What is your main goal?
1. City Dweller? Park yourself in a single hotel for your entire trip and spend your days in one city submersing yourself in the arts and culture?
2. City Avoider? Rent a flat or a house in a small town with scenic countryside? Avoid cities and spend your time in smaller villages away from overcrowded tourist attractions?
3. Half and half? Spend half of your trip in one city and half of your trip taking short day trips outside the city?
4. One country per trip? Spent your time making sure you see the highlights of the entire country (if possible)
5. City/Country hopper? 1-2 days per destination with lots of driving, train riding, puddle jumping, etc.
I am personally #4 and #5. I didn't intentionally become like that, but the more I looked at the places I was going, the more I tried to maximize the area we covered in the amount of time that we had. It all started with Italy in 2007. The day we arrived, we drove north immediately out of Rome toward Tuscany. As I looked at the map prior to our departure, I had a train of thought that sort of went like this, "It's only about 3.5 hours from Rome to Florence (which is 1 hour from Pisa...hello, leaning tower!). Florence is only 3 hours from Milan. Milan is only 3 hours from Venice. Venice to Sorrento is 8 hours, but let's stop at Assisi in between. Sorrento is only 3 hours from Rome." And....our Italian circle became complete. While 3 hours of driving might seem like a lot, when it means you get the opportunity to visit so many amazing Italian cities, it became absolutely worth it for me. Also, consider the fact that most tourist attractions close around 5-6pm. At that time, you city-dwellers will take to the streets to sip on an adult beverage (or two), find a nice, relaxing dinner, and enjoy the sites and sounds of a foreign city at night. Me, on the other hand, having been up since 6AM in order to get to beat the crowds to a super touristy place (like the Colosseum), I am happy to bid farewell to a city, and embark on a 3 hour voyage. This gets me to my next destination by 9 or 10PM, which is still early enough to get a good night sleep before starting all over again the next day in a new place.
This same thing has happened to me again and again. Kyoto was only a 3 hour train ride from Tokyo. Copenhagen was only 6 hours from Berlin (which included an awesome boat ride). Paris is only a 2.5 hour Chunnel ride to London. My travel motto is, see everywhere once, before you see anywhere twice. If I'm only ever in these areas once, I want to see as much as I possibly can. I can sleep when I get home. Yes, I often need a vacation from my vacation, but it's a small price to pay for such a rewarding experience. I think the only time we ever "over did it" was in the summer of 2013 when we traveled to Denmark, Austria, and Germany all in one trip. In 16 days, we stayed in 12 hotels and drove 3,750 miles. It was amazing, but utterly exhausting. More on that trip in another blog.
What this post is meant to do is encourage you to think about what type of traveler you are. Does my 2 week Italian tour sound appealing to you? Or would you rather hunker down in Rome the whole time and visit Florence on a different trip? Or perhaps you wouldn't mind trying to see Rome and Florence in one trip, but save Milan and Venice for another time? My future blogs won't necessarily encourage you to exhaust yourself by traveling from city to city to city in one trip, though as I go into some of the details of my travels, I hope you will continue to discover your travel style.
The biggest question is this. There's a lot of world out there. Do you want to see a quick snapshot of a lot of it? Or do you want experience more in-depth portions of it at a leisurely pace? Both is an ok answer too! :)
Thanks for reading!
- Foxy the Traveler
Enjoy your blog.
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