veryone has their idea of the proper way to travel. The correct way to travel is exactly the way they’re doing it. Most will gladly share their opinion if they feel you’re doing it wrong.
That’s just travelers.
Some think to be a real traveler you should stay in one place a long time, living cheaply, among the locals, eating street food and avoiding tourist ghettos and comforts that locals may not have.
Others prefer long weekends 5-star cocoons, with spas and comforts, they venture out to see the guidebook sights and then return to the pool deck for some Instagram snaps.
Sometimes you end up doing both, the first out of necessity when you’re young and don’t have the money, and the second when you’re a little older and you want the creature comforts that nice hotels offer.
There’s no right or wrong way to travel. It’s just like your life – individual.
Country Counting
If you’re setting a country goal, however, like to visit all UN approved 196 countries, or the Travelers Century Club 338 countries – things start to get wonky.
Some people ‘count‘ the country as being visited if they just step off the plane onto the airport tarmac, others say as long as you get your passport stamped and leave the airport you can count the country.
I understand the idea of country-counting, I do it, it’s a goal to keep you motivated. Exciting to see your country numbers go up. However, for me at least – counting a country means visiting it. Eating food, drinking in a bar, seeing the sights, snapping photos, shopping maybe even mingling with the people. However, I do like my comforts. I don’t want to be sweating in a fan room in Bangkok, or just relegated to street food. So it’s a mix for me. Nor do I want to go to Jamaica and spend my entire week inside an all-inclusive resort where the only Jamaicans I see are waiters and hotel staff.
But how long do you have to stay in a place before you can ‘count it’ as being visited? Let’s think about it this way, there are 4,416 cities with populations above 150,000. But there are plenty of cities with populations less than that.
Google Ads allows you to target 99,825 cities. If you wanted to visit each of these for just a single day it would take you 280 years. To see them all you would have to spend about 5hr in each city, every 5 hours for your entire life, without sleeping. Um. not possible. My point being that none of us can see the entire world, below cities are towns, then villages, etc. There’s just too much to see and life is unfortunately too short.
So, what’s the perfect length for each stop?
For me –
DAY ONE: is normally about getting into the city via plane or train, then getting to your hotel, checking in, relaxing for a bit – then going to see maybe one or two sights and hit the nightlife scene.
DAY TWO: you can really delve deeper into a city, take a tour, hit your top sights or go off the beaten track a little – then, of course, hit that nightlife again, especially if it’s a weekend.
DAY THREE: you can do a day trip, food walking tour, or revisit some of your fave places, do some shopping for gifts, and generally relax a bit.
The first and last days in a country are always the best.
Three nights have proven to be the sweet spot when doing long multi-city tours. Two nights isn’t enough, as I wear down quickly. Four nights can start to get a little long in smaller towns. Where you just end up repeating the same medieval sights.
I’ve found:
- 3 nights is enough 60% of the time
- 4 nights is right 30% of the time
- 2 nights or less 10% of the time
On travel forums I have often heard ‘you’re crazy‘ for doing long 2-month trips where I visit 13+ countries, that I ‘can’t possibly be getting anything out of a three day trip to Rome‘ – I need at least a week. I disagree, as my goal is just to get as many experiences as I can and have as much fun as possible without wearing myself out.
I’ve spent several weeks in Phnom Penh and Amsterdam, and just a single night in places like Bratislava. In the end, you just have to go with whatever feels right for you.
Of course, this is for long term travel visiting 10+ countries over months. If you’re just going on a single yearly vacation – the sky is the limit. Go stay in a bubble hotel in Jordan for 9 nights or a Paris Airbnb for 7 nights and love it!
There are no travel trophies
In the end, nobody comes to your house with a big trophy for visiting a certain number of countries, and bragging rights get old quickly. It’s just about the experiences you can have and if you like photography – then the images you can capture. However many days it takes to achieve that (within your budget) is right for you.
In a perfect world, where I had unlimited money, and unlimited lifespan and no responsibilities I’d love to stay in each city for one month. Then move to the next place. But at 338 countries that’d take me 28 years of constant travel. No chance for a normal home life for a family.
Instead, I look at it more like a dinner of tapas, you get to try a little bit of everything, and then decide what dishes you like best and want to go back for more. 60 or 70% of the time 3 days is just enough for me and I don’t feel a need to rush back. Certain cities like Paris, Amsterdam, St. Moritz – I could always gladly return to, and hopefully will.
Financial considerations
Another obvious limitation is financial. It might be nice to spend those 30 days in every city. But for that same budget, you can visit 5 – 8 nearby places and have gotten a much broader set of experiences. But everyone is different, and your goals are different.
- Are you trying to visit every country on earth?
- Just every continent?
- Are you a solo traveler or traveling with family and children?
- Do you plan to have a family
- How old are you now and what are your expectations?
- Your career path and how constant travel can interrupt that
- Retirement savings being spent to keep you on the move…
