How long is too long to travel?

Can you afford to go without your husband? If so go with him for the 3 weeks and then go by yourself or with a tour group like the one Rick Steves sells or with some other family member or friend on another trip without the husband.

There is no such thing in humanity as "how long is too long to travel". Don't let anyone hold you back as long as your responsibilities are accounted for.

I struggle the most when I'm gone for 6-8 weeks with things that can go wrong with the house. The most dramatic was a broken sprinkler pipe that caused a gusher. Fortunately, wonderful friends were staying at my house and sorted it out.

Now I pay my gardener to do extra checks while I'm traveling. And I got a gadget that detects leaks at the water meter and notifies me via an app.

I also vote for traveling with not-as-keen hubby for 3 weeks and then continuing on without him, while he can babysit the house.

We alternate trip lengths. I like going 4 weeks, my partner prefers 2-3 weeks. Some itineraries are better suited to one or the other so we take turns getting our preference.

There is no answer to this. You have to decide what it right for you.

I've been traveling for 10 years. Most people wouldn't think of doing this kind of trip. That's fine with me. Everyone has to do what makes them happy.

You and your husband have to sit down and list your own pros and cons and come to some kind of compromise. Perhaps ask why he doesn't want to travel for as long as you want.

Or travel separately.

We've never been gone more than 2.5 weeks and we're always ready to come home. But we're curious as well. I retire in 85 days and we talk about month long stays but we're not sure if we could really do it. Baby steps, we'll be gone for 3 weeks this Fall.

Beth, it's interesting that you guys are pivoting on 3 weeks. Before I had even read down that far, 3 weeks had occurred to me as something of an inflection point.

At least for me. I've traveled to Europe for a year, 6 months, 3 months, 2 months several times, 6 weeks several times, and a bunch of trips in a short time frame than that, including a bunch of 17-18 night trips.

On all of those trip I found there was a bit of a wall at 2.5 to 3 weeks. The novelty has proper worn off. I get a little restless around that time and feel like I could go home. If I'm traveling with my family, it's the time period when I need to sometimes emphasize that we are still on vacation and it is still awesome.

But then if you stick it out for another week, say like 3.5 to 4 weeks total, you sort of "forget" home. It's remarkable how quickly it's sort of fades into a background. And then after that smooth sailing for a long time - you are a traveler, not a home-based person.

For me anyway, I'm sure everyone's psychological timeline is different.

But I suspect that your husband might feel that 3-week "ehh, okay I'm over it" thing that I do? I think just being aware of what your limits are like and understanding that you can still have a good time traveling even though you've hit the mini-blahs. It's a pretty easy attitude to adjust out of with just a bit of conscious recontextualization. Home is always going to be there, and it's going to be sweet. But it's also a fantastic opportunity you have do a little bit more and see a little bit more. Home will still be great when it's time.

Or flex to your partner's shorter comfortable timeline. Working it through in partnership might mean fitting his comfort zone. You can still make the most out of it, particularly if he appreciates that he shortened the harvest, so you two need to gather maximal rosebuds well you can.

However it works out, have a wonderful trip!

My husband & I traveled together, and his sweet spot was around three weeks, too. If it was golf season, he preferred more like a two week trip. I, on the other hand, enjoyed a slightly longer trip. My last one was a month.

He knew how much I liked to research & plan, and I was always very safety conscious. So, he was supportive of me staying longer than him. When I would plan trips and still have a fluid itinerary, I would sit down with him and see if he was interested in any of it, all of it, or just some of it. Sometimes we did a hybrid trip where I would be in Europe for a few weeks, and then he joined me. Other times, I went solo, so I tailored the itinerary to my faster speed.

Just some ideas for your discussion together:
- Are there concerns about your safety if you’re traveling alone?
- Is your husband worried about missing out on the fun? Is he wanting to make one of these regions a 2-trip event?
- Could you (solo) join a tour group for Australia and do the New Zealand portion of the trip together?
- Is he self sufficient at home without you?

Hope that helps.

Two weeks is my max. We have a house with a pool that must be attended to and we have a Lake House that's high maintenance.

My wife takes controlled medications for pain, and she has to be at her pain management clinic every month in person. Or she would be unable to obtain pain meds. That's the only thing that allows her to travel--along with her electric folding scooter.

We just got in tonight from an Alaskan cruise and another week in Canada. No issues riding that scooter to the door of the airplane.

Two weeks is way too short a time to travel for us. We traveled as long as six weeks when we were in South East Asia. There were so many countries to visit and cultures to explore.

I've done three-week trips I couldn't wait to get home from, and I've done trips longer than a month that I wished I'd extended.

The longer the trip, the more important it is to pace yourself. You must give yourself down days. It's exhausting to be on the go every day for a month. Sometimes you can have relaxation time on a bus or airplane or train. But sometimes you just want to sit in a cafe all day or lie in bed in your hotel and watch TV and order room service. Maybe if you promise your husband one day for chillaxing every ten days, his reluctance might ease.

Or, as someone else suggested, do three weeks with him and then send him home while you continue your travels.

We find around 7 weeks is our long trip sweet spot. Our last trip was 48 nights and our next trip will be 51 nights in Europe. Our longest was 63 nights which felt too long. The last two weeks were a bit difficult as we were tired and had seen way too many cathedrals by that point.

We put a few long stays (5-7 nights) in the second half of the trip. By this time we just want to be able to make our own breakfast, so I book us into an apartment.

When it takes us 27+ hours to get to Europe from Australia, we tend to want to make the most of it. Also, we fly business class as I'm disabled and our flights usually cost around USD 6500 each (total USD 13k). So we are tending to make fewer, but longer trips. My disability is a degenerative one so I probably only have 3-5 years of travel left.

Three weeks, maybe four, is the sweet spot for me. I did a five week trip last year, and it might have been just a couple of days too long. By the end of five weeks I was tired, and I began to fret about my dog and my house.

I agree with @Lane that pacing yourself and giving yourself some down time is important on longer trips. Some of my exhaustion on the five week trip was that the pace sped up considerably the last two weeks.

Considering the inconvenience of getting to Southeast Asia, Australia or New Zealand, I would probably lean toward a longer trip to those places.

Three weeks, maybe four, is the sweet spot for me.

Same for us. Our two best trips ever, to Europe, fell within that sweet spot - 23 to 26 days.

We will never again do the "2 weeks or less" trip length that involves crossing the Atlantic or Pacific.

Not counting either travel day, our longest trip was 37 days --- my husband thought that was too long. He misses our dog, our cabin, our children and grandchildren, and just his regular life after about 30 days. Most of our trips last more than 30 days because of me --- I could easily stay longer! I always have a long list of specific places I want to go and specific things I want to see, whereas what he wants to do is more general, like eating good food, practicing his Italian, taking cooking and Italian language classes, and walking around in interesting towns. Maybe, because these activities are more general, it's easier for him to feel like he's had "enough"?

But for me, I am aware of every single particular thing I have to cut out in order to squeeze the trip down to a reasonable number of days for both of us. I hadn't thought about it until just now, but for me, another day or two (or five) without seeing, say, our grandchildren or dog, is not a significantly longer period of absence. Not seeing (probably never seeing) a particular painting or church facade or museum or whatever feels like a real loss.

Partly to accommodate me and to have a better balance to what we see and do on a trip ( a LOT has been driven by my interests more than his!), AND frankly to get me a few more days of a trip without his longing to go home for him, our last few trips and our future two trips have quite a bit more of what my husband wants to do, and quite a bit more time of us doing things separately. So far, so good.

Three weeks is my sweet spot also. But, I have tried to combat the three week ennui by setting up a vacation that changes locations and cultures in the same trip. Last trip was Greece and Bulgaria. Another was Malta and Paris. This seems to me to give me a new vacation within the entire trip time.
There is some excitement about moving on to another country, another culture. So when the first part become tedious, the second spurs you on.
The particulars of our vacations is that after a while we get tired of always having to pick a place to eat. Good thing for hotel breakfast, as that is free of choice and angst. Otherwise we are always searching for a place to eat. Will it be good? What kind of food? Where is it? It becomes very tiresome. Sure, we can slow down and sit in a cafe and have a coffee or a drink, but that gets old too. I have to say that overall, the eating thing is a paramount stumbling block to staying somewhere longer and longer.

There is no correct answer as it's up to everyone to figure out for themselves. I start missing my own bed and start running out of energy and adrenaline after about two weeks.

For sure it is an individual thing and there is no right answer but it has been very interesting and helpful to read everyone’s thoughts and suggestions. So, thank you for sharing. I read somewhere a discussion on the tension between roaming and homing and how that plays out differently for each one of us.

I have traveled with friends for years and am sure I will still do that on trips my husband isn’t keen on. As he gets set to retire and is able to travel more with me though my thoughts have turned to how to meet his needs and wishes with travel and how to meld them with mine.

I think changing up the location and mode of travel partway through a longer trip will be helpful to maybe extend the time and keep it fresh and invigorating and not tiresome. I think alternating shorter trips with an occasional longer one is good advice- that way he doesn’t have to travel always with long periods of time away from home.

In the first year of his upcoming retirement, we are doing some places that are ones he has picked out and is more invested in than just my never ending list of places. Agree that finding food gets irksome and changing hotels frequently is not ideal so basing longer in one place and trying to limit moving around a bit will help. And giving ourselves “ permission “ to have downtime where we are not always on the go is smart. And I agree that knowing that on a longer trip, there may be a few days where you feel you have hit a wall is to be expected but that it can also fade as quickly as it came on so to be patient with that time.

Interesting question and yes, it is different for everyone. It’s interesting that houses, pets are what hold many folks from traveling for longer periods.
My husband just retired and we will be moving into a place where we do not need to do yard work and this will allow longer trips. So far, a month is the longest trip and I was not ready to go home! Currently, we have a 5-6 week trip with a cruise planned for Asia next year and then in 2026, we plan to spend almost 90 days in Europe. However, towards the end of that time, I have 2 week stays planned for Vienna and Budapest, which will allow us to slow down. I think traveling longer will be great, our days however, will be slower. More time to savor, relax and enjoy!

Beth, I am glad you posted the question, and I have found it interesting to read all the responses.

For us, "comfort re: time to be gone" was driven by a number of things: client projects (usually busier going into year end) being wrapped up; when we had a couple of handfuls of rentals: were any leases coming to an end at that time (such that we "might" need to prep a property for market, the time of year (garden to be planted/tended,yard to be mowed/leaves to be crunched/bagged/watering beyond irrigation system if in a drought OR worry about power outages during frigid times (not only our home, but when we had rentals, too), then there are my many house plants to be tended, then, of course, our important family member: the dog.

Our travels usually were one-two week trips, often waitlisted and saying yes/no when we cleared such a list. Antarctica with something like 10 days notice, Australia/NZ small ship cruise with something like one week notice. It worked for us

Rentals now all divested, and easing into retirement with my spouse concentrating on just a few select long-time clients, we actually pulled off being gone for just short of an entire month last fall. It was our "epic trip of a lifetime," and possibly our last overseas trip. But, I gotta tell you, it was "work" getting ready for it, and it took us a month or so to feel as though we were "caught up" upon returning home. We paid someone to tend the lawn, we offered an incredible hourly rate to a trusted friend to come in and water my many house plants and hobby greenhouse, and we put all bills on auto pay, and forwarded the WSJ to our neighbor (starting a week before to make sure the forward worked) and we had our snail mail held. We also shut off all the inside water to the house (I left gallon jugs of water on towels in front of the houseplants that needed to be watered), and we have a way to shut off the inside water, but leave "outside" irrigation/greenhouse/spigots water on. It was a bit exhausting preparing for it all. Our dog was kenneled at a wonderful facility where he successfully stayed about 5 years prior.

We had the trip of a lifetime, but when my phone rang on our first leg of the plane trip .... it was from the boarding facility, then a second call from the vet, I was FILLED with guilt. Dog had "stress colitus" -- and that was early on -- he got excellent care, but I promised myself right then and there I would never do that to him again.

I also STILL now many months later, hear myself saying to various people when something is talked about "we missed the entire month of October." (Meaning anything that might have happened in our neighborhood/city then, what bloomed in my garden then, etc). That is STILL weird for me now well over a half a year later -- hard to explain it.

BUT, all that yammering on to say: Would we be gone for more than a few weeks in the future? Very possibly, IF we can go somewhere that would allow our dog to come along with us, and if we move to somewhere that is more maintenance free, a sort of lock-it/pocket arrangement. We have a high-maintenance situation now.

I remember meeting a delightful couple years ago, she was a retired schools superintendant, and he has also recently retired...doctor/attorney..do not recall. But, both were totally on board to traveling and traveling as much as they could while they could. They had moved to a lock-it/pocket situation, and she told me she did not even own one houseplant...not pets, not even a goldfish,nothing...............just travel and go. It is funny how people we meet casually in our travels can have a lasting impact on us, years later remembering them and wondering........."should we try to be more like them.?

We each only have so much time left. If I were sitting with you and your husband, I would try to understand what is "pulling" him to return home more quickly. That's the start....for potential solutions.

P.S. I will also add (and others have said it), over the years, we have learned the lesson of building in "down time" in our travels. If on a jammed-packed group tour, one does not "have to" do everything. On our almost-month's long tour last fall, we could have gone non-stop from dawn to night, but (as the tour advised) "realize you cannot do everything." A few years ago, we learned to build in self-care time.....unplanned chunks of time to relax (those segments could wind up being filled, but there was no pre-booked pressure to fill them). I think that is sometimes a "key" to successful travel, especially when the travel extends over many weeks.

So far for me I’ve never felt like I was ready to go home before the trip ended. Before hubby and I were both retired our longest trip was 6 weeks. At that time our daughter would come stay at the house and take care of the animals and everything else. My husband retired 5 years ago and I was already retired when we had a nice long trip planned in 2020. Of course that never happened and we are slowly but surely putting places we missed back on our agenda for the trips we have done and will be doing since that time. Five years ago we lost our last pet and our daughter moved out of state in 2020. In 2022 we did a 6 week trip in the Spring and I wasn’t worried about it being too long. In the late Summer/Fall we did a 10 week trip. I was a little apprehensive about being gone so long, but it was great and neither one of us was ready to go home. On that second trip we traveled with another couple for the first part of it. I’ve traveled to Europe 3 times when it has been just me and my girlfriend and it was fine. Her husband had never traveled outside of the U.S. other than resorts in Mexico and he lived in Japan as a child. With them we went to Ireland, Scotland and England for 2 weeks each. Not exactly culture shock and there wasn’t much of a language barrier. Our trip with them was to end with 4 nights in London. After we arrived in Bath for 4 nights before moving on to London he decided he was ready to go home. Really ready. He missed home and his routine. They changed their flights and when they departed Bath went straight to the airport and flew home. We all have different levels of tolerance for being out of our comfort zone. I’m glad my husband is happy to be gone as long I am.

This is a great question, and fun thread to read. We've found "down time" days are important, as well as having someone at home keeping an eye on our house. Mail holds last a max of 30 days for us, so tending to mail is an issue to consider. Also: plan time apart from your travel partner. We don't spend every waking minute together when at home, so having solo adventures (even just to the grocery store) can refresh you both. Consider alternating city (fast paced, crowded, noisy) and smaller town (animals, greenery, quiet) destinations. Several years ago we independently visited five places in Italy by train (Venice, Verona, Florence, Cinque Terre, Milan,) and trading off between smaller and bigger places refreshed us. Also think about when to schedule solo travel vs tour group, if you do that. We like to do independent travel first, when we are fresh, and then join our tour, where we are "taken care of" more and need less initiative. We have traveled longer each time we've gone abroad, mostly to maximize the cost of air travel, and each time we go, it feels easier. Finally, I second the suggestion to travel solo for part of your trip, either at the start or the end. You can do it safely, and have amazing adventures, without imposing on him to stay longer than he wants.

We spent 3 months in the Middle East and it went by super fast. As we are aging, my spouse doesn’t want to stay as long as I do so we compromise, we have done several 3 week trips this year but stayed in USA. However, he agrees that leaving USA we are most comfortable with a minimum of 2 months.
We have found that at some point we hit a place where we no longer think of the house, the unfamiliar things that aren’t always comfortable or wonder what we’ll actually get when we order food. I think that point is around 2 or 3 weeks.
Whatever you decide I wish you happy travels.

three week ennui

Nicely put treemoss2!

Let's make three week ennui a thing - two of us have mentioned it now so it must be true ;)

Our longest trip was six weeks and the worst thing about it was having to deal with all the mail when we got back! Seriously, it was fine. However, we stay in vacation rentals, so we can manage food differently than those who use hotels. I agree that having to find food every evening can get old.

I forgot to mention that when on a long trip it’s important to pace yourself and not be rushing around all of the time. Allow downtime now and then. We also prefer to stay in apartment rentals at least intermittently to do laundry and have a kitchen. I do get tired of eating out all of the time. I know people advise to have some separation of activities from time to time from their travel partner, but unfortunately (?) mine isn’t interested in venturing off on his own. That said, we have taken many long trips together and it has been great!

We just came back from a month in France. And for us, I think three weeks is the sweet spot. We are seniors we got tired. We were happy to come home, but we are looking forward to going again somewhere. And we will probably limited to three weeks. I think the most important thing to do is to make your plans very flexible so you can change them as you need to. Happy planning!

I hate to say it, but my magic number is 17 days. By that day, I want to be home or on the way home. I love traveling, always have, but I also love my family and want to be with them. I don't care how many 17 day trips I take, but in-between I want to spend time with my family and have some sleeps in my own bed.

My longest trip was 3 1/2 weeks when I was in college on break. I doubt I was in a hurry to get home then, but at that age I was in the process of breaking away from my family, age appropriately. Now I'm the head of a family...or one of the heads anyway, and realize time can be short so I don't want to take anything for granted. That's just me.

Wray it's remarkable how closely your 17 days accords with the 2-3 week "ennui" I and others have expressed. Interesting!

17 nights is a pretty common length trip - two weeks, plus a few extra nights on either end. Quite practical really!

I only thought of this because I have been reviewing some of the older posts in my blog, but I think there is a traveler's equivalent to a "runner's high."

After a certain amount of time traveling, I think it can shift from feeling hard to feeling easy. And when I say "hard," I don't mean that negatively. I just mean that travel, especially independent travel, is a lot of work. You have to get yourself where you're going every day. And that involves both mental and physical energy.

But after you've been doing it a while, it can suddenly become easy. Like your regular routine when you're not traveling.

I think for me that happens at about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks.

But I wonder if those who feel like there's a sweet spot after which they're ready to go home have just not yet reached the "traveler's high."

Or maybe this is unique to me? Has anyone else experienced this?

I'm lucky in that I live not far from Europe. But I'm a long-haul flight from the US and Southeast Asia, 2 long-hauls from Down Under. When I visit Europe (3-5 hour flight) I plan for a 2 or 3 week trip, usually end up with nearly a week longer. But for those long-hauls (did I mention I hate everything about flying?), my trips are over 5 weeks, sometimes more in the US because I spend a lot of time with family and friends.

On my one trip south I took a 2-week cruise with a group of friends from Auckland to Sydney. I stopped in different cities for 3 and 4 nights between long-haul flights. I had 5 nights in Auckland (probably 1-2 too many) and a week in Sydney and Melbourne after the cruise. While I saw a lot of North Island, all I saw of South Island were the port stops. 36 days total, including flight days.

I've been to Southeast Asia twice - Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong. One was 5 weeks, the other 4.5.

But I'm a solo traveler, so all this is probably not much help to you. :-(

I hit that 3 week wall at about 4 weeks. Then I regain steam. I am currently a little over midway through an 8 week trip, with a mix of friends, solo, countries, and activity speed. But with a long trip like this, I move more slowly and in general move around as if I were at home - which means no rush, few deadlines, few requirements. I enjoy just being where I am, with at least one activity planned/available each day. A 2 week trip is not at all the same as a 2 month trip.

I have friends and family who are willing to put the effort into staying in touch with me, so I don’t feel isolated. And I regularly meet people during my days who enjoy a short chat, even it it is other tourists. And I am fortunate to not have to worry about things at home. So far it works for me.

When my husband and I were still working, I had only 3 weeks vacation and wanted to save some of that for Christmas time and some for domestic travel. So we would do one week Europe trips. Slip out of work early on Friday and go directly to the airport, arrive Saturday morning. Then we'd have jetlagged Saturday plus 7 more days before flying home on Sunday and returning to work on Monday. We usually did two cities on a trip like that and it worked well.

Since retirement we've found that 15-18 days is our sweet spot. We miss our family and friends by then, not to mention our bed and shower :-) I'm also not an adventurous eater, so I find the unfamiliar foods exhausting after a while. As my husband thinks of it, we each have so much capacity for new experiences and once the tank is full, it's time to go home!

Three week ennui ... exactly! We just returned from a month in Greece. At the three week mark, in our favorite place in the world, my husband started getting restless. It lasted maybe a day, and by the time we left a week later he was not ready to go home. But thinking back, this three-week restlessness has happened before on our 4-5 weeks trips. Funny to learn that it's a thing with others as well!

Our longest trip ever together was 11 days. Most trips have been only 6-8 days. Jobs and vacation time and also our companion animals could just never allow it. My dream is to be gone for over a month to walk the Camino de Santiago (Frances) maybe two years from now, after retirement.

I’m so enjoying reading everyone’s thoughts and experiences with trip lengths. I like the idea of a travelers high , I’ll have to watch and see if we get through the three week ennui if we get that high and keep on trekking. We need a long trip for “ research “ purposes now.

I do find that when I do get home that that first week back is just wonderful and I always think that I won’t need another trip for awhile. But within a few weeks, I start googling trips, locations and start getting the itch again. Maybe that three week timeframe works in reverse once we get home too?

Beth, thanks for a great post and interesting discussion.... seems there are almost as many styles of travel as people who posted. I wondered what your H really enjoys about travel and what might interest him in staying longer somewhere along the way? Agreed, I would hate to be traveling to many different destinations for longer than 7-10 days. I wonder if renting something and staying put in one place for a few weeks would help?

Not worrying about the home front help me. I too pay someone to stop by once a week, (dang it the irrigation system needs work again) and for me it's good to do those things months before departure. The only thing I really miss is the garden during blooming months, so my neighbors send pictures! And yes, making calls on WhatsApp or Face time to friends helps keep the connections. Agreed with other posters, eating out is a hassle, though we like hotels, maybe next longer trip we will try a suite hotel with a kitchenette.

It's hard to imagine breaking up a SE Asian / Oz NZ trip into 2 unless separated by at least a year. It's a 20+ hour flight including layover from LAX to Singapore, which I use to fly a few times a year, But I did love your comment about how you're so happy to get home, before you start googling new places to travel, so I'm curious how this evolves for you.

The only thing I really miss is the garden during blooming months

So true, Sandancisco! I got home yesterday and my favorite orange sherbet-colored Trumpet Bush is fully in bloom and I feel like I missed a couple of weeks of its gorgeoous color show. OK, glass half full - it's still in bloom!

I don't really have a usual length of time I'm ready to go home. I've had 28-night trips where I'm not ready, and 18-night trips where I am.

I think it depends on the itinerary. Recently we were away 23 nights. We started with a twelve night Transatlantic cruise, followed by a week in Liverpool. Liverpool felt a bit like starting back at day one. But sometimes when the trip is all Europe, after a couple of weeks there can be a "sameness".

Sometimes I'm ready to go home because my body is weary of walking. Even when I've been in good shape fitness wise, weeks of miles per day wear me out. As we've aged we've gotten better at taking "a vacation from our vacation " -- like throwing out all hiking plans in CT and just bobbing in the sea for a few days.

DH worries about his fish (aquarium inside and outdoor pond). Or lawn mowing, or snow removal. We have cat care issues too. When we've had better solutions for the cat(s), we've enjoyed the trips right to the end. I can't imagine not living with cats, but when Ginny goes we will have one trip before getting any more.

Next year we are away 26 nights (Asia). I wonder how we will feel at the end of that!

We need a long trip for “research “ purposes now.

Heart emoji!

I think a lot of you travel with family. IMO that completely changes the conditions and there is more of a lack of need to go home…which for me is 17 days as I said, but I travel solo.

Beth: Yes - I agree, the three week ennui does work in reverse when you get home! I've unpacked after the big trip and told my friends as much as they want to hear about our fabulous trip. What is left to do, except....start planning the next one.