Is Short, Medium, Or Long Term Travel Is Best for You?

As you scroll through other people’s travel photos, you might be wondering: Can that be me? Or maybe something more along the lines of: Is travel meant for me? Will I enjoy it if I just drop everything to travel the world? Or is a short trip good enough?

I’ve done the 2 week short vacation, the 3 month Euro trip post-college, and a gap year in Asia. Based on my experiences, here were the pros and cons I took away from each type of trip:

Short Trips (2-3 weeks)

Pros • Good refresh jolt to your system. After working an office job for over a year, I slightly forgot what traveling felt like. When you are far away from everything, you can focus on yourself. You come back to work feeling recharged and refreshed. It’s also easy to get back into “normal life” since not much changed or happened while you were away for only a few weeks. • Smaller budget. Because this is a short trip, you don’t have to save up as much. No need to wait months to be able to go for a quick getaway. No need to try to budget as much. If you want to go shopping or splurge a bit on the trip, you can! Cons • Feels too short for a vacation/travel. Sadly, two weeks of vacation per year is the likelihood for most Americans holding down a full-time job. You get a taste of escape and then before you know it, it’s time to go home! • Limited places to travel to. Because it’s a short time, you would want to travel to countries and places nearby (and not have to take a long plane trips) to maximize your available vacation time. As a result, you have less destinations to choose from. • Short Time = Tight schedule = Stress. Sometimes you want to experience as much as you can and make the most out of it. After all, it’ll be a full year before you can take another vacation again! As a result, you may end up cramming too many things and end up coming back home exhausted instead. Missing a train or flight can greatly affect your trip. If you pack in a lot in your schedule, it can be stressful trying to get from Point A to Point B on time.

Medium Trip (2-4 months)

Pros • Variety of places you can explore. You have more time to go and see different cities and countries. • You can make the most out of travel passes. For example, if you’re in Europe, it’s worth looking into getting a Eurail pass. The same applies to countries such as Japan who have rail passes as well. If done strategically, a medium length trip won’t cost an extravagant amount. • Flexibility and Enjoyment. A medium length trip is a sweet spot where you can go fast it that’s your pace or go slow without feeling like time’s ticking away. Living out of a suitcase or backpack feels fine for a few months. It’s not too long of a time to travel where you get bored or burnt out. Cons • Finding an “ideal” time to go can be difficult. It can be a struggle figuring out if you can quit work for a couple of months. Some people may do this when they have a gap between jobs, right after finishing school, or if they’re a teacher/have a job that allows a sabbatical.
• Overwhelm. If you’re the planning type, it can be daunting when you feel the need to plan for a trip this long. I highly recommend planning just a few days in advance. Once you get on the road, you will see how often you end up changing your plans! • Money. For a trip this long, you’ll need to save up more (but not as much as you think)! • Getting home sick. It depends on the person but sometimes after a month or two, you may start to miss home.

Long Trip (6+ months, gap year)

Pros • You can explore a whole lot. With so much time, you can do a whole region or even a continent! Or maybe even set up a temporary home base if you want to live somewhere for a while. • Your cost of living is less than what you’d pay back home. I was able to live comfortably on $30/day in Southeast Asia (if I wanted to splurge, I spent $50/day). That’s $900-$1500 per month, which definitely beats my cost of rent in the U.S. Just rent! Back home I had to pay even more money for health insurance, car, gas, car insurance, car maintenance. • LOTS and lots of flexibility & freedom. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whoever you want! If you fall in love with a place, you can stay. There’s no need to rush around. Also, if you happen to miss a short plane ride, train, etc. you can recover from it, as it won’t hurt your schedule as much (compared to a short 2-week trip). Cons • You’ll need to save up. If you choose a more affordable area (ie. SE Asia), you’re looking at about $12,000 to live off of for a year. Because this is a longer trip, you can’t splurge every single day or you will burn through your savings. • Living out of a suitcase/backpack can get old. It’s hard to not buy anything. I wound up buying custom made clothes. Eventually when my backpack got too heavy, I shipped it (cargo – which is cheaper) to my parent’s house back home. • Burn out. This by far surprised me the most. You hit a point on the road where you don’t seem to enjoy traveling anymore, which leads you to questioning why you went in the first place. It’s like running a marathon: there are moments where you are pumped for your race. Then there are moments where you are just tired of it all. Sometimes you just need to have those days where you do nothing in order to recover and recuperate on the road. The weird feeling and thought of “maybe it’s time to go home” crossed my mind multiple times. Even though you make travel friends, there will be moments where you will miss your close friends and family back home.

As you can see, those 3 types of trips are very different from each other. I wouldn’t have known what to expect from each trip if I hadn’t experienced it myself. Personally, I loved all of them, but my 3 month Eurotrip was a happy spot for me. It was just enough for me to explore so many places but I didn’t get burnt out. I hope my experiences above will help you choose and plan your next trip!

Comment below on your experiences, thoughts, and what you thought about the info above and if you have any questions!