Home » RTW Travel Deals » The pros and cons of traveling quickly

The pros and cons of traveling quickly

I did a RTW trip including 23 countries in about 6 months, and many of my fellow travelers will tell you that this pace is too fast to properly enjoy the trip at all. There’s definitely something to be said for this opinion, though I don’t regret the speedy pace I continued on, and a recent 5-week/9 countries Europe trip put the debate freshly back into my mind. On this recent trip I purposely went really fast, partly because it was a research trip for work, and I had specific goals, but I still think there is something to be said for this strategy, for some people.

There is always a sacrifice

I’m always seeing people posting a planned itinerary on a message board, most notably BootsnAll’s busy and helpful forums. Usually someone new to traveling will list 8 countries or so that they want to visit in 2 months, and then several people will chime in that this pace is far too ambitious, and they should really only stick to 2 or 3 countries at most in 60 days. Well, if your funds and available time were both unlimited, then this is a perfectly reasonable suggestion. It’s partly based on that you can spend 2 months in 2 countries, and then return 3 more times to spend 2 more months in each of the 6 other countries you’ll skip this time.

Obviously this is not realistic for many of us. Even those of us who make traveling a major time priority for a large chunk of our adult life, can’t afford to go on 2-month trips every year or two. And even if you were that lucky, you are still seeing the world at a very slow pace this way. If you were somehow able to do 10 such trips in 10 years, you’d still only have seen about 10% of the 200-or-so countries on earth. Something has got to give.

Advantages to traveling fast

• You’ll end up seeing way more in a shorter time. This is obvious, but somehow seems to escape some of the slow-traveling crowd.
• You’ll be able to see a much higher percentage of A-list attractions. Would you rather spend an hour in the 8th most famous cathedral in Prague, or the most famous cathedral in Krakow, and Copenhagen, and Hamburg etc?

Disadvantages to traveling fast

• It’s true that you can never get as deep an appreciation for a city in a day as you could in a week or two.
• You spend a higher percentage of your funds traveling if you spend more time going from place to place.
• You’ll likely get dizzy and confused from moving around quickly. This isn’t a joke. Changing cities and hotel/hostel rooms every day or two will soon make you unsure just where you are when you wake up in the middle of the night. And the sights, sounds, and smells come rushing by you so quickly it can be impossible to process them in real time, and this will catch up with you, at least temporarily.
• Making real travel friends is much more challenging when you’ll never see anyone for more than one day.
• You’ll miss much of the subtlety in each destination.
• It becomes nearly impossible to take a “day off” from traveling. This isn’t much of an issue on, say, a 3-week or less trip, but for any longer than that you’ll certainly want to just relax for a day or two here and there. Rushing from city center to airport or train station and back to a city center takes its toll. If your schedule only allows 2 days in each city, then you feel compelled to see things all day every day.

The points above are only some aspects of each side of the argument. It’s really different for every person and for every trip, and you’ll notice that even though I’m generally an advocate for traveling fast if you feel like it, you’ll notice the list of disadvantages is much longer. I find that when I get home I still have crystal clear memories of nearly every hour of my trip, and even though I get worn out at times, it can still be worth it.

Decide your own pace, and if you can stay flexible about it most of the way, that’s even better. On my RTW trip I stopped for a week in Rio and a week on a Greek island, and in each case I rented an apartment and didn’t do much of anything. Being able to take breaks like that is helpful, but even if you can’t, don’t be intimidated into traveling at a pace someone else recommends just because that is their preference.

« Finding luxury for a low price on Saturday nights | Home | Special December fares for RTW tickets »

One Response to “The pros and cons of traveling quickly”

1. jerry avalos Says:
   October 26th, 2009 at 7:19 pm

   i need 2 tickets on 01/15/10 from ewr n.j. to acapulco 7 nites from there to B.A. argentina on 10/22/10 (we are taking a cruise 14 nites antartica to valpaiso Chile)also air fare on 02/14 10, from santiago, chile to B.A. argentina, on 02/28/10from EZE argentina to ewr U.S.A. THANK`S jerry

Leave a Reply