No matter how long we dedicate to a place, we will always leave with the feeling of having fallen short. I think that feeling is even good; I like to leave “things to do or to see” in a place, because it is the way to force oneself to return. That said, the time we spend in each place on a trip is usually another headache when planning a route or getaway. I think this must be something very personal, since everyone has their own pace of travel. I am an expert in condensing trips in a few days, I will tell you that my limit to visit a big city is 3 days. I think that in 3 days, if you organize yourself well and give yourself a beating of kicking and getting up early, you can get a general impression of the site in question. Less than that would be to see a couple of things, nothing more, and more than 3 days would be to be able to start living the city or the destination well. Obviously if you are going to move from that place, you must also have the travel time and if you are going to dedicate hours to large museums, too.

Plan the Trip

I envy people who travel without a return ticket, without a return date, who can spend all the time in the world visiting a place, stay longer if they like it a lot or leave when they are satisfied. Unfortunately this is not my case, and I know that 99% of travelers are not, so we must influence something truly important when organizing a trip or getaway: planning. If you want to make good use of the time of your trip, you have to plan it, we cannot get too carried away and, although this limits us a bit and reduces the charm of the trip, I think it is very necessary to apply it (always with some flexibility obviously) when traveling with return date. Check this for more details.

Time in Transportation

We must take into account the flight time: if I have a few days of travel, I never choose a destination that takes me more than 3 hours of flight (I have tried to catch them as early as possible); For a week I calculate a maximum 5 hours (which is already a day lost between round trips) and for destinations with more than 5 hours of flight, I personally need at least 10 days (to get off a 12-hour flight and get on another two days later I take it very badly, although there are people who can bear it). As well as flights, any transport (boat, train, bus) that we take, we must take it into account to see if it is worth making that trip or, on the contrary, it will become enormously stressful as much transport.

It is also important to take into account the area or areas through which I am going to move and be able to find nearby accommodation to avoid wasting a lot of time on long transports. If it is unavoidable, we will have to calculate well those days of travel and again see if it compensates. There are many other things that can be done to save travel time: take night flights (for me, I don’t sleep on the plane, this is useless), eat on the way, sleep less (not everyone is compensated by this option), not stopping 5 hours in a place to watch life go by (although sometimes that feeling can be wonderful and highly recommended), etc…

Flexible Travel Plan

Throughout my life I have made trips of all kinds: long, short, far, near, planned, unplanned, and my experience tells me that time is ALWAYS used much more when organizing a flexible plan (that we can change at the moment). The fact is that, be that as it may, you enjoy your travel time and that the feeling that “you missed days” is as less pronounced as possible. There are those, like me, who enjoy kicking and not giving respite while traveling (I can only do it when I travel alone, since I recognize that my pace is worthy of Usain Bolt himself), and those who need a quieter trip, with its breaks, its moments of rest and relaxation… Choose your trip, plan and enjoy it; in the end, nothing goes as planned, but the difference between having a plan and not following it is enormous, believe me. Or do not believe me, try it and compare.