What's the craziest trip you've ever taken?

I've done plenty of trips that various people told me were crazy (of course, those people were wrong...). You only have to justify it to yourself (if even that).

To your question about splitting 2 weeks between Japan and Paris...while I wouldn't call that "crazy", I would call it "highly inefficient" simply because of the logistics involved. To me, doing that would involve burning a too-significant amount of time just on the flying and getting settled in each location (not to mention inviting two separate doses of jetlag).

Japan is a wonderful destination, and you will want more than just 5 or 6 days there (which is all your "split two weeks" plan would give you). That alone would push me towards spending two weeks in either France or Japan. If you've never been to Japan, I'd go there for 2 weeks (you'll get about 12 usable days there, which is just enough of a taste to stimulate your appetite for more).

It's your trip though, if you want to split it that way, don't let anyone else stop you.

We did a trip back 20 years ago or so, that would send chills up the spine of many on here. We bought air tickets, flying into Athens, Greece, and out of Milan, Italy some 3 1/2 weeks later...and zero reservations, no pre-purchased transportation, nothing.

Yes, we had a couple guides, a rough itinerary, lots of notes. We deviated from the plan as we went, went some places we had not planned, skipped some that just were not working out, added a few days to the places we liked.

But mostly we relaxed, had fun, and despite lots of other trips around Europe, we still bring that one up as one of the best.

First of all, I meant this to be an open forum where people can share their stories, so please feel free! It's not just about my proposed trip. Thanks @Paul for sharing! That does sound like an amazing experience.

@David, yes, you're probably right and I'm leaning that way myself. But the logistics aren't as far fetched as you might think. 6 full days in Paris (bearing in mind, I've already been - it would be a time just to truly relax, and not rush around seeing the sights). An overnight flight to HND from Paris, then a full 6-7 days in Japan. But yes, I agree - just save a return trip to Paris for another time. Not like it's going anywhere. And Japan almost certainly does deserve more time.

OK, well, in that case, if you want crazy, my first trip to Europe in 1986, not quite three weeks...of course, we tried to go everywhere.

First I drove from Seattle to New York, because flights were cheaper to Europe there, I had a free place to stay there, and I could park my car at my folks' house while we were away. Fresh out of college, I had a few hundred dollars in my pocket from cutting fish heads in Alaska that summer, no credit cards in my name, but a girlfriend who was a Rick Steves fan and a copy of one of his guidebooks. Before dropping us at JFK for our flight, my very kind father took pity on me and quietly slipped me a gas station credit card in his name and a couple hundred bucks in cash.

The cheapest ticket available was of course on old Icelandic Airlines to Luxembourg; after all passengers were seated on the plane at JFK the captain announced we would be flying first to Baltimore, to pick up more passengers, after an hour on the ground there, off we flew to Keflavík, eventually ending up in Luxembourg. We rented a car there and drove through Luxembourg, across France, Paris, Normandy, south to Carcasonne, across the Pyrenees, Andorra, into northern Spain, west through the Basque Country, to Santiago de Compostela, south into Portugal. Lisbon, Sintra, the Algarve, to Sagres, then east to Sevilla, down to Gibraltar, up around and through Andalusia, Cordoba, Granada, Toledo, Madrid, along the coast through Valencia, to Barcelona. At this point, we were getting very low on money, and it's a good thing my wise father had slipped me his gas card before we left, since I was charging every tank-full, that card was getting a real workout. We continued north, stopping at Chateaux in the Loire Valley. We were rapidly running out of money and time, too, our flight home was coming up fast.

On the day of our flight back, we were racing through Alsace, heading for Luxembourg to drop the car at the airport and catch our flight. It would be tight, but we had just enough time to make it to the airport. With our car running on fumes and us just about out of cash, I stopped at a gas station to fill the tank, at one of the gas station brands where the card usually worked. The pumps rejected our gas card, and our hearts sunk. My girlfriend started crying. I was digging in the car seats looking for loose coins, going through our packs, counting our few remaining dollars, francs and pesetas. Things did not look good. I must have appeared pretty stressed out, pacing around the car and trying my card over and over to no avail.

A Mercedes Benz pulled up to the pump behind us. A man filled his tank, paid, and got back in his car, but he didn't leave, he just sat there. After a couple minutes, he got out, and approached me. An older German man, he asked in English if I needed help. I explained we were out of gas, just about out of cash, and needed to get to the Luxembourg airport in the next couple hours or we would miss our flight home. He paused, smiled at me, walked over to the gas pump, stuck his own card in it without saying a word. The pump came to life, he filled the tank on my car. I told him I could not pay him now, asked him to write his address and promised I would send him the money to reimburse him once we got home.

He smiled, shook his head, and put his hand on my shoulder. "No, my friend", he said. "Today, I help you. Some day, you will help someone else. This way is better." He looked in the car at my crying girlfriend, and told her not to worry. He turned back to me, pointed towards the road, and said, "You have a flight, don't miss it." I could have kissed him. I stammered my thanks, he waved me off and got in his car, drove away. We drove to the airport, returned the car, and just barely made our flight.

Since that day I have always tried to help others in need when I can, bought more than a few tanks of gas for others, and I will never forget the kindness of that man.

Does marrying my boyfriend from Yugoslavia at city hall in NYC so he could apply for a green Card then sailing with him 3 days later, from a Brooklyn pier, to Rijeka on the container ship he was a cadet on in the Yugoslav Merchant Marines. Then taking an overnight train a few months later from Rijeka to Frankfurt to visit with a Married couple, who were and still are, good friends, at an army base where he was an officer. Then said commander of the base finding out our friend had a visitor from a communist country staying with him on the base when some New weapon was being introduced - it was 1980. Needless to say we were allowed to stay but couldn’t go out alone and couldn’t take pictures. Our friend was debriefed after we left a month later. We were probably followed too but we didn’t care we were having fun.

Good grief, David. That itinerary for 3 weeks is not to be believed!

My first trip lasted the entire summer of 1972. I had a cheap roundtrip ticket to London and money loaned to me by my mother, who knew how badly I wanted to travel. I think the whole trip cost about $1700. This was before airline deregulation and Rick Steves, but it was the heyday of the Student Eurail Pass. I traveled with a copy of Europe on $X a Day, basically hitting cities that had chapters in that book. Even then I wasn't willing to spend all my time moving from place to place, so I didn't make it to Belgium, Spain south of Madrid, Italy south of Florence, the Balkans, Poland or Scandinavia beyond Copenhagen. I organized everything as I went except for taking a cheap, 2-week student tour of the USSR, which was memorable for feeding us dreadful food and waltzing us through several Lenin Museums because we were falsely assumed to be a group of young Communists.

These days my crazy trips are quite different and are marked by an irrational hatred of mid-trip flights that leads me to do things like travel overland from Sofia to Podgorica via two day-long bus rides.

It's interesting how often the trips that seem quite imperfect at the time turn out to look like the Good Old Days in the rear-view mirror--if only for financial reasons.

I agree - there are crazy trips and there are inefficient trips. Those are not necessarily the same. Nowadays, I tend to not even worry about inefficient trips. I usually start with a logical plan, but somehow sometimes circumstances change. Last October I added a short what most people would deem bonkers long weekend trip to the end of my 7 weeks of travel.

Last May I said yes to a casual 4 day invitation and changed days in Thessaloniki to a bus trip to and from Sofia to meet CWSocial for a couple of day tours. Not actually “crazy” but definitely unplanned and last minute. Ha!

My 7 weeks starting this year in May is kind of 5 trips all put together: 10 days in England, 4 weeks in Ireland, a week in Wales (because it’s “so close”), ending with meeting a friend for 12 days in northern Italy. Definitely not efficient - but it will be lots of fun!

A full 6-7 days in Japan you are shortchanging yourself. You have already been to Paris, so there is no crazy there. Japan would be rushed to even try and cover three cities. Maybe that is the crazy part. Don't be stuck on Paris because of some old memory. Crazy is new stuff not the reworkings of things you have already done.

Japan is my favorite E. Asian country. You need more than a week there.

Plan on spending two weeks there.

Not sure what you mean by craziest trip. Don't waste your time and money visiting widely separated places.

Perhaps not crazy, but busy. Last summer I set out from PIT to Jakarta (via JFK and Doha), worked in Jakarta for two weeks (visited Bali on the weekend between the weeks), then flew to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) for a few days, then flew over to Phnom Penh for a few days, then flew to Siem Reap, then flew back to Jakarta (via Kuala Lumpur), and home via Doha and JFK to PIT. It was a busy but rewarding month of travel by myself.

I'm working in Jakarta again this summer and thinking about where I want to go when I finish. I'm thinking Singapore and back to Siem Reap (didn't get to see all I wanted to see in the archaeological park).

Don't waste your time and money visiting widely separated places.

A waste of money is going to places you didn’t really want to go. Sometimes other factors than a straight line determine where we go and what is worth our money.

I say do it. I once spent seven straight days in Paris and wished I could have stayed seven years. And I was in Tokyo for just two days and wished I could have spent two years.

A key consideration is the time in the sky. Depending on where you live in the US -- if you're American -- the trip will be seven to 10 hours-plus to Paris. And it'll be something like 18 to 21-plus hours to Tokyo. Can you handle those extremely long amounts of time in the sky, especially if you do the trips in close proximity?

As far as crazy trips, two come to mind. On my Tokyo trip, I flew to the Philippines, then to Tokyo for only two days and then back to the Philippines. The flight from Manila to Tokyo is something like four to five hours each way -- a long trip for just two days.

If you want another idea on another plain, I would recommend a long hike. I've hiked two 100-mile-long trails in Ireland called the Dingle Way and Wicklow Way. I have seen hikers in Scotland (about 20 long-distance trails if not more) and Israel (Israel Trail and Jesus Trail). Consider a long-distance hike. My Ireland hikes were among the best things I ever did traveling.

Barbara wins.

Barbara’s trip is a winner!

My craziest travels were on a two month eurailpass when I was 20 and on such a shoestring budget that I had a notebook where I wrote down every coin I spent. I slept on A LOT of trains, and a good many hostels. I covered Europe from Copenhagen down to Lisbon in those two months. My parents wrote me letters to American Express offices in certain towns and I would stop by to cash a travelers check and see if I had a letter. I wrote them regularly, but today it seems crazy that they were on a multi-week lag to even know where their daughter was.

COVID! EVERYTHING IS CLOSED!!! Wait! Albania is open! Beautiful country.