My goal in writing Trip Reports is to break away from the norm by dismissing those ignoramuses who say “Bro, you have to stay in a country for at least a month to really appreciate the culture,” and the misguided who love to tell me that my quick trips are nothing more than a contrived effort to inflate my country count list at the expense of experiencing nothing.
To both sects, I would like to share ThePointsOfLife Travel Philosophy:
Stay in a city no longer than 2 days.*
Why? The day you arrive, you are too excited to rest because there is so much to explore. That momentum carries onto the evening when you proclaim, “I have to go out, it’s my first night here.” The next day, you can’t sleep in because you only have one day left to see everything. This makes you power through your hangover by heading to another UNESCO World Heritage site.
Understandably exhausted from burning the candle on both ends, you momentarily convince yourself that you deserve a break. Then something inside you screams, “It’s your last night here, you have to go out!” This forces you to tap into your energy reserves and abandon the sanctity of sleep.
The next day you encounter a new city, a new mission, a new gauntlet to run.
This sentiment is the foundation of my Trip Reports‘ mantra Guns and Butter which graphically illustrates the things you must see, the things you should see, and the things you could skip. For each city, I will clearly sketch out which is which.
*ThePointsOfLife encourages you to vacation responsibly. The 2 Day Philosophy is more of an ideology than a hard and fast rule. In reality, 3-4 days per city is ideal when factoring in the desire to relax, but not a day longer.
I totally agree. It’s not how much time you spend where you are, but how you choose you spend it. Here’s to more adventures! 🙂
Precisely