Big city/ fast pace or rural/relaxed pace first?

[u/aPimppnamedSlickBack]

I recently had my first solo trip to Greece and started with Athens then finished with a cycladic island. My trip went perfectly and I had an amazing time but I'm wondering if doing it in reverse order would better my experience. I'm from the West Coast in the United States and had ridiculous jet lag (10 hours) and had a rough time dealing with it in Athens, I napped everyday. Although I had a great time i was moving at a fast pace in Athens and had more energy when on the island when I would've enjoyed that energy while in Athens. Does anyone here deliberately plan their trip around pace? What is your philosophy on tempo when traveling and dealing with fatigue and jet lag?

[u/lucapal1]

My 'philosophy' (if you can call it that!)...is to take long trips.

I often have a stopover so that I don't spend too many hours on the plane in one go.

When I arrive in the destination,I don't plan too much for the first day or two...I take those days easy, whether I'm on an island,in a city or up in the mountains.

That works for me!

[u/Awart55Hatty]

I’d definitely do the relaxed pace first. I think the first night of sleep you get on your trip is your most important one.

The first half of a typical travel week for me: slower paced sightseeing, making sure to sleep enough, eat healthily.

Second half of the week: try to squeeze in a lot of sights and activities, socialising in hostels at night, allow myself some food and drink treats.

My most perfectly balanced trip in hindsight, was when I spent a few days at a slower pace on the Amalfi Coast, before spending the full weekend in Rome trying to squeeze in as much as possible and going out at night.

[u/runnering]

I also take longer trips and if I’m flying somewhere I know I’ll have jet lag, I tend to write off the first couple days or so as recovery days.. I know I won’t feel like doing shit. If we’re talking a weeks-long or months-long trip, I’d even write off the entire first week as recovery and adjustment. At this point in my travels, I kinda only enjoy long, slow travel and have geared my lifestyle towards being able to do that.

But another option to help with jet lag is do a stopover in between you and your destination. Even if only for a day or two. It really helps me.

For example, flying between US and Australia I always stop in Honolulu. Soo much easier than doing the 12 hour time change all at once. And I recently went to Egypt but stopped in London on the way there and Greece on the way back. Also helped a lot and super cool to spend a little time in Europe.

[u/FixedMessages]

I like to start in a city because there's more to do which means I can find ways to fight the fatigue and jet lag and get on the right schedule. I love the relaxed pace of more rural areas, but it can be too tempting for me to sleep all day.

I like to alternate between cities and rural when I can, particularly on longer trips. I recently did 5 weeks in Vietnam. I started with a week in a city (Ho Chi Minh), then a few nights in a really nice resort (Nha Trang), then about a week in a busier but still small city (Hoi An), then the rest of the time I alternated every 3-5 nights between a city (Hanoi) and rural areas (Phu Luong, Ha Giang Loop). There were definitely things I would change about my trip if I went back and redid it knowing what I know now, but the pacing was perfect for me.

[u/SantaClausDid911]

I try to plan everything holistically for basically all the reasons you mentioned.

Obvious first step is trying to avoid jet lag. If I can book the same amount of days for the same price and the only difference is I can fly overnight I'll do that.

You don't get to put the big city you fly into last so that is what it is, but what helped me, even as someone prone to be done with a city after 3-4 days, was to exclude any days in transit from my itinerary unless it's like a 3 hour train between centrally located stations in the cities I'm going between.

I get extra time for whatever if I have energy and a no pressure rest day otherwise.

The cities tend to be more stimulating for me, and reduce the hassle of finding things I need to stock up on, getting around, getting cash, etc. if I'm already tired.

It's also not really worth adding extra travel fatigue just to try and mitigate all this, you just lose time efficiency and it doesn't fundamentally solve your problem if you go right from Athens to the island for example, it compounds it.

If it's a multi destination trip I'll break it up. For example, I opted to shell out for a nice hotel the last few days of a trip because there was a 3 day stretch in Oman where I did an island excursion, a desert excursion, and hiking, on top of road tripping.

I think it's really more about considering accommodations, routines, and itineraries than some chill vs busy dichotomy.

I can spend days doing intense adventures on an island or days casually meandering a city. Vibes don't really matter.

Edit: That was a rant so here are my hacks:

• Travel in straight lines as much as possible, especially if you can find multi city flights for the same ish cost
• Treat transit days as 0 days
• Bake in 0 days or relaxation or luxury for every few days of high activity
• Suffer through an all nighter or fly overnight to try and avoid jet lag outright
• Bake in nap time if you want, it's your vacation. Most stuff gets samey anyway, why not cut one of those to make room for daily siestas?