Fast and furious or slow and steady – what’s your travel style?

People like me (that is to say, people with sociology degrees) tend to be fond of breaking large groups down into two or three generalities for easy discussion purposes. It’s a kind of stereotyping, and usually not the best way of understanding people, but it can sometimes be helpful in the beginning. When we travel it’s natural to do this without even thinking – when we encounter new cultures we’ll try to “make sense” of them by trying to assign labels we’re already familiar with. But how often do we turn that magnifying glass back on ourselves?

A BootsnAll Community member calling herself GingerSpesh has boiled down the world of vagabonders into two groups – you’re either the kind of person who’s on the go all the time, or you’re the kind of person who hangs out in a few places for longer periods.

I look at the list of all the places I want to go and there are just so many! I am worried that if I plan a go-go-go trip that although I will see a lot, it will become a bit of a blur and I will probably burn out.

So I wondering how you planned your RTW adventure – did you move on regularly, just spending 2-3 days at each place or did you just pick a few main places to visit and spend several weeks in one spot, really getting to know the area?

Again, being a sociology major, I can see the value of GingerSpesh’s question, and I think she’s got a point – even short-term travelers tend to fall into one of those two camps. It seems to most of the people who’ve replied, however, that people who travel for longer periods of time end up doing a little of both depending on what suits them at the time.

Certainly there are many ways to approach travel of any duration, and pros and cons to each. And while it’s a great idea to seek the advice of people who’ve gone before you, it’s probably even more important to remember that your journey is your journey – you alone get to make the rules.