It’s irresistible, isn’t it?  A new place to visit, so many things to see and do – I want to do it all!

Most people planning a trip have ideas about many more things they want to do than are possible in the allotted time.  Having more things I want to do in a place than I can do is an indicator to me that I’ve chosen well.  Frankly, I wouldn’t want to go somewhere I truly could “see it all” in a week or two or three.  That would mean there isn’t much “there” there.

One of the most important tricks in good travel planning is “editing.”  I remember when I first started researching my trip to Sri Lanka.  I listed the places I’d like to go, then immediately cut out half.  I did more research, more reading, calculated driving times, and cut out a few more.  I ended up with an itinerary that we really enjoyed.  We had enough time to explore new places, to absorb some of the atmosphere and enough time to relax – it was a vacation after all!

It takes time to get from one place to another – especially in Asia.  People forget how huge the continent is.  Flying time from Tokyo to Bangkok or Singapore is longer than flying time from New York to LA, for instance.  And driving times are long with winding roads, crowded with not just cars and trucks and buses, but also with motorbikes, bicycles, rickshaws, livestock, and agricultural equipment – either of the mechanical or animal variety.

While I can almost always fit in some activity or excursion on a transit day, I consider the things I do on transit days to be a bonus.  I don’t count transit days as days I spend in a place.  So if I want three days in a place, that means I need to spend four nights there.  Three nights means I only have two full days.

I’m currently in the process of planning our Burma trip.  This is a trip I’ve planned before but have never gotten to take.  I was recently looking at the original itinerary for a Burma trip from the early 1990s.  At that time you could only go as part of a tour group, and the maximum time you could stay was 7 days.  The itinerary put together by Thai Air  had 3 or 4 stops in that time!  My current itinerary has 10 or 11 days, and I plan to make three stops.  Still, I have to edit the things I want to do at each stop.  But the things I edit out this time will be the start for a new itinerary for the next time I visit.

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