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Hardcore Itinerary or Go-with-the-Flow Travel

福说
福说

5 days ago

I used to plan out every single location for every moment, trying to squeeze the most value out of my annual leave.

Now that I'm older, I just don't have the energy for that anymore. I only booked the first leg's flights and hotel, plus the return trip at the end of the holiday. Is that too casual? Doesn't really fit the "squeeze every last drop" style of this forum, does it?

This holiday I wanted to cover Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Guangdong, Guangxi, and still make it home to see the family. I ran a few iterations with GPT and it seems like it'd take 24/5 days, with only about 3 days per place. Just planning this is exhausting. I've completely lost that burst of energy I had back in school, when I'd finish finals and still have it in me to go all out on something. Is my travel ED (exhaustion disorder) still not cured?

But I even want to stay somewhere in Southeast Asia for five days to learn PADI diving. Is this Schrödinger's travel ED?

Reference: How to keep travel from losing its fun

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TriangleXY
TriangleXY5 days ago

How far along are you with booking the first leg of your flights and hotel? For the other legs, are you planning to book them on the spot once you're there, or are you going to wait until one or two weeks before departure to look into them?

liangyue
liangyue5 days ago

If you're visiting Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea all in one trip, confirm your visas and entry counts first—otherwise, changing your route at the last minute will be a real hassle.

heyj
heyj5 days ago

Rather than worrying about whether it's too casual, it's better to admit that a trip spanning this many countries simply isn't suited to being squeezed into annual leave. Five days of dive training already takes up one solid block of time, and with only three days in each of the remaining places, the transfers and recovery will eat into the fun. Cutting two regions now will actually bring you closer to the experience you're after.

李梅呀
李梅呀5 days ago

Look at it from another angle: the fact that you don't have the energy to fill your schedule right now might not mean travel ED—it might just mean you're no longer interested in checklist-style itineraries. What you really want to hold onto may be just those few days of diving and that stretch of the journey home.

zhaocaimaofenxi
zhaocaimaofenxi4 days ago

If you're traveling with elderly family members or young children, changing locations every three days is basically unsustainable.

必有后福
必有后福4 days ago

One thing worth recalculating: doing Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, plus Guangdong and Guangxi and then heading home in 24–25 days—just the inter-segment flights and travel time alone will eat up a lot, so you'll want some buffer in both budget and energy. When you say three days each, is that pure playtime or does it include transit? Also, dive courses usually run several consecutive days, so it's best to lock down early how they'll connect with the later legs—otherwise change fees could end up costing more than what you save.