This is really weird. I always thought the people who are all "go, go, go" are the ones on those "10 countries in 14 days" bus tours. You know what I'm talking about, the "tourists".

And maybe I'm just getting old, but I need down days even when I'm just gone for two weeks. And I feel stressed if I don't have them. Also, I push myself when I travel, so I experience things that challenge me in ways I wouldn't at home when I'm in my normal mode. And this kind of stuff is tiring, even if it's just walking more than I'm accustomed too in a climate that switches every two days with a heavy pack. That kind of thing adds up and happens faster than you'd believe. But then so does the laundry, which is why I thank god for laundry days. Even when I don't plan on downtime, I have to get some in somewhere if I want clean clothes.
But hey, nobody ever said travelling was easy, so why be surprised when it wears you out? just do something to deal with it.

My name says it all. When I go on a long term trip, every day is a vacation, with perhaps a few tourist sites in between.

If you relax, take it easy, what you DO experience will be much more valuable.

Theres a lot of wear and tear on constant sightseeing and experience pumping, and sometimes, your body just says enough!!!

Then its time to listen, relax, watch tv, beach, email, whatever. In between you may have time to actually relax with other travellers or GASP, make friends with some of the locals, who are quite happy not to see everything on an itinerary.

I'm the same as the above poster. I probably take it TOO easy when I'm on a long term trip. There's always that feeling that 'I can do it tomorrow' and then I never seem to get around to it! Oops.

When I'd rather keep things open and see what happens than book myself in for 6 days of hard core siteseeing adventures.

I agree that it has a lot to do with travel style and many people are of the 'once in a lifetime' type attitude and want to do it all because they might never come back. I always seem to assume that I'll make it back to the places that I like one day so there's no real sense of urgency.

I think if a trip I was due to go on had 6 full days a week of siteseeing/activities penciled in I'd rather stay at home. Well maybe not, but I'd definately struggle with it.

I've never heard of the concept of planning weekly off day whilst traveling, but I did take them now and then on my RTW. I particularly remember "calling out" one of those 1000 degree days in SEA to sit in an air conditioned hotel room (gasp) and repack my pack about 10x while watching asian rap videos. It was lovely.

I highly recommend mental health days to recharge. Long term travel sounds romantic but if you go full force, it can suck the motivation out of you . By far, my best memories of my trip are the days we relaxed and became part of the background and really observed what went on around us.

happy travels!

Am I the only one who gets neurotic about planning things? I think if I didn't get a good idea of the path and sights I wanted to take in I would get too worried that I would miss out on something I wanted to do.

One day a week to plan sounds reasonable to me if it's on the weekend.

We never plan it but we do take off a couple days every two weeks or so to just relax, wash clothes, read, or whatever we want. We are generally always relaxed while traveling, but these days we are not too worried if we don't get out and see some sight or hike somewhere. We also tend to splurge a bit and get a nice hotel room at the same time.