A lot of my friends have been asking me lately, "Why are you guys hanging out in Singapore for 2 whole months?" Well, it's partly because we've both got work to do, and this is a great place to get work done. It's partly because Jeanne's here (friends!), and her yoga studio, and we've got a sweet apartment, and we're enjoying modern city living. But it's also because we've come to the conclusion that you can only be a "tourist" for so long. After about 3 months of travel, in my opinion, your eyes start to glaze over and you think, "Another Madonna and child/fountain/temple/Buddha/beautiful beach?" And then you start looking for the nearest Hard Rock Cafe where you can get a big glass full of ice with your Pepsi.
So in essence, here in Singapore we're still being bomads. But we're taking a break from the whole tourism thing. Because at some point on these year-long type journeys, you need to hunker down and become a "resident."
And then Joanna dug up a fantastic article from the New York Times on exactly this topic (only discussed with far greater eloquence and aplomb): The Goldilocks Travel Plan. Read it here.
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The New York Times
July 18, 2004
The Goldilocks Travel Plan
By DEBRA A. KLEIN
YOU'RE so lucky,'' a friend tells me, ''you can stay away forever.'' The comment is only partly true. There is nothing actually tethering me to my desk, and I have no family obligations. I'm no George Bailey; I can take off anywhere, at any time with no noticeable effect. Yet I've never spent a year in Provence or even one month in the country. A thousand and one Arabian Nights are probably 980 too many for me. No matter when I leave, it seems, and no matter how artfully I stretch my travel budget, my vacations end in about 21 days.
I didn't set out to be a three-week traveler. To the contrary. In my rich fantasy life I would wander alone for years without end. I knew exactly which high-rise I'd live in as an expatriate in Singapore. In Laos, I'd pick a dilapidated French colonial villa. As I began to travel, however, reality intruded.
After college, I began the traditional summer backpacking through Europe, with visions of cafes and dashing strangers dancing in my head. I attacked London: rowed in Hyde Park, snapped pictures at the palace, ogled the Elgin Marbles and applauded Shakespeare. And that was just the first four days.
Week 2: Paris. The Arc de Triomphe! Notre-Dame! Les patisseries! Art from textbooks came alive within the walls of the Louvre. I did, too.
Week 3-ish: The fast train to Nice. Then the slow coastal train. More art. Another cathedral? One more patisserie?
Staring at the cool stained glass at the Marc Chagall museum on a hill above Nice, my mind was transported, but not in the way the artist intended. I was obsessed with logistics. ''Could I catch a train to Menton tomorrow? What day is it? Tonight I'll have to rinse my clothes in the sink.'
My new-experience tank had filled to overflowing. I had no more available discover-Europe space. Three years working in Washington quickly dulled the overstimulation. I envied a co-worker who made the break: first a month in Africa and then an open-ended around-the-world trip. I wanted to dance with beaded Masai warriors in Kenya, as she had; to sit demurely on the V.I.P. Bench at the Taj Mahal, and not at my desk.
When my lease ran out, I did, too. I took off on my own endless, aimless journey to Central America. I found myself home in exactly three weeks.
By my third day in ungroomed, pre-eco-tour Belize, I had already crashed painfully against Caribbean coral. Day 7, I grabbed a spike-covered branch for balance while hiking, only to learn from the guide that it ''might'' be the kind that implants itself and grows through your skin. A passenger on a canoe trip up the Mopal River in the steamy interior demonstrated why you don't stand up in a boat. He stayed dry, I fell in.
Clawing my way up a ravine to the road in squishing sneakers, it seemed years had passed since I'd last felt air-conditioning. Two weeks of scrapes and bruises felt like a stint in the Peace Corps. I was no longer seeking adventure, just jungle-size Neosporin. And while my wounds healed over the next week in Costa Rica, I still ached -- for home. I made plans to leave.
Over the years, I became a globetrotting Goldilocks, testing vacation lengths to find one that was just right for me. Long and lonely was too big, so I tried short and accompanied.
After I married, my husband, Brad, and I set out for Hawaii with a limited budget. Our 10-day trip was up-tempo and downscale. We sped through Maui scenery. We were the only competitors, yet still losing our own private ''Amazing Race.''
Next trip, we left more time, saved more money and plotted a monthlong South Asia itinerary as precisely as a military campaign. I issued daily briefings. I was the General MacArthur of India's chimerical system of general aviation: 14 flights in 30 days.
First we'd take Sri Lanka, then crisscross India, south, north, west and east, before regrouping in the Maldives. We'd finish by marching triumphantly through the Orchard Road shopping malls in Singapore for a week at the end.
We plunged into life in India's temple city of Madurai, where I soon found myself worshiping at the altar of retail. Tailors made me a sari top. I bought scented and colored bindi powder. I packed and repacked hand-sewn notebooks and cotton place mats all through Madras, Bombay, Goa and Rajasthan.
We hired a private car to drive us (and our souvenirs) to a desert palace outside Jaipur, then boarded a camel for a trek to the hotel's garden and pool. On paper it was going to be an E.M. Forster colonial fantasy. We dismounted to find manicured lawns, turbaned attendants, shade trees and an empty rectangle. The pool had been drained to clean for the next day's visiting dignitaries, we were told. I felt drained, too.
With bags too full for even a stick of incense, and a back sore from weeks of bumpy car rides and rock-hard train seats, that last week in Singapore was less victory march than blister-footed retreat. Still I did bring back one valuable item that didn't fit in my luggage, the answer to my travel riddle: three weeks is just right.
Now, I never envy travelers on never-ending journeys. I find myself questioning their sanity.
Last November, despite grand plans for a solo season in the South Pacific while my husband hopscotched Europe on business, I visited New Zealand, Sydney and Samoa for exactly 21 days. While there, I met three couples on extended around-the-world journeys and pitied their roundabout, unfocused itineraries.
How could David and Chloe, a young couple from England, really marvel at yet another gorgeous vista on their second daylong drive around Savai'i island in Samoa?
And that couple in their 60's taking a two-year trip and fully inhabiting the beach fale -- a thatched-roof doorless hut -- next to mine in Lalomanu on Upolu island, as though it was their summer home. They barely glanced up from their card game, past their laundry, to admire drop-dead scenery. With only a few beach days, I lapped up every moment and could not take my eyes off the dramatic cliffs of Nu'utele, a former leper colony framed by the teal sea.
I met Doug and Connie, Canadians in their mid-40's, riding the evening ferry from Paihia, New Zealand, to historic Russell in the Bay of Islands. They were on a six-month journey, yet when I asked their favorite places, they mentioned convenient campgrounds.
How could any nonstop traveler gorge on something new every day, week, month, year? I can still recall the rumble of the ground from my terrifying visit to the lip of a lava-belching crater in Tanna on an overnight side trip to Vanuatu, and the view of a black sand beach from the top of a hill there. For me, these experiences were memorable because they happened on one precious day out of a short, carefully plotted holiday, and not in a blur of beaches and exotic scenes. After the 10th stunning valley vista, what are these long-term vacationers seeking around the next bend?
Maybe they are looking for that sense of freedom, the chance to determine how they'll spend endless, unstructured days. But for me, vacationing on deadline forces me to organize, compress and plan.
There have been afternoons where I've wanted more time: to linger until sunset; to spend a night at that swank isolated beachfront hotel in Ouvéa, New Caledonia; to wander that French Guiana border town I could see just across the river-bank from Suriname. By not seeing everything, I am saving something for later; making a promise to return, even if my next visits are only armchair imaginings.
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