Squeezing it all in.

S J

I think the reason we see many people cramming up so many cities on one trip within a limited amount of time to visit Europe is because they are limited on time off from work and are not sure when they can go back to to visit other cities. I have several European friends and most told me Europeans get 1 month vacation as new employees in addition to a number of holidays whereas, here in the U.S, folks have to put in years of service in their jobs just to get that time. I would love to travel at least 6 weeks out of the year to Europe but I don't have the time due to work responsibilities.

Some people seem to prefer "crazy fast," at least what seems so to us, but they get minimal support for such itineraries here. Maybe they take the common advice to slow down. Maybe they don't, and have either good or bad trips, but either way they're not likely to post reports for people whose advice they rejected.

I've slowed down with age, in travel style as well as every other way. Some of this has to do with energy level, some with greater appreciation for detail and depth. I think this is true in life, not just travel. Beware of imposing old-guy standards on the young! ;-)

Hopefully a high-energy person who travels "crazy fast" doesn't get turned off by Europe, but instead gets enough of a taste to want to explore more. Or, if not, that's one less person in the crowds we all complain about now!

I often have two day stays on my trips. When you're working, there are time limitations. Even if you are blessed with lots of vacation days, to be away for more than a couple weeks makes for a very painful return to the office.

That said, for us, 3-4 hours would be a long road/train trip for us. Our locations tend to be about 2-21/2 hours apart. We like to really explore towns and be places in the morning and in the evenings. It is not an ordeal for us to change inns. I think because most of the time we stay at small inns, there really is no checking out. Our packing is very streamlined and organized so its not a big deal to move to another city for exploration. People like day trips because they feel there is so much time involved in the move when you change inns. Well, if you are going to do a day trip, you likely are making the trip to the train station and taking a train ride anyway.

I think for people that do squeeze a lot into their itinerary, sometimes the mistake is not realizing how far away places can be thus spending more time traveling and less time sightseeing. Also sometimes things are so scheduled and planned so tight that if something unforeseen happens, they can lose a lot of time at their destination. For example, on our last trip, our train from Cordoba via Madrid to Toledo was cancelled. We had to wait 2 hours for another one. It was a good thing we were doing an overnight in Toledo and also good that I hadn't prebooked train tickets for the trip from Toledo to Madrid. We just changed our plans and left Toledo early evening instead of early afternoon.

@Dick, strongly agree! I think the advice people give on this forum is extensive and well thought out. I appreciate all the help I've received. Though I tend to travel at a faster clip, and am pretty vocal about the fact that we can make it work, the advice is still so very helpful. I just modify to suit my needs. In the end, its my vacation. What interests and puzzles me so much is when someone posts something like, "I think I want to go to Denmark. What should I see and where should I stay". If someone thinks they want to go to Denmark or France or whatever, you'd think there would be something that drew them to the location and they'd have ideas of their own. Forum people give itineraries and I really think some people just follow them. What if the forum person recommended a certain number of days for a city they themselves love for the museums or beer halls, and the OP doesn't care about those things. Now they are sitting in a city and not finding things to do.

I do enough research to determine how much time the average person might need to explore a place, figuring if I really love it I can return and see more--and sometimes my 2 week trips include just 2 cities, usually with day trips, others I move around a bit more. My upcoming trip in May has 4 countries in 2 weeks--3 days each starting with Tallinn, which I'm re-visiting, then to Riga by bus, Vilnius by bus and flying to Budapest for 4 days, since this will be my 5th visit there it's just to hang out and relax before heading home.

Your opening reference to "the people who do 5 cities in Europe in a week" sounds like a straw-man over simplification. How long it takes a person to enjoy or learn something about any one destination will depend on many factors, including the size and proximity of the theoretical "cities," how early a traveler gets started each morning, etc. Nobody can experience everything that one place has to offer, even if they live there, so lines have to be drawn somewhere.

Five small towns in a week is quite manageable. You did five cities in two weeks in Italy in 2003 - care to name them, to make this second example more concrete?

My experience is that over the past 25 years, I've spent months at a time spending an average of 2-3 nights per destination, with the obvious variation between more nights in larger cities that had more sightseeing and more spread out, plus a number of towns that could be a single night, a day-trip, or a half-day stop along the route, and of course quieter days inserted as a "vacation from your vacation." I do keep coming back, both to repeat destinations and new ones, both for work and for pleasure, but without much real change to the pace of travel. I expect that may change when I'm retire, as long as I have both the time and the money. Flexibility has been key for me, so that a plan that turned out to be too ambitious could be changed for any number of reasons, including weather, health, or serendipity.

Also, my well-traveled colleague here recently spent a packed long weekend in and around London with his daughter, because that's the amount of free time she had from her work. He told me he didn't mind the fast pace because he knew the time was limited. In other words, he didn't mind taking it at a sprint because he knew it wasn't a marathon.

Quantity vs quality.

I think older and/or more experienced travelers tend to do fewer locations and spend more time at each. I understand the desire to see it all, but by the time you get to my age (68), you realize you won't ever see it all. Once you realize that, you are freed to throttle back and enjoy a more relaxed pace.

Folks are also afraid their European trip is a once in a lifetime opportunity and they panic. Those of us who have had more than one opportunity to travel to Europe should be thankful.

For me, the typical "must spend" time recommendations in this forum are often seriously off base - too long. They seem to be geared to people who enjoy spending 3-4 hours at a museum or historic site day after day and lingering 2 hours or more over every meal.

There are people who can happily "do Paris" or "do Barcelona" in two days. And they aren't necessarily cultural idiots or first-time travelers. It's just a matter of preferences.

Perhaps they don't come back and post their experiences because they sense that they'll be looked down on here for going fast.

My husband and I went to Amalfi Coast for 10 days and moved every two days. We had a wonderful time but were exhausted and ready to come home.

Last year we went to Greece with our adult children and stayed 3 or 4 nights in each of four places and left wishing we could stay longer.

For us, a series of two night stops is not enjoyable now. I think some people can do it happily but not many-at least for an extended period of time. I have friends who did it for two weeks in Italy and got to wherever they were staying to go to Pompeii and were too exhausted to go. But they had a fabulous time up until that point.

I think if you are privileged enough to have multiple trips to Europe , the tendency is to slow down and see more of less.

I really wish that it was required that forum participants provide info like age, travel philosophy etc. Sometimes I feel people ferociously defend their way of travel. Yet, we all have different ages, budgets, likes and dislikes. There was one recent thread regarding how to get to city center from CDG. It is very simple by taxi, and I would argue pretty darn simple by train and metro as well. People were so insistent that the right thing to do was to take the 55 euro taxi vs. the RER which ends up being about 10Euro, and I don't recall that we knew much about the circumstances of the OP. That difference is huge for someone like me that travels a lot (and would like to do even more) and has four kids in college/grad school. After the insistence of some of the posters, I really actually felt that people thought I was crazy/stupid/cheap to not just take the taxi and felt like I had to justify my position. Then I told myself, that I'm not responsible for the OP. I should present the info and let them make their own decisions. The same with planning itineraries. As one that travels a bit differently than most on the forum, I am reluctant sometimes to share trip reports. BTW, on my last trip to Vienna (the first for my girls(age 20)) we only spent 2 days. We were in Europe for almost a month, and spent time in four countries plus a day trip (GASP) to Munich. It was a fabulous trip. Were Munich and Vienna "shortchanged", yes, probably, but there were choices to be made.

I am 65. We have done 3 or 4 cities in a week at times and here is what works for us:
1)Taxis from train or airport so we aren't trying to locate the hotel encumbered by luggage. (There are exceptions when the hotel is really close to public transportation)
2)Schedule the short stay places at the beginning of the trip before we're tired.
3) Schedule longer stays in big spread-out cities like London and Rome that require a significant outlay of both physical and mental energy just to get to the places you want to see. Naufplio, Rothenburg, Salisbury and Bath are ok for one night; Fussen and Florence are easy with two.
4)Guided tours for sightseeing-example: Rabbie's tour to Highlands from Edinburgh or Glasgow, Mad Max tours from Bath
5) Packing cubes are your friend and minimizing luggage is essential.

We have also done bus tours on several occasions and it is definitely less tiring when you have help with your luggage and don't have as much planning to do and much of your transportation is provided.

Jules has said exactly what I would :p
We have been able to afford travel for the past few summers with three tw/een kids, of a month or longer, and we do move more than the RS forum average. But I always feel sated on a place at the pace we go. I have never felt shortchanged. Then last summer we slowed down and did more of a base + day trips approach and did not enjoy that. So this summer its back to a faster, or at least more linear pace. As someone said, our version of a holiday is adventure; sitting on a beach, or sitting anywhere for long (even a restaurant) makes us bored and antsy. But we are also not site-tickers. So its not a blaze of top-places-to-see, but a balance between the top places we want to see, and other more prosaic activities. That said, I can imagine that when the kids move out, we may slow down (but maybe not).

I also agree with Jules that knowing people's backgrounds would be helpful in putting advice in context. Before Europe, we spent our summers road-tripping thousands of miles, and backpacking (literally off the beaten path, until Wild, and now even that is getting Disney-fied). On our first trip to Europe, it was a novelty for my kids to not be sleeping on the ground (I think my son said "if I get a bed I dont care what we do!"). So packing and unpacking, setting up tents and taking them down, living out of a backpack, well, a pace of 2-3 nights at a time in a hotel feels almost luxurious ;)

Some people bore easily. Blitz travel is a good option to them. Others love trains, so warning them that their rushed itinerary will involve lots of hours on a train is not the deterrent others might consider it to be.

Jules, personal information is provided on the profile page. Not everyone has completed it, hint, hint.

@fasteddie - but staying somewhere 2-3 nights doesnt mean that you forego trains to get to the next destination. In fact, trains and cars can be just the right amount of downtime - a few hours with nothing else vying for attention but passing fields and maybe a card game until the next "want to see..."

@Jessica, Oh my goodness we are kindred spirits! We've traveled all over the U.S. with tents and sleeping bags. My kids are all in their 20s, and they all would say, beds are really nice, but, oh the places you can see from a tent!

I think some of it may very well be the fact that many US citizens rarely get a lot of paid vacation time. For many people 7-10 days might be it. Even when someone does have a job which provides more paid time off, many people find it impossible to take a large chunk of time off work because of staffing issues or fears that they will somehow be perceived as less dedicated to their job.

Also I wonder if a factor for many people is the size issue. Here in the US (as well as places like Canada and Australia), we're used to covering large distances to go from one end of the country to another. (I used to drive 3 hours/day, just to/from work.) I've read more than one article talking about how much shorter distances are in Europe from one country to another. This could easily give a false sense of how much distance can be (comfortably) covered in a single day.

And I don't think that we all have the same concept of travel. For some people, a one week trip to Europe may truly be the only big trip they can see in the foreseeable future because of how long it took them to save that much. Some people just want to tick off boxes and say, 'been there, done that' on their master bucket list. And some people have learned that there is something to be said for a slower pace of travel.

I have done multiple cities in one day. I have done trips where I stayed in the same place for 2-3 days. I now prefer to take a slower approach to trips. Before my first trip to Europe, I would not have believed that this is a good way to travel. But now...I do. But we all have our own priorities and ways of doing things.

SJ,
Okay, I'll bite and report back to the Forum.

We have done the fast version of travel, and we LOVED IT! (At times in our life when we could not be gone for much over a week.)

We have done the slower version of travel, and we LOVED IT!

We have done the stay beachfront, wake-up-each-morning, and decide what to do type travel, and we LOVED IT!

We have cruised (small ship), and we LOVED IT!

I think each trip each individual has to decide what it is they are trying to accomplish, plan to meet their OWN expectations.

We each need to be careful not to judge another traveler's priorities.

I have received criticism from Forum posters in the past, a few telling me I was approaching my trip the wrong way or not allowing enough time in xyz city. But, it was our choice to do what we saw as priorities, and in that particular situation we had some top priorities in a few different places.

I recall making friends with a couple few years ago who were also staying at Caneel Bay. They seemed very disappointed we did not want to take a taxi tour of the island with them or go into town another time. They were great people, we just had different priorities........sit, relax, snorkel, eat, repeat.....and we very kindly explained that this trip was different for us We had been there before on a previous trip, doing those exact things they wanted to do (which were great), and we knew this time we just wanted to savor our beach-front cottage room....a location we had always dreamed of enjoying....and that is exactly what we did. We paid for a premium location, and we were going to enjoy it!! It worked for us. Other trips, we were like the couple, staying in a less premium spot at Caneel, taking in all the new things...seeing what we had not seen before. Just different priorities at different times. That's how it is for different people going to Europe at different times.

For us, when we are doing the multi-city thing, it works best to have at least a few two night stays mixed in with a few one nights.
We have also been known to hire a few private drivers, to allow more enjoying of the countryside and reduce the stress of driving (especially on the wrong side of the road). But, that said, in the right locale, oh how wonderful it is to settle in for an entire week!!

S.J.

You know, I sort of understand the really, really fast itineraries by young people. Sometimes the adventure is the travel as much as the destination. From Istanbul to London in 3 nights! Like a race against the odds. Not my cup of tea mind you, but I do sort of get it. But then there are some who might think me crazy for sitting on a river bank in some tourist void backwoods; fly rod in hand, for day after day. Go figure. What works for a person, works for a person.

Oh, and I love our RS representative defending 5 cities in a week. Sort of has to all things considered. But I do have to say many of the RS tours sound pretty well put together for "over view" trips; even those with 5 cities....

I am one of the people that move fairly fast and very rarely spends more than 3 nights in a place.

I just returned from a 13 night trip to C Rica, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras that had me spend 1 night on the plane and the remaining 12 nights spread across 8 different places. I was looking to visit specific sites and definitely didn't go in trying to see everything.

My intent is more to sample different places and to return if I have more to see. Some of the places I go to have one major site to see which doesn't take more than a day (e.g. Tikal in Guatemala or Copan Ruins in Honduras) unless one is really deep into Mayan architecture and history.

This is my style of travel and it suits me well and I have been doing this for over 20 years. I have covered a fair bit of the globe traveling like this. I tend not to post any trip reports (though I did promise some folks to post about my trip to Belarus from this summer) since too many on this forum believe that their way of traveling (slowly) is the only acceptable way and any other is incorrect.

Edited to add - as James E said - I am one of those folks for whom it isn't all about the destination but more about the journey. I also posit that I do see a lot especially how people live and interact by being on the move.

SJ's interesting question has got us all to thinkin'. We were once chatting with a young female tourist from mainland China who was then visiting Canada. She told us something that blew our minds. She described for us her fave experiences in the dozen different American cities that she'd just been to before Canada. I therefore assumed that her time frame had been a month or so, and said as much. Nope.
Her tour had been 15 days long!
I am done. The end.

My first trip to Europe was a blitz...perfect at the time. Critically pointing out impossible itineraries are just that is one thing, but what appears to be a hyper-itinerary may be fine. I still travel WAY too fast for many grizzled posters with one night stays common....so what?

There are those towns and cities only worth 2 or 3 nights, some small places worth only a day trip , others 2-4 nights. It depends on what is of interest in each place or if I am there to track down some particular site.. When I visited Malbork as a day trip from Gdansk, the original purpose was only to see the castle. After doing that I wanted to stay longer to explore the town instead of walking back to the station to get back to Gdansk. For that we would have had to stay the night.

If I land in Paris solo after the trans-Atlantic flight, I take the RER.

The difference in time off from work is one of the major factors in trip duration I believe. Now that I'm self employed I can take time off whenever I want (within reason) however when I was in the police I had 35 days paid leave a year not including public holidays and my wife had a similar amount. That meant that we could easily take two weeks in the summer for the cost of 10 days, a week at Easter and a week during the autumn half term and still have enough time to take long weekends and explore various European cities. Some years we'd even roll over our leave because we couldn't take it all. Because of this a two week summer holiday was one spent relaxing in one location, a lot of beach and pool time along with waterparks/themeparks with the kids. The most we ever moved about was a trip to California where we started in San Francisco, a few days close to Sequoia NP and then up to Lake Tahoe however the weather was quite poor there so we booked a last minute Homeaway and spent a week in Lodi. That was as rushed as we've ever been and was a stark contrast to the two weeks spent at West Palm Beach the following summer.

We're fortunate enough to be able to visit anywhere in Europe within a 4 hour window so that is why I prefer our city breaks to consist of long weekends. I find this length of time to be just right and if I want to return then it's easily done. I've been to Rome countless times, I love the city but I wouldn't want to spend two weeks solid there and if I had travelled all the way from the US and only had a week in Italy I'd probably be tempted to squeeze as much in as I could and invariably do too much.

Some places you can see the key sites in a day, others may take a week.

Places like London, Paris, Rome, Athens, Madrid, require far more than a day. Most would call for several days.

We have lived in Europe and traveled widely and take cruises to visit places that are not easy to get to and one day is enough.
For example, a Greek Island cruise is great to visit several wonderful places like Santorini, Mykonos and more.

When you plan a trip and identify where you want to go, research what there is to see and detail what you want to see, then figure out how many days it takes to see it. For example, going to Paris doesn't just involve visiting Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. A visit to the Lourve is a must see, as well as going to Versailles, the left bank and lots more.

We did our 2nd trip really fast - lots of one night stays (we did have 21 nights I think, not counting our arrival/departure) - really, how do you give Munich at Oktoberfest only one night?! We had 3 one night stays in different places in Switzerland. This was mostly at the urging of my husband who wanted to see as much as we could - and yes, people totally underestimate how much time getting to and from your accoms takes, or to and from the train stn. Munich was such a blur (by the time we got there the evening before - because we spent more time in Augsburg with our amazing couchsurfing host - we had no time to go into the old area - the next day, we had to leave at 4pm for Salzburg, giving us - oh, 8 hrs or so) that looking at photos later, hubby totally forgot we were there.

I do have some great memories from that trip - mostly because we had some great times with our couchsurfing hosts - and didn't think it was a waste, per se - it just really whetted my whistle to go back and see these places again (still didn't get back to Switzerland tho...or Munich). And also made me realize slower is better. Even now when planning, hubby will say - do we really need 5 nights in Amsterdam, or a whole week in Provence? - and I'll just say "Munich".

Here was our itin on that trip - read it and weep...
Fly into London (direct options to Europe from Halifax are few and far between), train to Paris upon landing - 3 nights Paris (first visit, included a U2 concert).

One night in Strasbourg, but we daytripped to Arras/Vimy Ridge first from Paris - leaving us all of about 4 hrs the next morning to see Strasbourg.

One night in Augsburg.
One night Munich.
Two nights Salzburg.
Overnight train to Venice (which left at 1 or 2 am - ugh), then 3 nights there (our 2nd visit to Venice).
Two nights Milan w/day trip to Lake Como
One night each Spiez, Bern, Zurich
Fly to London, 2 nights.

Train to Portsmouth for a sister visit - 2 nights
Back to London for one more night before flying home.

Yeah - crazy.

My first 2 week trip to Europe was a whirlwind and way, way too much time on a bus for an 18 yr old. However, I still had a great time and I believe sparked the travel bug.
Honestly, 2-4 nights in most places is good for me, but certain places need longer, like London, Paris etc.
I am just happy to keep on travelling!😀
Aren’t we all so very fortunate?

Oh and agree with Barbara—please post info on your profile page. How many times I have looked at regular forum members profile to find out more about them and then —nothing, no info.😆
Many on this thread are guilty!

James, I said, "small towns," with emphasis. The distinction could not be any more clear, in my opinion.

My first career was playing in a rock band. Back then, my independent travels often inspired my songwriting. One such song was called 'Whirlwind Traveler' (think heyday 'Yes' style from the '70s) while another, grittier number was titled (sorry Rick) 'Lonely Planet'. There exists a demo for the latter, collecting dust somewhere. There were several songs created during travels.
I am done. The end.

Some interesting observations.
Thanks everyone.
In answer to Laura's question: that trip where we did 5 cities /places in about two weeks in 2003 was as follows.
(It was my husband's first trip to Italy, and he wanted to see everything. I had been before.)
Landed in Rome, 3 n. there.
Train to La Spezia, 3 n. there.
Train to Florence, 2 n. there.
Train to Venice, 2 n. there.
Then... I had forgotten that we took a plane from Venice to Prague and back for 3 n. !
It cost E9 each way, so we HAD to do that.
One night back in Venice, then train to Milan , 1 n. there and flew home.
We didn't feel too rushed, as we had planned it all out carefully; but I loved Florence so much that I have been back there 8 times since.
We are a bit older now, and like to stay somewhere for at least a week, maybe more, and make it "home".
Everyone is different, that's what makes the world go round.
In Canada, we get fairly decent vacation allowances.
By the time I retired, I had 12 weeks per year, working as a nurse.
I do feel for those who love to travel, but only get two weeks per year.
I can certainly understand packing a lot into a trip in those cases.

S J, how wonderful that you get such generous vacation time! My sister in law is a hard working nurse and after 30 years is still working Thanksgiving or Christmas and gets 2 weeks of vacation. Its really not right, is it? I do love the feeling of being a "resident" of a place even if its just a week or so.

I've never been an advocate of bucket list travel and thus I have never done it but there are those who love it. To each her own.

What is bucket list travel??

SJ, thanks for getting back to us. And thanks also for this topic, it sure sparked a lot of opinions.
Where to next in Italia?
I am done. The end.

Great conversation! I wrote a review of my new osprey fairview in "packing" this summer that triggered a couple of strong reactions, one of which was a conversation about my 6 locations in 13 nights trip up the eastern seaboard. (visiting various friends) anyway, part of that conversation was that some of us have less flexible job/vacation schedules.
In 2014 I traveled thru Italy and Slovenia w 3 friends, we changed locations every 2 nights. Here's some of the variables that made this make sense to us. 3 of us had traveled in Europe a fair bit before, two had extensive exposure to Italy (tho varenna was new for all if us, thank you, Rick steves.) Two of us are in jobs that any days off require getting colleagues to cover not only scheduled shifts but craziness making trading of on call days. The four of us live in four different states, have been friends for more than 30 years (OMG) so actually the train journeys eating trail mix and sipping coffee and having long conversations were some of the best parts of the trip. In all of that, the only thing we could have done better is this.... the first 2 nights of the trip were in the middle of florence (near the duomo), so the 4 us shared one family room. The rest of the trip we had 2 rooms. the 1st night after the trans Atlantic flight was NOT a good time to have so many of us in one bedroom, seems like someone was up to bathroom or to rustle in luggage every 30 minutes.

So again, LOTS of variables factor into the ways any of us structure our travels.

The more I read “Jessica”s responses to this thread the more I realise I may be normal.
Travelling as a family of 5 none of us likes to sit around doing “nothing”. Our best friends love to sit on a beach for two weeks doing nothing, I couldn’t think of anything worse. We love an action packed voyage with a day off every 5 days or so.
Living in Australia we are used to long trips, it can be easily over 60km one way to get to work, for us Europe is like travelling to different parts of Melbourne every few days.
And yes we do have kangaroos in the back yard- well where I live anyway, a family of 17 at last count.

For me - bucket list travel is going some place for a certain thing - eg, I've been to Venice 4 times, but have Venice at Carnivale on my 'bucket list' (and thought I was going to scratch it off this year, but I'm getting a puppy instead - I'll allow it). We've been to Provence twice, but I've always wanted to go during lavender time, so last year, I scratched that off my 'bucket list'. I wanted to go to NL at tulip time...done. Some year, I want to go to Xmas markets in Europe...an African safari is on there. It's just SPECIFIC things that I want to experience, so we plan parts or all of our trips around that...

Although, the OP did say "cramming cities...", and I would [almost] never jump from city to city with 2-3 nights stays (as has been mentioned). My ideal itineraries toggle back and forth between city and smaller towns, because 4-5 days in a city, site seeing, can start to overwhelm, and then getting into a smaller, slower paced environment is good for a breather before visiting another city (still site seeing and active but with fewer crowds and more physical/psychic space). That said, 4 days in a city is enough for me. Even if there's more to see, I tend to want that breather, so figure I'll have to return. Ive been to Paris 3x now, once for 4 days, once for 3 days, and once for one day (to fly out, which totally serendipitously happened to fall on the day the Tour de France enters Paris for the final ride, and my husband is a cycling fanatic!), each time doing different things, and I haven't yet been to Montemarte or the Sacre Coeur! Thats ok

1-night stops can be worked into an itinerary, as long as you're not doing it the entire trip.

Because of time constraints, I once "visited" Rothenburg ob der Tauber for about 2 hours en route from Frankfurt to Neuchwanstein, where I toured the main castle that late afternoon; dinner in Fussen and then on to Munich the next morning. Would have liked to have stayed longer in both locales that trip, but better than not visiting at all. And, it was still a great trip.

Personally my GF and I tend to travel quite fast and we ofte have one or two night stops. I dont think it is necesarrily about how many stops or how long they are that matters, but also the distance between them. A lot of these itineraries tend to be all over the continent, but what Americans and Australians tend to overlook is that Europe is much denser than what they are used to. If you travel 100 km in the States or Oz, you might not pass anything interesting. In Europe you might spend a whole week within that 100 km radius and still not run out of things to see.
Over the years we have tended to limit ourselves to smaller regions when we travel. We still make short stops, but spend less time in transit.
With that being said in this regard I know I have the luxury of Living in Europe and having already seen a lot of the continent. I dont have to see it all in one go. My first trip on my own was also one where i tried to cover all (Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Munich and Prag in one month on interrail.). I have tried that but gotten wiser over the years.

I have gone to numerous towns/ places "for a certain thing, " at least initially, before I decided to visit and explore the town. That "certain thing" is the paramount reason for going there in the first place, such as in France...Reims, Chateau-Thierry, Gravelotte/Lorraine, Cambrai, Paris, Fontainebleau, Neuville St Vaast, Albert/Somme, Vimy, Bayeux, Meaux, , etc, etc.

Likewise in Germany...Lüneburg, Neustrelitz, Marburg, Wesel am Rhein, Sigmaringen an der Donau, Dortmund, Rastatt, Heidelberg, Bonn, Leipzig, Wustrau/Brandenburg, Neuhardenberg, Seelow, Lübeck, Weimar, and above all, (west) Berlin on the first trip in 1971, (basically, unthinkable being in Germany or Europe without going to Berlin), Munich, Potsdam, etc, etc.

The event, the crlebration, a holiday; perfect excuse to go some place. I love to explore, and it reduces the risk of a dud trip. I might have avoided Bulgaria for a few more years if it were not for the rose festival; and Ukraine's 25th anniversary of independence brought me to Kyiv the first time. I've returned to both several times since. The next trip to Montenegro will be centered on a fishing tournament and I plan trips to Budapest around holidays and events when ever possible. I will trade 100 European church tours for one festival.

'I will trade 100 European church tours for one festival'----love it, outstanding James!
I am done. The end.

"I will trade 100 European church tours for one festival."

Thankfully they aren't the only options available. I'm more than happy to avoid another dreary, samey church and even happier to avoid crowds of locals & pretend locals folk-dancing. Fortunately, most places worth visiting have one sight different to elsewhere and loads of cafes, pubs, bars or restaurants to visit. I'd happily skip Easter fiestas and gothic cathedrals in Spain, but I wouldn't want to miss the Alhambra or tapa.

I always pop into just about every church as I walk around; as you never know what you might find.
Once in Lucca I was early to meet someone, so I opened the door of a church nearby, thinking to just sit quietly for a minute out of the sun.
Inside I found 31 elderly nuns, and every single one was sitting there snoring away gently!
I backed out and closed the door softly. :))