I Stopped Trying to See Everything When I Travel

There was a time when I felt like I had to make the most of every trip.

And by “make the most of it,” I meant see everything.

If I only had six days somewhere, I wanted those six days packed.

Wake up early.

Go here.

Take the photo.

Move to the next place.

Find somewhere to eat.

Walk another 10,000 steps.

Realize there’s another place nearby that everyone says you absolutely cannot miss.

Add that too.

By the end of the day, I’d be exhausted.

But hey, at least I saw everything, right?

These days, I travel differently.

I still get excited about seeing new places. I still have things I want to do, restaurants I want to try, and places saved on my phone long before I arrive.

But I’ve stopped treating every trip like a checklist I need to finish.

And strangely enough, I think I enjoy traveling more now.

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I Started Noticing This in Seoul

Seoul is exactly the kind of city that can make you feel like you’re missing something.

There is always another neighborhood to explore.

Another café you saved.

Another market.

Another restaurant.

Another place you saw online that suddenly feels like something you absolutely have to see.

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But during my trip, I went back to Myeong-dong twice.

I even went back to the same Ediya Coffee shop twice.

I brought my laptop, did a little work, stayed for a while, and later went out to enjoy the food street at night.

Technically, I could have used that time to explore somewhere completely new.

But I liked being there.

And I think that’s something I’ve learned to appreciate more when I travel.

I don’t always need a new neighborhood, a new café, or another attraction just because I’m in another country.

Sometimes I want to go back to a place I enjoyed the first time.

That used to feel like wasting precious travel time.

Now I think it’s one of the reasons a place starts to feel familiar.

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Kyoto Made Me Feel It Even More

Kyoto was probably an even better example.

We had plans to spend an afternoon seeing more temples.

And let’s be real, when you’re in Kyoto, there’s no shortage of temples you could add to the itinerary.

But we dropped the plan.

Instead, we went back to this restaurant we’d found tucked away in Pontocho, away from the places we originally planned to visit.

Why?

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The wagyu was just soooo good. 😂

We had already eaten there.

We could have tried somewhere new.

We could have continued checking temples off the itinerary.

But I remember thinking, why are we forcing ourselves to do something else when we already know what we actually want to do?

So we went back.

And I don’t regret it at all.

That’s the kind of travel I’ve started enjoying more.

Not doing something because it’s next on the itinerary.

Doing it because I genuinely want to.

Even if I’ve already done it once.

Sometimes making the most of a trip isn’t choosing what you haven’t seen yet.

It’s choosing what you already know you enjoy.

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I Don’t Need to Maximize Every Day Anymore

I think this is what changed.

I stopped trying to maximize travel.

Because somewhere along the way, “making the most of a trip” started meaning something completely different to me.

It doesn’t mean seeing the highest number of attractions possible.

Sometimes making the most of a day means doing three things instead of eight.

Sometimes it means spending two hours somewhere you planned to spend thirty minutes.

Sometimes it means going back to the same café because you liked it there.

Sometimes it means sleeping in.

Sometimes it means changing your plans completely.

And sometimes it means skipping something everyone says you have to see.

I’ve even become comfortable doing that on bigger trips.

On my recent cruise, for example, I skipped a couple of destinations instead of forcing myself to squeeze everything in simply because the ship had stopped there.

Years ago, that probably would have bothered me.

Now?

Not really.

There will always be somewhere else to see.

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Travel Doesn’t Have to Be Productive

Maybe this is also why I don’t love the idea of counting countries just for the sake of counting them.

Or measuring a trip by how many places you managed to visit.

Travel isn’t another productivity challenge.

You don’t get extra points because you saw twelve attractions while someone else saw four.

And nobody is grading your itinerary when you get home.

Yet sometimes we travel as though they are.

We optimize.

We schedule.

We research.

We save hundreds of recommendations.

Then we arrive somewhere beautiful and spend half the trip thinking about where we need to go next.

I’ve done it too.

But these days, I’d rather experience five things properly than rush through fifteen just so I can say I’ve been there.

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I Still Plan My Trips

This doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly become someone who arrives in another country with absolutely no plan.

Definitely not.

I still research.

I still save places.

I still know what I really want to see.

Planning is part of the excitement for me.

The difference is that I don’t treat the plan like a contract anymore.

I leave room.

Room to change my mind.

Room to discover something that wasn’t on Google.

Room to sit somewhere longer.

Room to do absolutely nothing interesting for a few hours.

Because sometimes those empty spaces become the parts of the trip I remember.

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‍Maybe This Is What Slow Travel Means to Me

I don’t know if I’d even call myself a slow traveler.

Sometimes my trips are short.

Sometimes I’m moving between cities.

And all the time work comes with me.

My life doesn’t always allow me to spend over a month somewhere and live like a local, because I still want to be at home.

But I think you can travel slowly without traveling for a long time.

Maybe it’s less about how many days you have and more about how you use them.

You can have six days somewhere and still choose not to race through all six.

You can leave a city without seeing its most famous attraction.

You can sit in a café in the middle of the afternoon when technically you “should” be sightseeing.

You can go somewhere simply because you feel like it.

And you can leave things for next time.

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My Thoughts

The more I travel, the less interested I am in proving that I traveled well.

I don’t need the perfect itinerary.

I don’t need every landmark.

I don’t need to come home saying I managed to see everything.

Because honestly, I never will.

There will always be another street.

Another restaurant.

Another neighborhood.

Another view.

Another reason to come back.

And maybe that’s a good thing.

As I get older, I find myself wanting a different kind of travel.

Less rushing from one place to another.

Less trying to fit everything into one trip.

More time to enjoy where I am without constantly thinking about where I need to be next.

I think I’m choosing peaceful travel over chaotic itineraries now.

And if I don’t get to see everything?

That’s okay.

I can always go back.

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