Long-Term Travel VS City Trip

Is long-term travel just an extended vacation? Or does the length of stay influence the very experience of traveling?

As you might guess, I lean towards the second approach. But why and how can duration change a traveler's experience? Why does leaving for an extended period not equate to multiple short trips combined?

The length of stay is certainly not the only factor that influences the travel experience. What makes a journey unique is multifaceted:

The traveler's context: professional, familial, romantic...

The context and setting of the trip: business or leisure travel, fixed or itinerant, long or short...

The context of the destination country: political/economic crisis, rainy/dry season, high tourist season, event (carnival, sporting event...), strike...

The traveler's style and the nature of the trip: planning the trip, staying in luxury hotels or with locals, backpacking or taking an organized tour, alone, with a partner or in a group...

And then simply chance: the weather, encounters, luck...

Duration is thus just one element lost in the mass of factors influencing the lived experience and journey of the traveler. Yet, this element has a particular and significant influence.

Every travel style is unique, but beyond this certainty, what are the key characteristics of long and short trips?

By exploring the contrasts and specifics of these modes of travel based on duration, here is a brief comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of long and short trips.

Advantages

Time to soak in the atmosphere, culture, way of life...

Time to get lost and discover on your own

Visiting less touristy places

More economical in terms of expenses per day

More eco-friendly: the flight is offset by slower and local travel on-site

Different dynamic, conducive to reflections on the world, cultures, oneself (personal development)...

Disadvantages

Requires a lot of time!

Requires more overall organization: what about work and obligations?

Costs more than a city trip

Requires > for those who have never experienced long-term travel before (stepping out of one's comfort zone, clichés about distant countries and their >)

Advantages

More economical overall: less expensive to go for a weekend or a week than for a month or a year.

Allows for more frequent getaways: small escapes in daily life

Allows for discovering nearby regions: no need to go to the other side of the world to be a tourist!

Allows for themed/targeted trips: sports, cultural, culinary...

Disadvantages

Requires more preparation: maximizing days on-site, not >...

More expensive in terms of expenses per day (transport is often a major expense of the trip, and the airfare proportionately becomes more expensive)

Focuses on the essentials, >: hard to escape the big tourist clichés

Less time to explore on one's own

The ideal trip doesn't exist, I will revisit this in a future article. Nevertheless, I asked myself a question: how long does it take to disconnect, to truly absorb a place and culture, to simply feel like one is traveling?

... It depends! A nice answer, isn't it?

This ideal duration, of course, depends on the traveler, their travel style... but it also and especially depends on their conception of travel and their prior travel experiences.

For those who leave each year for a few days or a week, going for a month is seen as very long, a luxury, a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Whereas for those who often leave for longer periods, a month feels like a weekend city trip!

By speaking with nomadic travelers who have been around the world for 5 years, we were able to exchange thoughts on the ideal duration of trips:

A year is good: it's a wonderful vacation, and you start to really enjoy it, disconnect from your old life.

A good duration for long-term travel would be closer to 3 years, as according to them there is a psychological threshold, a change in conceptions of the world, oneself, and one's travels... that occurs then.

Einstein and the relativity of time...

The ability to disconnect depends equally on this notion of subjectivity and the travel context. I still think that leaving for a week does not allow for the same experience of disconnection and immersion as long-term travel does.

When we traveled to Latin America for our first big trip, after a few weeks we felt >, after a month, we felt like we had been away for an eternity, and that our life on the old continent was from another life.

But I was surprised, when we returned to Peru 3 years later, to find my bearings immediately, to feel immersed right away. After three days, I felt like I had been on the road for 3 months... Or even that I had never left America, or that I had just put the trip on pause during those three years, like you pause a movie for a distraction and then pick it up again a few moments later where you left off.

On the other hand, we traveled this year for the same duration, but to Cambodia, for our first experience in Asia: the feeling was completely different. The duration felt insignificant, insufficient to find my bearings, to approach the Asian culture and local customs.

Why such a big difference in experience? Beyond the difference in continent (which also plays a part in this experience), I would say it is primarily due to prior experience. I had already been to Peru, I feel a bit at home there: I have reference points (linguistic, cultural, geographical...), which I completely lack in Asia. This first Asian experience thus leaves me with a feeling of too little. It seems that to discover a new continent, nothing beats the experience of long-term travel lasting several months.

No matter what mode of travel is chosen, each has its advantages and disadvantages. Being pro-long-term travel or pro-city trip makes no sense to me: both allow for very different experiences and adapt to each person's possibility of life and escape.

And you, have you ever had the chance to experience both travel styles? What has your experience been like?