How many nights do you travel?

[Anonymous]

We have little kids but want to go to California next year. If we fly out of DC, that's 6 hours there and 5 hours back. How do you decide how many nights to go away? I would rather leave ready to come home than wishing I had another day!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have little kids but want to go to California next year. If we fly out of DC, that's 6 hours there and 5 hours back. How do you decide how many nights to go away? I would rather leave ready to come home than wishing I had another day!

Where will you be staying when there? With family, friends, hotel/resort? We go to Orange County once per year to see my spouse's family. When we tried staying for 5-6 nights we found ourselves wishing we stayed longer... and when we've stayed longer than 8 nights we find ourselves more than ready to go home. Most times our visits to CA include 3-4 nights at a resort to break things up and enjoy the beach or a wine region with family.

So, for us, the sweet spot is 7-8 nights if we are doing some combination of staying with family and a resort/hotel. If you don't go to CA often and want to check out more you could easily stay 8-10 days... but if your kids are really little I think you might find that a bit exhausting if they aren't used to long vacations.

[Anonymous]

I have found that after a long trip I like to have a day after the return to regroup, do laundry, get over jet lag. So i prefer to come back on a Saturday so I have a day before the work week starts.

That said, the length of the trip depends on where we are going and what we are doing. Our next trip is 10 nights (1 of which in on the flight over). But I often do 5-6 night trips.

[Anonymous]

It depends on our schedules but for a real vacation as an opposed to a long wknd trip, I try to go away for a week - Sat to Sat most often. If I was going as far as CA, I would try to go for a week.

[Anonymous]

We try do at least 5 nights. Absolute minimum would be 3 and that's usually if we are going for something specific and can't extend the trip for other reasons.

[Anonymous]

For that trip, 7-8 nights for us.

[Anonymous]

I vote for a week because of the jet lag experienced by little kids. My 4 year old was ready to go at 4.30a! It takes a few days for them to adjust.

[Anonymous]

If you don’t have any considerations such as leave time, schools, etc, I’d 2 weeks. Minimum a week.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who says you should never go anywhere for less days than the hours it takes to fly there, and I find it a good rule of thumb. Three hour flight? That’s okay for a long weekend. If it’s going to take you what’s comparable to a workdays hours to get there, go for a week minimum.

[Anonymous]

For every hour of travel to get there, I believe in staying one day. So six-hour flight equals six days.

[Anonymous]

4-6 days with kids, but we’ve definitely done 3-4 day trips to CA with no-kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who says you should never go anywhere for less days than the hours it takes to fly there, and I find it a good rule of thumb. Three hour flight? That’s okay for a long weekend. If it’s going to take you what’s comparable to a workdays hours to get there, go for a week minimum.

The above is crazy for work travel. I make many trips to Seoul for work, and flying out Sunday afternoon, working Monday-Friday, and getting on a Friday afternoon flight home always feels like the perfect trip length, despite the long flight times (business class). Enjoying relaxing weekends on each end of the trip.

[Anonymous]

We did 7 days in California with our tween and it was a good length but he has a lot of endurance and the time change didn’t bother him

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who says you should never go anywhere for less days than the hours it takes to fly there, and I find it a good rule of thumb. Three hour flight? That’s okay for a long weekend. If it’s going to take you what’s comparable to a workdays hours to get there, go for a week minimum.

The above is crazy for work travel. I make many trips to Seoul for work, and flying out Sunday afternoon, working Monday-Friday, and getting on a Friday afternoon flight home always feels like the perfect trip length, despite the long flight times (business class). Enjoying relaxing weekends on each end of the trip.

Well for work travel you usually don't have a choice, but for leisure trips this isn't a bad rule of thumb.