Why We Never Do Four Countries in Five Days

Someone on X said it plainly this week: three or four countries in five days isn’t a holiday. It’s a stressful excursion.

Yes. Thank you.

We stopped doing that kind of trip a long time ago. Not because we can’t. Because we came home from those trips needing a holiday.

Narrow stone-paved alley between wooden houses in Kyoto, empty except for a parked bicycle — A quiet alley in Gion, Kyoto. Photo: Josep M. Gracia / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Here’s how we travel now. It’s not complicated.

Fewer places. One base, maybe two. If a city needs a day trip, we take it from the hotel and come back to the same bed.
More nights. Long enough to unpack properly. Long enough to stop checking the time.
Downtime on purpose. Not every afternoon needs a plan. Some of the best hours are a nap and a window.
A massage every day or every other day. I’m not joking. Walking all morning and getting worked on in the afternoon is the whole formula.
Dinner within walking distance. Or one short metro ride. If the restaurant needs a taxi across town at rush hour, it has to be very, very good.

That last rule has paid off more than any guidebook. In Kyoto we found a very good ramen shop right next to the hotel. No research. Just hungry and close. In Osaka, a bowl of udon that I still rate as one of the best. That kind of find only happens when you’re not sprinting to the next train.

Black coffee in a white cup on a marble café table — The pace we’re after. Photo: Ssu / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Slow also buys you second chances. We once made a special trip out to Mt Fuji and it was buried in cloud. We made another attempt. On a four-countries trip, that’s it, box unticked, move on. We just let it go. Later, from a Shinkansen window, there it was. Finally, with my own eyes. Better for the wait.

Tromsø was the same lesson. The sky does what it wants. With several nights you can shrug at a cloudy one, walk about town, grab a hot dog, try again tomorrow.

People push back: “But you see less.” True. We see fewer places. We see them properly. I’d rather know where the good coffee is on one street than tick off four countries and have no memory of lunch.

Nobody would try to cross a whole continent in five days and call it relaxing. Most of it would be airports. Somehow the same plan sounds normal in Europe because the borders are closer together. The airports are the same. So is the packing.

Two massage beds with white sheets and folded towels in a calm red room — Two beds, no schedule. Photo: Alvinategyeka / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Tip for the next trip: plan it, then cut one country. Then look at it again and cut one more. Whatever’s left — give it the nights.