BootsnAll Travel Community

I was wondering what people thought was better/worse/other about taking several longer trips (i.e., four months in Europe, ten months in South America, six months in Asia, etc) as opposed to going away for 2 years? I understand the benefit of just leaving and being away for 2years--you don't have to constantly reintegrate yourself into "normal" life, find a job, etc. For me, I think I prefer shorter trips, but was wondering if people who have taken RTW or several concentrated trips could tell me their opinions.

Thanks!

I'm all for (if you can do it) several longer trips. I'm just not cut out to be away from my friends and "life" for years at a time. I've tried it, but I think the longest I can go and be truly happy is 4-5 months.

That's just me though. I've been to Europe for 4 months and Africa for 4 more, but I had some time in between. I've now been home for 4 months and plan on spending another 4 in Oz, Nepal, and India in the coming months. The time at home allows me to re-energize, reconnect, and remember why I love being "out there" so much.

You summed it up in the word "preference" The longest I've been away is a month. I head out next week for 3 months. I built in a "hard return" for June to work on a consulting project so that if I was ready to come off the road, I had something to look forward to and if I want to go back out I'll hopefully be able to save a little bit to go back out.
I echo Dan, I don't think I'm cut out to be gone for years at a time, but don't think its any lesss "authentic" or more expensive than a year long (or more) trip. I'm all about nourishing the soul at this point!

So where are you thinking of going next?

I think I'd like to go to Asia next--possibly a big South America trip (if things go a certain way) but I am hoping to go to Russia, Indial, Nepal and Tibet, and maybe Cambodia too. We'll see. But this probably won't happen for another year.

Maybe you could work a flexible option: go until you are done.

I've done many a short trip, have been expat for years (which i really like) and am now on my first considerably lengthily backpacker trip of five months. I was ready to go home about a month ago, but i pretty much boxed myself into an end date due to NGO commitments and the fact that my return ticket is an upgrade, which i would loose if i left early.

I'm definitely not doing a constant travel for months trip again. Maybe I'm just too old now at 35

We've seen other threads about like "should i just go home now?" or such. So, if you really don't know what you can deal with, why not just try to keep your options open? Two days, two weeks, two months, two years??? who knows what is right for you until you try it.

PS: I write this some 30 hours before flying home from a four star hotel in HK...no more guest houses for me for a while!

If you can, and you are like us, perhaps a few several month long trip is better. We and a good number of others we met got burnt out in a 8 months or so. Chilling for awile at that point didn't quite fix that. My uncle and cousing joined us for 3 weeks in India and the contrast between us and them was huge. They were so much more excited about every single thing, kind of like if I was there now, instead of sitting here at home. You might feel different, though.

First let me say that I have done neither. But, I will be quitting my job shortly. Originally this was going to be a RTW trip. But after working on this for about a year, I just was so overwhelmed with all of the details and things that needed to be worked out that I have decided to start with something shorter with the option of extending it. As it stands now, it is looking like about 4 months almost all in Africa.

This just seems more managable for me. If I want to extend, I will have that option.

This is my current debate with myself... should I try and go long-term all over again, or just deal with the shorty trips (3-4 weeks at a time)?

I will say, after close to a year and a half consecutively on the road, you become completely drained. In fact, at a certain point (perhaps close to the year mark), travelling loses it's novelity and actually becomes routine.

What have I learned for going away for so long?

"Anything that because routine... well, becomes ROUTINE."

It's weird to hear that when you're at a desk all day doing the same thing at a desk job, and all you think of is going away, but for me (and 2 other year-long RTWers I know), you get up to a point where you just wish you were at a desk again, where you don't have to wonder where you're going to sleep the next night.

Shorter trips give you a break to recharge your wanderlust; longer trips lead you to being "traveled out."

Although I have never done over a year consecutively, I have done several months at a time several times and I think that a 2-6 month trip can be the best thing because it gives you the freedom and flexibility to see a bunch of things in a particular area and possibly some other countries as well that you normally wouldn't get to see. For example, Lesotho and Swaziland from South Africa...if I didn't have a lot of time I never would have visited these places and if I had a year I think I would've been bored out of my mind. But as I am at a desk job now, I long for my next trip to Chile and Easter Island in March-but for only 2 weeks.

The longest I have been away is 6 months - to South America. I have to say when i went home I felt like I could have stayed for months and months, if I had the cash. I think that was because I travelled really slowly though - I stayed for up to 2 months in one place in an apartment and just went on weekend trips from there while volunteering in the week. I think that made me feel a lot more like I was settled and relaxed - and not so drained.

Another thing is I have gradually come to realise how much you can actually do in a short time - before, if I went on a 2 week holiday I'd usually have one or two destinations and not make all that much out of it - but lately I have begun to really make use of my holidays to cover some ground. As I am also getting a bit older and quite into my career (which incidentally involves me living abroad and travelling quite a bit) I dont want to take 5-6 months off at every opportunity, so for me now I think ideal trip length is about a month, with the odd 2/3 monther thrown in in between contracts.

(For the record though, if somebody offered me an easy way to go do a 2 year RTW right now, I'd say yes within a millisecond!!!)

k

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Another thing is I have gradually come to realise how much you can actually do in a short time

More specifically; I'd come to learn that most of the stuff in a town that is suggested in a Lonely Planet Shoestring Guide as a point of interest (the gist of a place) can all actually be covered in half a day...

I actually would prefer to do a bunch of shorter trips. I've done a long trip (9 months), and shorter trips (1 month), and I really think the optimal trip length is 2-3 months at a time. After that, I start to miss home, my shoes and purses (pathetic, I know), my family and friends. I love my life here and its hard to be away from it for so long even though I love to travel.

However, that being said, in two years, I'm going to take a RTW trip, and I'm planning on it being 6 - 8 months. My reason for this is that I have to beg my employer for anything more than a month off at a time, and I really think its best, career wise, to take another long trip and see a bunch of the things I want to see all at once. I realize that it'll be draining, but I don't want to to quit my job (which I really do love except for the whole month of vacation a year issue) every couple of years to go travelling for a couple of months at a time - I figure its best to take a leave of absence once and then go back to yearly monthly vacations.

God, I miss being a student.

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My reason for this is that I have to beg my employer for anything more than a month off at a time, and I really think its best, career wise, to take another long trip and see a bunch of the things I want to see all at once. I realize that it'll be draining, but I don't want to to quit my job (which I really do love except for the whole month of vacation a year issue) every couple of years to go travelling for a couple of months at a time - I figure its best to take a leave of absence once and then go back to yearly monthly vacations.

Exactly.

It took me about 3-4 months to fully unwind on my first long trip. It took longer than I thought to not feel guilty, or like I was wasting time if I slept in, or if I left a town without "seeing everything". So, for me I prefer a trip of more than 3-4 months, but (as Eeyartee was saying) not two years like my last one.

Oh and hi e! I haven't seen you on the boards for a while!

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Oh and hi e! I haven't seen you on the boards for a while!

Yeah, I've been pretty traveled out after my 16 months, detoxing from anything travel related. I couldn't even read a travel magazine or watch Globe Trekker -- let alone read the BnA boards. It officially hasn't even been a year since I've been back yet, but I'm slowly getting back into the game. I suppose being "pulled out of retirement" for this past weekend's BnA NYC meetup was a much needed kick in the head.

OK, I've thought for a while about weighing in on this topic, but I haven't been able to organize my disparate thoughts. So, I'm just going to make a somewhat disjointed list.

1) I'm a little confused by the distinction in the topic heading. To me, 'RTW' refers to distance, not duration. Has its usage changed? 'RTW' stands for 'Round-The-World = circumnavigating (at least, that's how I use it). Some folks take a year to do this (I did), some take two, and some do it in 6 weeks.

2) To me, the question of which duration of trip is best has two components: practical considerations, and emotional ones. Practical considerations: amount of savings needed, necessity of quitting job and apartment, selling or storing belongings, finding job and apartment upon return, etc. I think the longest trip I could take that would allow me to keep a job and apartment would be two months (and probably just one). So from a practical standpoint, I don't see much difference between a two month trip and a 16 month one -- except the amount of savings needed before setting off.

**One thing I've found: the more time I have, the slower I travel, the lower my daily costs are, and the further I can stretch the money I have.**

So, okay, "emotional" considerations (there's probably a better term for this): missing your friends, your family, the "comforts" of home.

I understand that for many people this is the main reason that they wouldn't want to travel for an extended amount of time. But for me...hasn't been a problem. I've taken seven trips by myself (so far) -- trips to other countries, living out of a backpack. The shortest was two weeks -- the longest was a year. On the year trip, I was in no way ready to return home when the year came to an end. I felt like I could have kept going for another year. I returned to the U.S. for two reasons: I was out of money, and I had promised my mother that I would come back when the year was out (and yes, even though I was 39 at the time, that was a promise I felt it important to honor).

I kept in touch by email with my closest friends back "home", and I felt like it deepened many of those relationships.

At the 6 month mark, I was in India, in Delhi, and I hit that proverbial wall. When that happened, I did what the author of this book recommends. I took a "vacation from travelling". I found a comfy hotel room (though still cheap, this being India), with satellite TV. I goofed off and did what I might do with a few days off at home. I lay in bed and watched TV, I read, I went to the nearby internet cafe and surfed the net, and I ate. That's all I did for a week. When that week was over, I was raring to hit the road again.

And it was after that moment that I felt that travel became by no means "routine", but...more of a lifestyle. It felt like something that suited me to a tee, on so many levels. I could write a very long list of what I love about that lifestyle. I like, no LOVE, the challenge of living out of a pack -- of being comfortable, and never feeling deprived or improperly dressed, but always being light and mobile. It's a puzzle, like a Rubik's cube, and with each trip I become more adept at solving it. I love living in rooms that someone else has to clean. I love...my god, the freedom. What am I going to see today? Where do I want to go? Do I like it here? Yes? I'll stay for a few weeks. No? I'll be off tomorrow.

Short trips are great because they're so much easier to manage -- but I feel there's something very special about a long trip (as I say in my profile), and I'll be a very happy nomad when I can take one again.

Sorry for the novel.

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1) I'm a little confused by the distinction in the topic heading. To me, 'RTW' refers to distance, not duration. Has its usage changed? 'RTW' stands for 'Round-The-World = circumnavigating (at least, that's how I use it). Some folks take a year to do this (I did), some take two, and some do it in 6 weeks.

Yes, RTW refers to distance but in my mind it also implies time. While I could do a RTW in 6 weeks, the thought of that just sounds brutal.

So my current plan is to get "around the world" as in "significant time in all continents". I just will be doing it a piece at a time not circumnavigating.

mini,

i just meant it in terms of should i go away for two years on a rtw trip, visiting all over, or should i take a three month trip here, saying, concentrating in SEA, and a six month trip there....

i'm pretty sure i want to do smaller trips but like others have said, it's a pain with working.

everyone, i loved your advice! when i was gone (for almost four months) a lot of people told me, "oh i never could go for that long! that's too long." when people told me it when i was homesick i wanted to throttle them.

but now i think i want to do shorter trips (meaning a couple of months) but see the whole world, after a long time.

these responses are awesome, thanks!

Actually, I spent 3 years on an around-the-world trip (was only supposed to be for 11 months, as a typical American I thought I would be able to see what I wanted by then, but I found at the end of the first year I was still bumming around Asia) ...

I am a fan of the long trip ... you continuously immerse yourself into the cultures ... you are never under time constraints -- an example ... when I wanted to climb Kili, I booked a deal and the morning it was supposed to go, the owners of the agency told me it was cancelled -- got my money back, but if time was an issue I might not have been able to arrange another trip ... I did have the time, rebooked for $100 less and had an amazing time ...

Think of it this way -- if you are driving from point 'a' to 'b' and have a set time to do it, you won't always be able to take a turn down a road that looks interesting ... if you have a great deal of time, you can check out every one of those interesting roads stress-free ...

I was able to add Nepal to my initerary and spend three months there, all but two weeks of them in the Himalayas ... work at Mother Theresa's for a month ... live with a newly found local girlfriend in Cape Town and spend two weeks on the beaches of Tofu in Mozambique doing nothing but watching the water while I blended into the sand ...

Go for the longer trip ... it will be an epic ... watch the full movie instead of watching one scene at a time and then taking breaks before the next one ... the smaller trips will always be there ... the longer trip will most probably not, as life gets in the way ...

just my 4 cents ... i WISH YOU THE BEST

AaA