WHEN DO I LEAVE?

Maddie Melcher
Sep 8, 2017
4 min read

The five days I was there in June just happened to be right before the summer downpour in Paris. London and Paris I had scheduled on my trip not knowing how much time would be sufficient in each place. In London I stayed eight days which on the eighth I realized was way too much time...Paris was when I realized how much time is enough time.

HOW LONG IS TOO LONG?

How do you know how long to visit any one place? There's so much to see and do it can be overwhelming at first. Making these decisions (I realized) had more do do with knowing yourself and your interests than checking of boxes on tripadvisor. Some people like art museums, some like to go to the best restaurants, and others like to shop. You can't do it all, and sometimes you might wish you had a little more time in one place than you do. So with the time you've got you have to prioritize. What's important to you?

1. Are you touring Europe or are you visiting one or two places?

This is necessary to determine how many days to stay in one place. Touring Europe from personal experience and asking others what works for them, two to four days in a city is just enough time. Day one you arrive get settled in a hostel or hotel, see/do one or two things then sleep. Day two try and hit the things you really want to do, number one through five on your must see list. Day three is more relaxed do the one or two things you couldn't get to the day before. Day four hop on some transportation and move on to the next city. Granted this is something that worked for me and later my sister and I, however everyone moves at different paces. I suggest doing some research on the places you might want to spend more time in, because there were definitely times where one more day would've made all the difference.

2. What interests you in learning about where you go? Music? Art? History?

Because of your budget or transportation booked months in advance you only have a limited amount of time in a place. It's natural to be a little too ambitious while planing your days, but its necessary to understand you can't do it all and you won't. When people say they "find themselves" traveling they may be referring to the number of decisions you have to make every day. When you live life not thinking about the pressures of work, school, bills you have one goal: to simply enjoy yourself. This means every decision is leading you to this goal. How do you enjoy yourself? What do you want to learn about? The first few days you get the hang of it, a little experimentation. I don't like calamari but I love tapas. Roman history isn't that interesting to me but I loved learning about the Colosseum. Everywhere you go you can learn something. Regardless if you go to a museum or not you'll absorb how things work in every city you go to.

3. Are you looking for nightlife?

Usually most hostels have a pub crawl of some kind they range from 15-27$ or 12-25€. They're not worth it all the time but if you do it once or twice. Huge barrier to break is to ask a local even if you don't speak the language. In most tourist areas it's not hard to find people who speak english. They'll know where the great places to go are.

4. What monuments are the most important for you to see? Why?

Knowing these before the day-of allows you to confirm if any of these attractions 1.cost money to enter 2. require you buy tickets online first and 3. how long estimated wait times may be. In Paris the catacombs usually have a 1-3hr line that can usually be avoided by buying tickets online two to three months ahead of time. That one I hope to warn you about. We never made it to the catacombs or rather inside them because of this horrid line.

The crowd was so aggressive I took this photo holding over an old woman's head, and mine.

I hope all of these topics help you consider the length of stay in any one place. If you're one to just jump blindly into things like me I would hold off this time and put a little time into deciding how long to stay. In London it was exhausting to spend eight days there when to get a feel for the place in just three or four. Being in Paris for a shorter amount of time was a great change. Sometimes leaving wishing you could spend more time there means you left on a good note. You never want to get to the point where you're sick of the place you're visiting. I hope this will help people decide how to spend their time abroad. There's so much out there. This does not debunk any spontaneity, but it might allow you to avoid wasting your time

Here are some of my digital color photo's from Paris!