Chill days
"You have to do X while you're here." I can't count the number of times I've heard that, from other travelers or people touting tours on the street. You can't come to this city and not go to this museum, or this waterfall, or this temple. Yeah? Watch me. The reality is, my travels are my own, and I don't have to answer to anyone or live by anyone else's itinerary. I can't spend two or three days in each city I visit, or do 29 countries in 29 days. It's not fun for me. I need chill days. Sometimes, I even need chill weeks.
Don't get me wrong, I do love doing the touristy stuff and visiting the "must-sees" most of the time. But for me, it's way more important to take my time. If there are a few attractions that are each several kilometres away from where I'm staying, I'll take a whole day to visit each of them and walk, rather than get a tuktuk to cart me around to all of them in one day. As a result, I tend to spend much longer in some places than a lot of people, since I usually intersperse some rest days where I sit on a beach or a bench and read a book, or even just hang out at my accommodation because I'm doing laundry.
I decided early on that I wanted to try to spend at least a week in each place I chose to go. This became a nice rule of thumb to live by, as it constrained me to pick the few places in each country where I most wanted to visit, instead of trying to cram a bunch of cool-sounding places in. Of course, if I got to a place and decided it wasn't really for me, I would spend less time there, and, contrarily, if I really liked it, I would spend longer. The latter happened early on in Koh Tao, Thailand. I had planned to do a bit of "island hopping" to get some beach time early on in my trip, but once I learned how to dive, I really enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of the first island and made some friends, so I ended up staying for a week and a half, about twice as long as I had planned. I didn't even end up visiting the other islands in the area. It happened many other times during my trip as well, including my last stop, Chiang Mai. Most backpackers visit Chiang Mai and then take the three hour trip to Pai for a few days, but I was enjoying Chiang Mai and wasn't keen to add two more travel days in my final few weeks out here, so I thought, "Why not just stay?"
As a result, I got some incredulous looks from fellow travelers sometimes when I told them how long I had stayed in some places, and all the things I hadn't done. "You were in Hoi An for a week and you didn't even go to My Son or the caves?" Nope, I just loved the atmosphere. "Wow, you spent 10 days in place X? I was there for one night and found it boring." I even spoke with a few fellow travelers who hadn't spent longer than 3 days in any one destination in months of traveling, and were clearly exhausted. Most of the time, others were envious that I was spending so long in each place: "You're so lucky. I was only there for 3 nights but I loved it. I wish I had stayed longer but I only have two weeks here so I had already booked a flight/train/bus to my next destination." It reminded me how fortunate I am to have enough time out here to try to get to know some of these places at least a little bit - long enough to have some shop or restaurant owners recognize me, sometimes even know my order, and to get to know the staff at the hostel where I'm staying, and long enough to know for sure that I want to come back one day.
One of the nicest parts of traveling on my own was that I could have chill days whenever I wanted, without disappointing a friend or feeling guilty about it. If I wanted to spend a beautiful afternoon reading a book, getting a massage, or laying on the beach with a smoothie, instead of really "seizing the day" and going to a "must-do" tourist attraction, I could. It also taught me to just slow down in general, and not try to cram so many activities into a little bit of time, which is what I do at home a lot. I learned to enjoy getting a haircut instead of seeing it as a chore, of just wandering around for hours with no particular destination until realizing the sun was almost setting and I hadn't eaten lunch yet, of getting lost in a novel or a conversation and completely ignoring my to-do list for the day. Hopefully, I'll remember these lessons when I get back to the hustle-bustle back home, and once in a while remember to take it slow and relax.
Don't get me wrong, I do love doing the touristy stuff and visiting the "must-sees" most of the time. But for me, it's way more important to take my time. If there are a few attractions that are each several kilometres away from where I'm staying, I'll take a whole day to visit each of them and walk, rather than get a tuktuk to cart me around to all of them in one day. As a result, I tend to spend much longer in some places than a lot of people, since I usually intersperse some rest days where I sit on a beach or a bench and read a book, or even just hang out at my accommodation because I'm doing laundry.
I decided early on that I wanted to try to spend at least a week in each place I chose to go. This became a nice rule of thumb to live by, as it constrained me to pick the few places in each country where I most wanted to visit, instead of trying to cram a bunch of cool-sounding places in. Of course, if I got to a place and decided it wasn't really for me, I would spend less time there, and, contrarily, if I really liked it, I would spend longer. The latter happened early on in Koh Tao, Thailand. I had planned to do a bit of "island hopping" to get some beach time early on in my trip, but once I learned how to dive, I really enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of the first island and made some friends, so I ended up staying for a week and a half, about twice as long as I had planned. I didn't even end up visiting the other islands in the area. It happened many other times during my trip as well, including my last stop, Chiang Mai. Most backpackers visit Chiang Mai and then take the three hour trip to Pai for a few days, but I was enjoying Chiang Mai and wasn't keen to add two more travel days in my final few weeks out here, so I thought, "Why not just stay?"
As a result, I got some incredulous looks from fellow travelers sometimes when I told them how long I had stayed in some places, and all the things I hadn't done. "You were in Hoi An for a week and you didn't even go to My Son or the caves?" Nope, I just loved the atmosphere. "Wow, you spent 10 days in place X? I was there for one night and found it boring." I even spoke with a few fellow travelers who hadn't spent longer than 3 days in any one destination in months of traveling, and were clearly exhausted. Most of the time, others were envious that I was spending so long in each place: "You're so lucky. I was only there for 3 nights but I loved it. I wish I had stayed longer but I only have two weeks here so I had already booked a flight/train/bus to my next destination." It reminded me how fortunate I am to have enough time out here to try to get to know some of these places at least a little bit - long enough to have some shop or restaurant owners recognize me, sometimes even know my order, and to get to know the staff at the hostel where I'm staying, and long enough to know for sure that I want to come back one day.
One of the nicest parts of traveling on my own was that I could have chill days whenever I wanted, without disappointing a friend or feeling guilty about it. If I wanted to spend a beautiful afternoon reading a book, getting a massage, or laying on the beach with a smoothie, instead of really "seizing the day" and going to a "must-do" tourist attraction, I could. It also taught me to just slow down in general, and not try to cram so many activities into a little bit of time, which is what I do at home a lot. I learned to enjoy getting a haircut instead of seeing it as a chore, of just wandering around for hours with no particular destination until realizing the sun was almost setting and I hadn't eaten lunch yet, of getting lost in a novel or a conversation and completely ignoring my to-do list for the day. Hopefully, I'll remember these lessons when I get back to the hustle-bustle back home, and once in a while remember to take it slow and relax.
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| Who wouldn't want to spend all day here? (Besides Casey.) |
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| Or here? |
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