Why I Keep Craving the Opposite of My Last Trip
For years, I thought I knew what kind of traveler I was.
I loved cities. I loved movement. I loved stepping outside my hotel and knowing there would be museums, restaurants, cafés, and neighborhoods waiting to be explored. Beaches never held my attention for long, and I certainly wouldn’t have described myself as an outdoorsy person.
So naturally, I assumed I was a city traveler.
I Thought I Was a City Traveler
The first time I really questioned that assumption was during my South America trip.
Just two weeks earlier, I had been in Cairo. Like many of my trips, it had been fast-paced and filled with movement: traffic, noise, constant activity, and the energy that comes with exploring a major city for the first time.
Cairo was a bucket-list destination for my family and me. We didn’t know if we’d ever have the opportunity to return, so naturally, we wanted to experience as much as possible. I think a lot of travelers can relate to that feeling. When you’ve traveled halfway around the world to reach a destination, it’s hard not to try to fit everything in.
Then I landed in Buenos Aires.
And let me be clear: I loved Buenos Aires. But after only two days there, I found myself surprisingly excited for my next stop: El Calafate.
At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Looking back, I think I was already craving something different.
I had gone from one large city directly into another, and suddenly what sounded appealing wasn’t another museum, another neighborhood, or another packed itinerary.
I wanted to slow down.
When I arrived in El Calafate, I immediately felt the difference. The landscapes took center stage. Instead of constantly moving, I found myself standing still and taking it all in.
I could have spent an entire day at Perito Moreno Glacier. In fact, if the park had opened earlier and closed later, I probably would have.
What I remember most, though, was wishing I hadn’t booked a tour with a fixed return time. I wanted the freedom to stay longer, revisit viewpoints, and move at my own pace.
Looking back, that may have been one of the first times I started thinking differently about how much time I gave myself in an itinerary. Not because I wanted more time to see more, but because I wanted more time to appreciate what I was already seeing.
As the trip continued, I noticed the pattern repeating itself. I still loved the major cities I visited, but I kept gravitating toward experiences that got me outside of them.
In Chile, one of my favorite days was a trip to Cajón del Maipo. I didn’t know much about it beforehand beyond a few photos I had seen online, but spending a day surrounded by mountains and valleys sounded exactly right. In Ecuador, I found myself drawn toward volcanoes and mountain landscapes. In Uruguay, some of my favorite moments involved simply walking along the water.
Only a few years earlier, I would have told you nature wasn’t really my thing.
Yet there I was, spending hours staring at a glacier, seeking out mountain landscapes, and wishing I had more time.
Travel was showing me something about myself that I hadn’t figured out at home.
Surrounded by the Andes in Chile, exactly the kind of landscape I never would have expected to become one of my favorite parts of traveling.
Every Trip Creates the Next One
A few months later, the cycle repeated itself.
After spending several weeks traveling through Central America, including a good stretch in Costa Rica, I found myself longing for Europe. Not because I wasn’t enjoying the trip, but because I was craving a completely different style of travel.
Costa Rica is beautiful, but moving around the country requires effort. I remember sitting on yet another three-hour shuttle ride and realizing that, as much as I was enjoying the trip I was on, I was ready for something different.
I wanted trains. I wanted compact cities. I wanted the ability to change plans on a whim without constantly thinking about transportation.
It wasn’t that Costa Rica was the wrong trip. It was exactly the trip I wanted at the time. It simply helped me realize what I wanted next.
A few months later, I found myself traveling through Central Europe. Once I landed in Warsaw, my goal was simple: I didn’t want to board another flight until I reached Amsterdam. I wanted to move through the region by train, slowly making my way west through cities and countries I had never explored before.
It was exactly what I had been craving.
Warsaw, Kraków, Bratislava, Graz, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik, and finally Amsterdam. I loved the movement and the variety. I loved being able to wake up in one country and fall asleep in another.
But what stood out to me most wasn’t that I had stopped enjoying cities. It was that I had started appreciating the slower moments between all that movement just as much.
Some of my favorite memories weren’t necessarily the famous attractions. They were walking around Lake Bled, exploring the Croatian coastline, and spending a day in Utrecht with absolutely no agenda. After weeks of moving every few days, there was something refreshing about arriving somewhere and simply seeing where the day took me, no timed tickets, no checklist, no attraction I felt obligated to visit. Just a few hours and the freedom to explore.
That’s when I finally recognized the pattern: every trip seemed to create a craving for its opposite.
After cities, I wanted nature. After nature, I wanted trains, walkable neighborhoods, and easy transportation. After weeks of movement, I wanted to slow down. And after slowing down, I eventually started craving movement again.
What began as a simple observation has become one of the most useful things I’ve learned about how I travel: the trip I enjoy most isn’t necessarily the trip I should repeat next.
Sometimes the better question isn’t What did I enjoy last time?
It’s What do I feel like I’m missing now?
That’s how staring at a glacier made me appreciate slowing down. How weeks of shuttle rides made me miss train stations. How moving through Central Europe made me appreciate the days when I had nowhere in particular to be.
And eventually, Spain would remind me that I didn’t necessarily have to choose between them.
Turns out I can enjoy a packed day of exploring and still be very happy spending an afternoon doing absolutely nothing by a pool.
Travel Changed What I Thought I Enjoyed
Then came Spain.
Spain gave me beautiful cities, incredible food, architecture, history, and the chance to travel with my family. But when I look back on that trip, one of my favorite parts wasn’t Madrid or Barcelona. It was Costa Brava.
The coastal scenery, slower pace, and balance between activity and relaxation felt like the perfect complement to the cities. A few years earlier, I probably would have planned the entire trip around urban destinations. Now, I find myself deliberately looking for both.
For years, I thought travel was about figuring out which destinations I liked. Now I think it’s just as much about discovering which experiences I like and giving myself enough variety to find out.
That’s one reason I enjoy spending several days in a destination. I can explore the city I came for, but I also have time for a day trip, a completely different activity, or something I probably wouldn’t have considered when I first started planning.
I’ll probably never be someone who sleeps in a tent for a week. But would I spend a day hiking? Absolutely. Would I climb a volcano? Sure. A few years ago, I probably would have dismissed both without much thought. Now I’m much more willing to try something simply because I’m curious about it.
Travel gives me a relatively low-commitment way to test those assumptions. Maybe it’s ordering something I’ve never eaten before, adding a destination I’m unsure about, taking my first solo trip, or trying an activity that doesn’t sound particularly “me” on paper. Sometimes I confirm that, yes, I was right and I never need to do that again. But sometimes the thing I thought wasn’t for me becomes one of the highlights of the trip.
I noticed it again while looking back at photos from Split. Some of what I remembered most wasn’t checking off another attraction. It was wandering through Marjan Hill, being by the water, and wishing I’d left myself even more time to explore.
I’d rather stay curious enough to keep finding out.
London will probably always be my favorite city. Turns out loving mountains, glaciers, and slower days doesn’t mean I have to love cities any less.
Curiosity Matters More Than Labels
What I’ve learned is that I don’t need every trip to confirm what I already know I like.
I still love cities. I love being able to walk out of a hotel and have restaurants, museums, cafés, and entire neighborhoods within reach. But now I also know that I can happily spend hours staring at a glacier, take a day trip into the mountains, climb a volcano, or spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing by the water.
None of those experiences changed me from a “city traveler” into a “nature traveler.” They just gave me more ways to enjoy traveling.
More importantly, they taught me to pay attention to what I’m craving now. Sometimes that means choosing a trip that looks completely different from the one I just took. Other times, like Spain, it means building enough contrast into one itinerary that I can have both.
I don’t need every trip to confirm what I already know I like. I’d rather leave enough room to discover something new—or occasionally confirm that, yes, I was absolutely correct and never need to do that again.
The more I travel, the less interested I am in defining my travel style and the more interested I am in following my curiosity.
Maybe that’s why the opposite of my last trip so often sounds like exactly what I want next.
Continue Exploring
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Central America was one of the trips that made me realize how much my travel preferences can change depending on what I’ve just experienced. After finally spending more time in the region, here’s why I don’t want to keep treating it as somewhere I’ll get to eventually.
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Buenos Aires was part of the trip that first made me question whether I was really just a “city traveler.” Here’s how I’d approach a first visit, including what I’d prioritize and how I’d structure my time.
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