I have been to Paris over the May 1 weekend. We stayed in Paris close to a week, we had around 5 days to explore Paris. As we had planned to visit Disney Land, we were effectively having four days to explore Paris. We didn’t plan to visit any other places other than Paris. Many of my friends asked what was there to visit in Paris for so many days. I was surprised hearing this as there are so many places to visit in Paris. I was also following one of my friend traveling in Europe when I was staying in Paris.
His itinerary was completely packed, over a period of two weeks he was continuously sharing photos in watsapp status. I was surprised how many cities he was visiting, it was photos from touristy spots in these places that I came to know of the places he was visiting. Eiffel tower in Paris, royal palace in Brussels, Tulips garden in Amsterdam etc. I was thinking about why people want to do these packed itinerary. Are they really traveling to explore new cultures? Is it even possible to get any meaningful travel experience visiting so many cities in such short duration? European cities offer so much to explore, world class museums, historical sites, public gardens, squares. In my experience a city like Paris takes 3-4 days to even get a feel of it. I had been to Warsaw during the Easter holidays, although there was a temptation to do a one day Krakow trip. I didn’t do it, this gave me ample time to explore the city. I will never forget the city, i had time to visit the key places more than once, in fact the Warsaw square gave a complete different experience in evening compared to how it was during daytime.
Yet people want to do more, they have notion that for money spent visiting more cities is better. This giving importance to quantity over quanlity is a big mistake people do while visiting Europe. The trip ends up being just taking Instagram worthy photos before the usual touristy places. I recently went to the Rodin museum in Paris, i could hardly see any other Indian visiting it. We have a complete lack of understanding about Museums, most Indian friends whom I interact find it boring to visit museums. These are key places to visit in major European cities, without visiting Louvre or Ufizi I don’t think a visit to Paris or Florence is complete.
Also from the eagerness with which people share photos in social networks, it feels like traveling has become more of a social identity. It’s a way to showcase our lives as happening. Even while traveling I could see many people talking their audience in reels. I am not sure how much of these travellers will even travel if there was no social network to showcase.
For me I would say rather than prioritising quantity it makes sense to have meaningful experience. It is important to be open to new places, for example cultural places like museums, churches can be immensely knowledgeable experience especially to children. Otherwise we may go to dozen cities and have photos to post to Instagram but nothing more than that.
Ashok 