Two Nights
Over the last four years, I’ve completely reversed my position on travel, amongst other things. When I was in college, I believed that travel was an inefficient use of time, that the only way to properly experience another culture and country was to live there. I believed that travelers were indifferentiable from tourists; I still believe that, but I no longer associate any negative connotation with “tourist”. I have realized that it’s possible to take my habit of short-term travel one step further with an application of the Pareto principle, and now posit that with few exceptions, most cities in the world can be appreciated within no more than two nights.
This year, I’ve been to every continent but Australia and Antarctica a couple of times. Forgive me for counting countries I’ve visited like someone collecting flags to put on their Instagram bio, but it’s important to validate my breadth of experience of these two-night trips: I’ve been to twenty-seven, and many more cities. I’ve only spent more than two nights in two cities I’ve visited this year, and one was to run a marathon, while the other was a five-day ski trip. In many instances, I spent only one night in these cities, and there was not one city I wished I had more time in.
Something important to understand is that cities are places where people live and work. Many of them have some tourist attractions, and some of them have many tourist attractions, but what makes a city world-class are the amenities for its denizens. What makes a city great differs depending on who you ask: it could be food, nightlife, culture, shopping, entertainment, or even transportation. However, a city’s greatness is built to serve its constituents, and impressing its visitors comes second. Thusly, fully enjoying and understanding a city is still impossible as a tourist, but insofar as what can be appreciated as a visitor, I posit that the majority can be found in forty-eight hours.
My standard itinerary is simple: each day consists of attractions bookended by meals and sleep, with no more than two attractions between. A sample day in Barcelona would be: sleep on a red-eye, churros for a late breakfast, Sagrada Familia, walk along La Rambla, Sangria with jamon iberico, trek over to Parc Gueil, seafood tapas for dinner, beach club, and then sleep. Likewise, a complete day in Seoul consist of: ginseng chicken soup for energy, a morning in a jimjilbang to recover from travels, gamjatang with plenty of banchan for lunch, a walk around Gangnam, visit the Imperial Palace while wearing hanbok, snack on some ttkeokbokki or fresh octopus, check out the Dongdaemun Design district, have Korean barbecue for dinner, visit Itaewon, and end up in Octagon before it was time to sleep.
For most cities, there simply aren’t enough attractions, shopping, food or entertainment that are relevant and interesting to all tourists to require more than a two-night stay. If one goes to Lisbon, they can see the lighthouse and the Pena Palace, buy some clothes down Avenida da Liberdade, eat some Pastel de nata, some paella, and then that’s the extent of it. If one goes to Cairo, they can visit the Pyramids, the Egyptian museum, the mosques, buy some evil eye trinkets or lamps, eat some shwarma, fruit with yogurt, and that’s the extent of that as well.
Of course, I’ll have to name the cities that are the exception, not without what I imagine must be some degree of contention. They are, in no particular order: Paris, Rome, New York, and London. There are many cities that I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting, so if your favourite wasn’t named, you can pretend I just haven’t been there yet. This is also not to say that these cities are objectively superior to other cities: although it’s not a coincidence that they all happen to be large, expensive cities, they are in my view, only more attractive for tourists and not necessarily better to live in.
One piece of criticism I want to preempt is the clear Western bias that I have. It’s not that I exclusively like Western cities, but rather my criteria certainly favours them: It’s only these cities that have more than two significant museums and a slew of other tourist attractions to boot. This, combined with top-notch shopping and entertainment options, leads to my belief someone would require more than two nights to get the most out of the city. Regardless of anyone’s criteria however, I still think that there will only be a few cities in the world that would require them to spend more than two nights there.
A few more disclaimers have to be made: owing to my casual attitude towards food, I might have excluded some cities that people think require more than six meals to enjoy. I am also still young, and can get sixteen to eighteen hours of tourism a day, two days in a row, after travel. I appreciate that not everyone can do that, but “Most cities in the world have less than nine worthy tourist attractions and seven non-lousy food options” doesn’t have the same ring to it. I’d also have to add that the cost, both time and money, in reaching these cities isn’t prohibitively high for me; if it cost me any more, I’d certainly spend more time at each of these destinations.
When I see those 14-day, ten-city European tours advertised by North American travel agencies, I don’t think they’re necessarily a waste of time and money anymore. After a while, the churches and museums start blending together anyways. Is the Van Gogh museum really necessary during a one night visit in Amsterdam if the D’Orsay is on the itinerary not even a week later? Best spend that time in the canals and red-light district. Likewise, gone is the assertion that someone needs at least two weeks in Paris to have a good time. Any amount of time in Paris is a good time; they might not be able to do all my favourite things, but they will be able to experience my favourite city.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think. I’m happy to be proven wrong and even happier to provide two-day itineraries for the able-bodied, attraction-focused, jet-setting crowd.
