lauravsol

i've been mulling this question over in my head the past couple of years. in your lifetime travels, would you rather:

a) get to know a specific city/country really well - passing up chances to go to other cities and or countries so that you can get to know and see everything there is to see about one city/country?

or

b) see as many countries/cities/continents you can, even if it means you can't see everything there is to see in each place?

i travel as much as i possibly can and there is a sense of comfort of returning to a city or country that i've already been to. but i also crave seeing places i've never been to...and sometimes think that it's just better to save my $$ to go to a different place each year or each time i have the time to travel. of course, we all want the best of both worlds, but i'm not sure all of us have the resources to do both. let me know what you think!

elaine

HI
I don't have a hard and fast rule, and I don't think it comes down to a dichotomy.

Each trip for me is different, there are variables such as time, money, season, going solo or with companion, and just my own mood.
I always enjoy going back to a place I love, and I always enjoy trying new places as I will in March when I go to Vienna and Prague.
Sometimes an ideal trip for me is spending half in a place I love, and the other half in one or two new spots.
But as I said, it all depends.

bob_brown

I have mulled that question too. I got my answer last summer when we took a bus tour of Ireland. We went to a different hotel every night except for a two night stand in Tralee. Now that I am back, I cannot remember at all one of the places where we stayed. I don't remember the hotel and I don't remember the name of the town without looking at the itinerary. Moreover, I cannot tell you the names or the features of many of the towns we stopped in. So if I recall nothing about it, I think that certainly tells you that it was not worth the expense and time of getting there.

To throw in one more aspect of what has become a forgettable 7 days, I cannot remember now which one was the Ring of Kerry and which one was the Dingle Peninsula. Both were nice, but I am fuzzy on trying to recall the details.

On the contrary, I have no such trouble recalling driving over the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrassse, taking the train to he Jungfraujoch, riding up to the
Schilthorn. The standout of them all in Switzerland is the first hike to the top of the Faulhorn for those stupendous views of Interlaken and the Berner Oberland from a high vantage point. I think the difference is that I planned those trips myself and we went at differently. Rather than getting on a bus and putting my mind in neutral, I either drove a car or rode a train and I had to be alert for the turns and stops.

I knew where we spent the night because I had to find it myself rather than having a driver drop me at the door.

Only from that bus tour last summer have I had such a frequency of forgotten places. The freelanced part of my trip last summer is much more vivid in mind. My trips from previous years were free lanced, except for a couple of escorted bus day trips, and all of them have both highlights and lowlights I remember. They are all much more memorable.

Conclusion, if you go fast and lightly you will not remember much of it. It will all be a big blur. And, if you go with an escorted tour, you will NOT make the rich memories that you build when you do it yourself.

Giovanna

Our plans for travel revolve around both visiting new countries and return to favorite places, and depend on length of time we have, finances and month we will be traveling.

I understand perfectly your desire to "see it all" but have come to realize we can only do what we can do, and may never get to some places we would like to visit. Just come to terms with it and enjoy to the fullest those places you can travel to.

I agree with Bob that trying to do too much on a single trip, even traveling on your own, can become a blur and a hardship, packing and unpacking as you go from one place to another. We prefer to savor just a few places, rather than trying to cram in as much as possible and end up with the dim views Bob describes.

nanb

whether it is a week or for three weeks I prefer to limit myself to no more than 2 or 3 locations.
I enjoy the feeling of getting familiar with the streets and sites of a place.

m_kingdom

Whilst it is very worthwhile and fulfilling to really get to know a place, after I have spent a month (over the years rather than four consecutive weeks) in any place I'm bored of it.

I prefer to spend around five to six nights to acquaint myself with a city then move on. In Europe where every place is different with its own unique character, this is very feasible. However, besides the key US cities, there's a lot of nothing in between so five or six nights there is a waste.

In this case quantity achieves a feeling of satisfaction which is quality in itself.

Patrick

My last five or six trips to Europe have all started with a week to two weeks in London. I'll never get tired of it and it totally gets me ready for all the rest of Europe. Then most of my trip will either be exploring new places or revisiting some old favorites -- usually places we stayed just a day or two before and now want to do more in depth. And for all but two of the last seven or eight trips, we've ended with one to two weeks in Paris. Guess we're in a rut, but I just can't seem to go to Europe without London as a starter and Paris as the dessert. Fortunately, with retirement our trips are long -- a miniumum of two months and as much as five months. So we have opportunity for doing both of the things you mention.

m_kingdom

Try living in London, you'll soon get fed up with it!

Bitter

We've debated this topic before. Moving around too much has its difficulties and downsides, but the law of diminishing returns also applies to travel. If I had to choose between one extreme or the other, though, I'd probably take the "quantity" because I would never be bored.

Degas

I think you can do both, eventually.

I usually go to at least one new place and one old place each trip.

I also have a varied travel plan with a mixture of large and small cities, some villages and time in the countryside be it mountains, lakes or coastal areas.

As some have said before, rushing about on whirlwind trips leaves me with no postive, lasting memories.

Clifton

It seems like your question is being interpreted in two ways - the amount of places visited during a single trip vs the destinations you may choose over a lifetime. While I too wouldn't enjoy the idea of a half day in Venice before pushing on towards Florence, that's not how I understood your question.

When it comes down to deciding where to go in the first place, that's where I turn into mush. If I look at a world map, the number of places I'm fascinated by but will never make it to astounds me. We want to go to Italy. When we're there, we'll pick a couple of places and soak them in. My wife actually wants to come back from vacation feeling rested (imagine that!). So, that's fine. We'll explore some of Tuscany and Venice. They say you'll return, so save the rest for another time. But I already plan to go back to Ireland again (and again). And then there's that trip to see the Himalayas. And the Great Wall. And the pyramids. Easter Island. A Tanzanian safari. India. And of course, we keep going back to Australia already and I haven't seen everything there yet. Of course, we really should see more of the US. I've seen a lot, but my wife is from Australia and I haven't taken her to show her any of the places I love here.

Let me know if you arrive at a solution!

kaudrey

I would say I want to get to know a city pretty well, but not necessarily a country, because I want to travel all over and see everthing! And, in practice, I do a mix.

For example - last year I spend 10 days in London and 4 touring Bath, Salisbury etc. I got to know London well, and saw a little countryside.

Next month I am going to Spain and touring Mardrid, Barcelona, and Andalucia over a two-week period.

My ultimate goal, besides traveling and experiencing the world, is to be able to join the Traveler's Century Club, which you can join if you travel to 100 different countries.

However, I usually won't do a "If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium"-style trip to get there.

Having said that, since I have been to Paris, I might visit lots of other countries before visiting, say, the south of France, even though I know I have only experienced a small part of the country.

Karen

lauravsol

i guess the question has been interpreted in two different ways. and both interpretations have given me some insight! thanks!

i posed the question because i am leaving for london in two days. i'm only going to be there for 5 days. i am taking advantage of a wonderful student airfare deal which makes it worth it to spend such a small amount of time for such a great distance. i spent 3 1/2 days in london last march and then traveled to paris for 4 days. of course, i did not get to see everything i wanted to in either city and promised myself at the end of the trip that i would most definitely be returning to both cities soon so that i could experience more.

the only problem is - there are so many other places i want to see as well. but i made the decision over the summer to travel again to london so that i could experience some different things...i.e. less touristy places. i find myself excited about returning to the same familiar hotel and seeing those places i did not get to see last time. but there is also that little voice that sometimes tells me i could have saved my money and made some solid plans to go on a big trip elsewhere over the summer.

b/c i work full time AND i'm a full time student, it is difficult to coordinate the greatest time to travel and this london trip fit in right before school starts next week. so on one hand i'm glad i'm keeping the promise i made to myself when i ended my trip last year, but also, as another poster pointed out, i could open a world map and tell you 500 other places i'd love to go as well. i always feel like when i'm traveling, i fall in love with the place i am visiting and can never imagine not doing everything in my power to return as soon as i can. but as the days and months go by upon returning, the memory fades a little more, and other places seem to look just as alluring. so then you're thinking "london was great.....but madagascar looks really interesting too. so does new zealand! and italy. and spain. and so on and so on."

i will let you know if, and how, my feelings have changed on this when i return from london next week!

mendota98

Everyone is different .What I like is to return to a place I've been for a few days and then continue on to another place that's new.

When you stay in one place for a few days to a week you get a chance to visit the same restaurants/shops and the people become more friendly with the people.You become a little part of the community.

On the other hand there is magic the first time you see that attraction you've read about all your life.

==Mike

Wayne

My only question about all of this is that none of us really ever gets to know intimately a country or a city or even a village. Even the people who live there don't know it intimately. To pretend that we can is to deceive ourselves.

For my travel, I like to do the things I enjoy most, which might not at all be the goal of others. And for me, what I enjoy most is the experience of new places. But regardless of how many new places I "discover," I am always drawn back to some old familiar haunts such as Venice, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Hallstatt, Lucerne, and lots of little villages everywhere. So I inevitably will plan a European trip to allow a stop in one or two of those old familiar spots. Even with all the familiarity I have gained during many visits to some of these places, I know I have barely scratched the surface. When I approach a native and ask a question about a certain location or landmark or city, frequently the native seems not to know anything about it. It just reinforces my notion that to stay a long time in one place in order to get to know it well is usually a futile effort. We certainly know a place more intimately when we stay a long time than when we stay only a night or two, but we still really know little.

So my conclusion is that if you decide what is important to you to see or do, and do those things, then you "know" the place as well as you need to.

Sue_xx_yy

There is a magnitude component to your question that is hard to evaluate. No matter how enthusiastic one might be as a nomad, fewer than 3 nights (2 full days) in a major city is apt to be inefficient for logistical reasons - it takes time to leap the traffic hurdles and get into the city core, set oneself up with metro tickets, confirm that the museum one wishes to see has not had last-minute opening hour changes, etc.

On the other hand my personal experience has been that the amount of information I retain per unit of time invested isn't a constant; after a point, on any given trip, each successive day in a place has less impact than the day before. It echoes my experiences as a student: two or three relatively quick readings of the material worked better than one long reading. So I prefer to assume I'll be able to make at least two or three short visits to a particularly interesting place in the course of a lifetime, as opposed to one long leisurely stay. But by 'relatively quick reading' or 'short visit' I don't mean cramming, as if for an exam, but something done when one is rested and relaxed.

Time management, whether traveling or studying, is quite an art for each of us to master, I think. Have fun.