a helpful perspective for your average traveler. Even if we had the time off, I and many others are not interested in living that kind of nomadic lifestyle.
To foster slower travel on our own trips, Kevin and I have set a personal goal that we think is manageable (with room for improvement): No fewer than four nights in any one city before we move on. That will keep us from hopping from place to place for one night here, two nights there, and spending half of our trips on buses and in airports.
So what did I tell my friend? I recommended he cut back the itinerary, perhaps focusing on 2-3 adjacent countries (e.g. Portugal/Spain/France or France/Belgium/Germany). But I closed it by saying this was personal preference from my own experience. Everyone travels differently, and all manner of travel is valid.
Maybe he’ll cut back. Or maybe he’ll cover 10 cities and 8 countries. Either way, I’m reminded of my ongoing struggle against trying to do it all!
What do you think? Do you like the idea of “slow travel”?
I am absolutely guilty of trying to pack too much in! Then again, I usually travel with time limits, like your friend. I feel like there’s a lot more pressure to SEE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE when your trip has a finite end date and return to reality.
For the travel I have planned later this year, I’m going to do my very best to take things slower. No promises, though… 😉
Yup, I think that’s a great point. Anytime you have a set/short time limit you’ll feel that pressure, though some people (like me) probably tend to have the personality that takes that to the extreme, always pushing to do more! Did I read something about you doing some long-term travel yourself, very soon? If so congrats, and I hope you will take some time out to relax!
When I first went backpacking through Europe in 2005 for 7 weeks, my friend and I kept to a schedule that makes me wince now. The longest we spent anywhere was 5 days, in Paris & in London, otherwise it was no more than 2 or 3 days in any city… We hit A LOT of places and saw A LOT of things, and I don’t regret that trip for a moment. But when my husband and I started on our year-long trip through Asia & Europe, we swiftly realized that was a pace we just could not keep. We like to spend at least a month in the countries we visit, though we will move around in them, but generally we spend 4 or 5 days in a place before moving on. It’s important to strike that balance between pacing yourself and also going so slow you lose your travel mojo! I wish we had the ability to stay even longer in certain countries, to really dig below the surface, but alas, the confines of our current trip just won’t allow it!
Yup, the funny thing is when I’ve done trips like that and I think back to try to decide what I wish I would have cut, I usually can’t come up with anything! With the exception of Sevilla when we were on a mad dash through Spain. I wasn’t a huge fan of the city and feel like I could have cut it out, BUT I also wonder whether that might be because we were only there for 2 nights. Perhaps those places that don’t resonate with you at first are just places you need to stay longer in. Hard to say… but I’m so glad you’re finding some balance on your current trip! 🙂
Sevilla was also at the end of our trip when we were pretty tired.
Good advice! I agree with you completely. I would rather stay in one place a little longer than hopping from one town to the next, unless of course that particular town is either not very interesting and/or too expensive.
True, I’m so inspired by some of your slow travel experiences! Like I told Steph though, I’m starting to whether some of the places I’ve found not very interesting were just because I wasn’t there long enough? Hmm…
When I had 20 days in Spain, I really stayed in Spain, but even then, we were all over the place, AND there was still so much to see!
I don’t know what I will ever consider enough time, but I do know, I try to make the most of my time in a place, and even if it means spending my entire vacation exploring a place and subsequently missing five other places that I would’ve had to squeeze by, I’m okay with that.
Hehe, good point–I don’t have any clue what “enough time” really means. It’s somewhere between one night and three months! How’s that? 🙂 Glad you are getting better at not taking it all on, too!
Hard for a lot of people to do, particularly those on a little “vacation,” but how about not really planning?
Personally I’m not much of a “sights” person anyways, but in my mind, sticking to a rigid schedule only reduces your potentially awesome and random travel experience possibilities. At the end of the day though, different strokes for different folks…
Diff’rent strokes, indeed! The ironic addendum to our story is that our friend told us he just likes moving and not staying in the same place for too long. So there ya go!
But I definitely agree about not setting a rigid schedule. If you’re all about destinations, you can never enjoy the journey. And sometimes, the unexpected twists along the way are what we remember most on our trips.
Dustin–Indeed! Even for planners like me, I think flexibility is huge!
I definitely packed a few too many things when I went to Europe.. but was lucky that I could drop off about a third of my bag with relatives in Poland. The thing that’s hard for me is keeping the number of “nicer” items down to a minimum — like a nice top for going out or a fancier pair of earrings. You don’t really need them but they help you feel like less of a tourist.
I really like the idea of slow travel — but some cities I’ve traveled to for too long — St. John’s, Newfoundland (I had a week, could have had 3 days max) and Las Vegas (had 5 days, again could have had 3 days max). But for many European cities 1-2 nights is definitely not enough!
Yes, those little things can really make a difference especially in major cities. I constantly feel underdressed–I need to reach a balance between packing light and packing right! And I agree about smaller cities and also Vegas–that’s one big city that you can definitely overdo! 🙂