What I Learned After Traveling For 7 Days Straight
7 Days of intense traveling around Switzerland and Austria
Traveling without a break is hard.
That’s it. I’ve just called out the elephant in the room.
Before going on this 7-day trip through Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, I didn’t think it would take so much energy from me. I was wrecked after a week, but I’d do it again.
It’s mostly physical I guess, and the mental part comes afterward. Especially when you’re traveling as fast as we did. Way too much information and events to comprehend at the moment.
It’s something that you need to process, but not everybody can do that as well as they might want to. I’m like that.
I hate returning after a holiday or a vacation. Simply because once I get out of travel mode, my mind starts processing everything.
That is what I can’t deal with.
But you’ll learn from that as well.
You Can’t Travel 7 Days In A Row Without Rest
You might argue you can travel 7 days in a row — or even more.
It’s exhausting.
We started traveling on Friday and arrived back home one week later, that’s without any breaks. We started at 7:37 AM and arrived in Zürich around 12 hours later.
That’s a lot of sitting on a train if you’re not used to that. But the next day was absolute chaos and broke me. Physically.
We left our hotel at 8 AM and were back at 10 PM, that’s 14 hours of non-stop travel and carrying heavy bags. We did indeed see some beautiful things like the Swiss mountains and the Lake of Geneva, but were those things worth it?
I’d say yes, but at the beginning of the evening, a headache started to develop and I knew it was due to a lack of hydration and exhaustion.
Should have drank more water.
You Don’t Enjoy As Much As You Want To
If you’re in a hurry, you don’t enjoy most things you come across. So naturally, you won’t enjoy your holiday if you’re rushing from location to location — it’s true.
But afterward, you can look back at a beautiful time.
To fully enjoy your holiday you should stay in one or two places and don’t rush around for a week.
That’s why my girlfriend and I are going to Copenhagen for a week this summer and won’t move all around the country — even though I would do it if I got the chance. But she doesn’t.
It’s Stressful
Having tight planning is stressful, not only when you’re traveling. In every single scenario, you don’t enjoy things when you know you have to do something else.
We hopped from hotel to hotel and had to leave them very early in the morning — we slept through our alarms multiple times though.
Planning the whole thing is stressful as well — don’t underestimate planning a road trip through Switzerland. I did.
Wrapping Up
Just because you want to travel for a longer period doesn’t mean you should do it. I need a break from longer travel for a while now.
That doesn’t mean traveling at all. Just the rushy kind of travel.
My advice would be simple: try it and evaluate your choices afterward. That’s the only way to learn properly. Not by taking my advice for granted and not trying it yourself.
Move out into the world.