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If you only ever expect to get to go to London once in your life, you're going to be very busy trying to see everything in the week you have. I know a number o

by Kalium 8y ago

If you only ever expect to get to go to London once in your life, you're going to be very busy trying to see everything in the week you have. I know a number of people who travel rarely, as they can't often afford major trips. Their trips frequently include a relatively large number of must-do items, because they've spent a lot of time planning the three or five or seven days they can afford halfway around the world. And this is before getting into what the obsessive planners I know do when on vacation!

ghaff 8y ago
That's certainly fair. I'm in London 2 or 3 times a year and usually try to hit something new if I have personal time. But I don't need to hit the British Museum on a given trip. London's probably something of an extreme because there are so many must-dos. But I think it's also fair to agree with the general sentiment that traveling shouldn't be exclusively about a check list. (If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium.) Of course, it you're spending a little time in a place for what might be the only time there are probably one or two things you sorta have to see. But you should mostly avoid (IMO) just checking off sites.
alex__c 8y ago
> If you only ever expect to get to go to London once in your life, you're going to be very busy trying to see everything in the week you have. The trap is, of course, that it's monumentally stupid to cram "seeing London" into the timeframe of one week. The bigger the city, the longer the time it takes to properly take it in. Otherwise your travel experience is a 200 km/h carousel ride: what can you even retain and process, at that speed? What's the difference between seeing the Milan Dome in-person for a brief 20 minutes (because you have a laundry list of stuff to do) -- and seeing it in pictures? Not much, in my opinion. Personally, I'd rather see only 1/5 of the "objectives" available to me, if the ones I DO end up visiting stay in my memory.

by Kalium 8y ago

ghaff 8y ago

That's certainly fair. I'm in London 2 or 3 times a year and usually try to hit something new if I have personal time. But I don't need to hit the British Museum on a given trip. London's probably something of an extreme because there are so many must-dos. But I think it's also fair to agree with the general sentiment that traveling shouldn't be exclusively about a check list. (If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium.) Of course, it you're spending a little time in a place for what might be the only time there are probably one or two things you sorta have to see. But you should mostly avoid (IMO) just checking off sites.

alex__c 8y ago

> If you only ever expect to get to go to London once in your life, you're going to be very busy trying to see everything in the week you have. The trap is, of course, that it's monumentally stupid to cram "seeing London" into the timeframe of one week. The bigger the city, the longer the time it takes to properly take it in. Otherwise your travel experience is a 200 km/h carousel ride: what can you even retain and process, at that speed? What's the difference between seeing the Milan Dome in-person for a brief 20 minutes (because you have a laundry list of stuff to do) -- and seeing it in pictures? Not much, in my opinion. Personally, I'd rather see only 1/5 of the "objectives" available to me, if the ones I DO end up visiting stay in my memory.