Will We Ever Get This Right?
Slow, fast. Fast, slow. Slow, fast, fast, slow, fast, slow.
What exactly is the perfect travel pace? Do you know, because we sure as hell don’t!
We thought we had the recipe figured out for our spring trip. Fly to Rome, stay two nights to begin to ease out of jet lag, do a few things, try to stay awake, and then move on to Vienna.
Nope. Swing and a miss. At least for the beginning of the trip. The rest of the trip was mostly the right pace until we got to the end. More on that later.
Why Start in Rome?
Why Rome, though? There’s a direct United flight from SFO, we’ve been to Rome a few times, so I wouldn’t have FOMO if we didn’t try do ALL of the things while there for 36 hours, and our first itinerary had us exploring Sicily for my birthday right after Rome. Unfortunately, Sicily got nixed by itinerary #3 once we realized it was Easter weekend and we were somewhat stuck with SFO-Rome.
What Went Wrong?
We underestimated the amount of time we needed for the soft-landing we were looking for. Leaving on a Wednesday, arriving on a Thursday, and getting on another plane on Saturday morning was just too much. If we’d gotten on a train instead of a plane, it would have been much easier but we really think we need three nights in our first location for it to be the ideal soft-landing.
We talk all about this in our Jet Lagged in Rome video that is now up on YouTube.
The Middle of Our Trip
The middle of our trip was really well paced. Three nights in Vienna. Train to Budapest. Three nights in Budapest. Flight to Marseille. Four nights in Marseille. Even our city hopping in Tunisia was fine with us staying in three different places over five nights.
The six nights in Madrid were really helpful for us to catch up on life, including videos, and explore the city. Where we stayed helped with that as we worked with the front door open and allowed the neighborhood to come to us.
We didn’t have the entire trip planned when we left California. We booked hotels, Airbnb’s, and cars as we went along with a few exceptions like the Sahara trip, our first nights in Rome, our hotel in Vienna, and our hotel in Paris. This was fine and allowed us to figure out how we felt and what we wanted closer to when we got to a place.
What Happened in Montreal?
We can’t really blame what happened in Montreal on Montreal. We can blame it on our youngest if we really need to since we were at the mercy of their graduation ceremony schedule. At the same time, we have them to thank since we experimented with two things: stair-stepping back to California from Europe, and resting before coming home.
At the time, it felt like we were just waiting for graduation weekend. Looking back, we were giving our bodies and brains a chance to recover before re-entering our normal lives.
What Did We Learn?
And this brings me to what we learned and what we are experimenting with on our next trip.
Saunas, thermal baths, and cold plunges are critical when we travel. They help us rest and recharge as we travel. As we age, we are finding this downtime to be really important for our endurance and sanity.
Our ideal trip is probably closer to 5 weeks than 7. That being said, our fall trip is 7 weeks long but, and this is a big but, we are doing two week solo trips before traveling together for 5 weeks.
We don’t have to have everything planned before we leave California. We trust that we can figure it out. At the end of the day, most things become credit card problems.
We loved the rest time in Montreal and Stowe. We captured content in Montreal the first few days and then once we hit graduation weekend, we stopped filming for the channel. It took some getting used to but eventually we did and it was great. We could just be. We got to be regular ol’ parents at graduation and take pictures for our family and ourselves.
Stopping in Montreal, Burlington, and Stowe on the way back really helped reduce our jet lag on the return trip.
We didn’t try to overdo it while in Montreal not just because it wasn’t our first time there, but because the weather wasn’t great. We had work to do and we both got mostly-caught up before we landed in California making our re-entry easier.
I need to lower my expectations. As we left Marseille for Tunisia, my mantra was, “lean into the chaos.”
What Are We Experimenting With Next?
To further test the stair-step return, we plan to fly from Paris to Montreal, rent a car, and spend 4 nights in Mont-Tremblant near a spa with thermal baths and saunas before returning to California. The place doesn’t need to be fancy but it does need good WIFI, a parking space, a small kitchen, and relatively easy access to a spa.
We are building our itinerary around places that have saunas, thermal baths, and the like. Most of our fall trip is in Scandinavia and the Baltics so this should be relatively easy to test.
We are starting our trip with two solo weeks. We have no idea what to expect from this part of the experiment. Although, we have done this before when Zeke rode from Munich to Venice and I spent two weeks in Strasbourg. That trip was also 7 weeks but we didn’t like the fast, fast, fast, fast, sloooooowwww approach.
While we are on Itinerary #9 with a detailed breakdown of cities to visit and ways to get there, we might actually wait until we meet up in Copenhagen to plan the next leg of our trip. Zeke will have spent 2 weeks cycling in the Netherlands and I will have spent two weeks in France at a chateau writing, and we don’t know what condition we will be. We’ve proven that we can plan and execute on the fly (Nancy, Loire Valley, Brittany) and it didn’t cost us more to do it. Well, except for the French Alps outside of Annecy.
We are not going to overdo it and try to see and do everything, everywhere we go. We are going to lean into the slower pace of Scandinavia and the Baltics, limiting ourselves to specific museums, parks/gardens, and local sauna experiences. The theme includes art, gardens, saunas, and gorgeous scenery.
Since we aren’t “overdoing” it, I am planning on starting each morning with time to work, write, and do social media. We aren’t doing any video editing while on the road.
What Aren’t We Testing?
There will be no soft landing on this trip. We fly into Amsterdam, I will stay one night after going to the Rijksmuseum (the only thing I am doing in Amsterdam), and then I’ll be taking the train to Paris for a night and then to Chaumont for the artist in residence program. I don’t know how long Zeke plans to be in Amsterdam before he ventures out on a bike. He may do a soft landing and I am forcing him into a museum on day one.
We haven’t built in rest days like we had in Marseille and Madrid. That was really great but doesn’t fit into this trip.
Will This Experiment Ever End?
Probably not. Or not until we stop traveling which hopefully won’t be for a long time. Will we ever get it right? We all know the answer to that.
Maybe getting it "right" isn't really the point. Maybe the point is paying attention, adjusting, and building trips that fit who we are now instead of who we were ten years ago.
What About You?
Do you have the perfect travel pace? Are there things that consistently work for you that you won’t compromise on? Things you absolutely won’t do anymore?
Drop us a line and let us know at zekeandterri@gmail.com.
This Week’s YouTube Video:
🎥 Jet Lagged in Rome We thought two nights in Rome would be the perfect soft landing before the rest of our spring trip. We were wrong.