Happy To Leave
Going to a place, seeing sights and then moving on to the next place is often how travel is portrayed. There is an excitement to see the new and go to a new place and a bit of sorrow to leave. Leaving new friends or leaving without seeing a sight or experiencing something brings up some bittersweet. On the other hand, have you ever been somewhere where you were really happy to leave?
Mainland Greece was it for me. I saw some neat things and am glad I spent time there, but on the ferry heading out I was quite happy to leave. I looked back at the retreating land and could honestly think, “Nope, I have no urge to come back.”
Not All Bad
It wasn’t like the entire trip was horrible. I had planned a two week trip with the first half in the islands on a boat and the second half exploring Athens and the mainland. I really enjoyed the island hopping and would love going back to see some more of them. The mainland and I just didn’t get along though. There were some pretty cool experiences, but on the whole it was a frustrating time that I do not feel the need to repeat. Maybe the island half of the trip was so much fun that the mainland had a hard time competing. Maybe I simply missed traveling with other people and didn’t enjoy being alone. But the feeling of being happy to get away and head to Italy was palpable as I watched the ship push off.
The weather was beautiful for most of the trip. I think I saw it rain once. The sun was out and yet it wasn’t so broiling hot. The country is beautiful and the food tasty and cheap. Other than with bus personnel I met some really friendly people in my travels, both Greek and traveler. So what made me happy to put it behind me?
Unfavorable Comparisons
The island half of my trip was truly fantastic. I did a week-long gap adventures boat tour from Santorini to Mykinos. The few of us on the boat bonded well and we had a blast. Then I hit Athens and almost wished I had skipped it. Roughly a day and a half there and that was more than enough for me. I ended up spending much of the rest of the trip riding or waiting for a bus.
I headed out of Athens to see two sites. Delphi was really cool to see and Meteora was the highlight of the mainland trip. These were worthwhile to me to see, but now that I have, I have no need to go back. Sure I look at a guide book and think, “well maybe one or two other things here and there”, but it isn’t enough to overcome that feeling of “ok seen enough” mixed ever so subtly with “wow that is frustrating”.
Frustrations Affect Mood
The bus system is a bit of a mess. As near as I can tell the Germanic desire to be able to plan to be at a specific place at a specific time does not function in Greece. Some small amount of this is a language issue. Another amount is a lack of understanding of the system. But as an example, although the city bus driver spoke some English he could not tell me whether the bus he was currently driving stopped at or near the city bus terminal or not. This began a pattern for the following long distance bus trips.
Oh well, it provides good stories right? Well yes, but it also provided a wasted day in a bus station and several quite stressful moments wondering if I would ever reach my destination or even get to the ferry on time. The end of this multi-day traveling jaunt left me huffing and puffing while trying to run to make my ferry boat out of town. In hindsight, I could have done a number of things better and I wish I had decided to fly home. Yet at that moment when the ferry pushed off into the water, I was happy to Greece fall behind me. “Goodbye,” I said in my head. “I will gladly come see more of your islands, but don’t expect me to come back to the mainland again.”
Travel is often about the frustrations and the stories. I don’t at all regret my time in Greece. I am just now reluctant to return with anything other than 6 weeks to spare just to make sure I can make the bus connections.
Have you ever been happy to leave a place?
April 21, 2011 @ 11:22 pm
It gets cold enough in Brazil in July– it’s usually in the mid-high 50’s in the house, which is too cold for me!
April 17, 2011 @ 12:43 am
The only place that stands out in my mind as one I could leave and never return to was Jakarta, Indonesia. I was there for several days for my dad’s wedding (yes, my dad got married in Jakarta!), and though we had some interesting experiences there, I was happy to escape the pollution and loud motorbikes. But I loved the rest of Indonesia that I have seen.
I also look forward to leaving Brazil every time I’m there– Brazil is great, but I go every year and stay for a few weeks, and it’s always during their winter, so it’s cold everywhere you go (no indoor heat). By the end, I look forward to coming home to hot, sunny California.
I’ve never been to Greece but have always wanted to see the beautiful islands.
April 21, 2011 @ 12:08 pm
I can so understand how you would be ready to leave a city full of pollution and loud motorbikes. That would drive me nuts pretty quickly.
Yeah, there are tons of places that I am happy to be going home from and yet still would happily go back. I hope it doesn’t get too cold in the winter, no heat sounds like it could be unpleasant.
April 15, 2011 @ 6:24 am
Yeah, there are places you do not wish to visit again, but anyway you saw once, got some experience (bad or good) and you are ready for new stuff somewhere else 🙂 So I take everything as it comes, it is good not to like every place 🙂
April 15, 2011 @ 6:58 pm
Exactly. Thanks for the pep-comment.
April 15, 2011 @ 5:56 am
Well, this is an honest post. I appreciate it. I can’t imagine not liking Greece – although I’ve never been there, so what do I know? I’m not clear on why you didn’t like the mainland, though. It just wasn’t the right place for you? I personally was glad to leave the entirety of SE Asia. I know everyone else is crazy about it. But it definitely was not me – all those millions of crazy buzzing motorbikes everywhere – argh!
April 15, 2011 @ 6:54 pm
Hi Sabina, Island Greece was great. My biggest problem with mainland Greece was the transport network. It took full days to travel as I would expect it to only take 3 hours or so. The bus system was ok in that it got me where I was going, just chaotic and slow and nothing that I felt I could plan about. I had plans to see more different places and spent a lot of time in a bus. It would not have bothered me had I been prepared, or had tons of time. I had boats to catch and work to return to that made it more stressful. To be blunt, i missed the tourist infrastructure of the islands.
I can imagine that the crowds in SE Asia could get to someone. Would be my worry in going too.
April 14, 2011 @ 7:22 am
I actually experienced this for myself a few months ago when I was in Bruges. Now, don’t get me wrong, Bruges is absolutely beautiful but its also very very small. What this meant is that I had pretty much seen EVERYTHING in my first five hours of being there!! I was there for 3 days so the rest of the time I just wandered around aimlessly, and although I normally enjoy doing this, I just found myself to be bored…. I enjoyed it and was glad I went, but I doubt I’ll ever return!
April 14, 2011 @ 7:35 pm
Bruges is a place I have heard about a lot, but never been. Sounds like it needs to be a daytrip kind of trip, not much longer. Thanks for the tip. 🙂
April 13, 2011 @ 5:00 pm
I had the same experience in Athens. I spent approximately 28 hours there and after that I was itching to go. It was big, it was dirty, and it reminded me of the worst parts of Miami and LA. I saw the Acropolis and that is pretty much all you need.
April 14, 2011 @ 7:33 pm
Yup agreed. I forgot until you brought it up about Miami. Another one of those places I didn’t jive with. Thankfully I was only passing through for one night, but that was enough. I think Athens could be really fun with the right people and attitude, but I don’t have that attitude nor was around those people. Oh well. More places to see. I did enjoy the Acropolis though.
April 13, 2011 @ 4:51 pm
I like Greek food but have never been to Greece. However, I have heard the same frustrations as yourself about Athens.
For me, I was happy to leave Venice. It’s not that I didn’t have enjoyable moments because I did. However, the city was disappointing, expensive, too touristy, and a bit overhyped. There were other parts of Italy I found much more enjoyable.
April 14, 2011 @ 7:31 pm
Greece is certainly worth seeing and eating in. Athens is kind of a big modern city with a few ruins in the middle. I can’t fault the Greeks for building such a place, but it just didn’t match what I was looking for.
I really liked Venice, but I can see how you would feel that way about it. There are places I love move in Italy, but I really want to go back to Venice at some point. Maybe my habits are different and memories warped over time, but I don’t remember so much the tourists outside of St Marks square and I was there during Carnevale. I remember being able to walk alone for the most part through a lot of the back alleys.
April 13, 2011 @ 1:27 pm
Interesting to read travel from that perspective. I think there have been only 2 times in my life I’ve ever felt a bit of a relief to move on….once was in Chicago – the weather was bleak, one of us was ill and i just really wasn’t ‘feeling’ the city. I’m sure I’d love the city if i went back again, but I was relieved to be moving on to warmer climes at the time. The other was a skiing trip from hell! Literally…I have never been skiing again because it scarred me for life! Lol. Experiences like this can sometimes clarify what you do and don’t love about travel and what makes you happy. 🙂
April 14, 2011 @ 7:29 pm
Thanks for the stories. Yeah, those feelings of “get me out of here” do seem to affect how you see other places. I imagine people that dislike travel had the unfortunate luck of one of those experiences on their first trip and couldn’t get over it.
April 13, 2011 @ 9:34 am
Interesting post – I haven’t been to Greece yet and can’t decide if I want to go.
My can’t-wait-to-leave was Copenhagen. It was so expensive we could barely afford to eat, and we kept witnessing Danes acting like jerks so we had a really bad impression of the country overall. Also, Copenhagen was okay but not particularly special, so nothing made up for the flaws.
Katherina – we always find NYC becomes a little oppressive after 2-3 days!
April 14, 2011 @ 7:25 pm
Thanks for the comment. Greece is certainly worth seeing. I am totally happy that I went and don’t regret it. And as mentioned people seem to have mixed results, some being disenchanted while others loving it completely. Maybe you could be one of the later.
Copenhagen didn’t really impress me either. I don’t remember it being expensive really, but just sort of unremarkable. And I couldn’t find that mermaid, the only sight that I associate with the city. Grr.
Were you there for TBEX Europe this year?
April 14, 2011 @ 7:45 pm
No, I haven’t been to any of the travel blogging conferences, though they sound interesting. I was there in summer 2009. The mermaid is kind of out of the way – we only saw it from a boat tour!
By the way, your subscription email formatting is better now! 🙂 Thanks!
April 14, 2011 @ 8:03 pm
Yeah, I walked a long way out further than I thought I should have to and ended up turning around when I got to a construction site. Still have no clue how close I was. I’m going to TBEX in the US in June, so looking forward to it. There is a Germany Expat Blogger one this fall I think. Are you on that list?
Thanks for the heads up on the subscription. It was easy to fix, just had to look at the settings and read them more carefully.
April 15, 2011 @ 10:09 am
Yes, I’ll be at that one! 🙂 See you there maybe!
April 13, 2011 @ 8:47 am
Risking that a lot of people will want to jump on me and beat me… this same thing happened to me last time in New York. I liked the city, enjoyed it. Saw many sights and had a good time. Everyone told me 4 days weren’t enough, but to be frank, they were for me – it was SO cold I wouldn’t have stayed any longer. I was truly doing a big effort leaving the warm apartment we had to stroll out to the cold and windy streets each morning. I’d probably prefer the city in… april? september?
April 14, 2011 @ 7:23 pm
Weather can really affect your mood in a place. Gray skies and cold wind can affect anyone’s view of a place. April and September sound good, New York can be boiling hot in the summer too. NYC is also a place that has a frenetic sort of vibe, not really a relaxing place. I can oddly be relaxed there watching other people scurry about, but I can see how it could get annoying after a few days.
April 13, 2011 @ 4:08 am
Yes there are definitely some places that are harder to leave than others. Greece is one of those countries that I hear very mixed feelings about. In general I would say most people feel as you do, love the island and the mainland is so-so. No worries, its all good. . . just some better than others 🙂
April 14, 2011 @ 7:21 pm
Right. There was nothing specifically bad about Greece. It was just a different mindset than I am used to and after a while grated heavily. It was almost a chaotic apathetic type of relaxed, not the chill relaxed of the islands or the extreme purposefulness of Germany. Good to know I’m not alone. Thanks for the comment.
April 12, 2011 @ 11:25 pm
It’s true. Some places I am happy to leave – or at least not sad. For sure I don’t have the intention to returning to every place I have ever visited. And I don’t think that that’s a bad thing. Sometimes it’s just that I’ve seen what I wanted to see and am happy to return to my own bed & kitchen. Sometimes it’s just that I travel with people or to people and it’s great fun for a while, but then I’m ready for some peace and quiet at home. I’m trying to think if theres ever been a place I was truly happy to leave (and not just because I was looking forward to home either ;))… actually, I don’t think so. I guess I’ve just been fortunate enough to have had pretty good experiences so far. I’m usually pretty happy to return from China though. It tends to get to me that I don’t speak the language and have such a hard time communicating. And I’m not comfortable with the “staring is ok” thing in the long-run. And I guess I do prefer “Western food”… I like going there, but I also like leaving 🙂
April 14, 2011 @ 7:17 pm
Good points Sabrina. There are several different types of “happy to leave.” I guess I meant my post in part as the “good riddance,” but you bring up the idea of just being happy to leave in order to be home. That happens to me after a few weeks of being in a hotel almost anywhere. There is certainly a point at which enough travel is a enough for the moment, and I guess you can get to that point in a couple of different ways.
I’m kind of surprised that the “staring is ok” gets to you. Germans seem to be quite adept at staring.
I totally want to see Asia, but it is so different from what I’ve done traveling around in Europe. I expect I will need a lot of sleep.
April 15, 2011 @ 5:41 pm
I’m surprised about the staring in Germany you’ve experienced… I wonder if it’s a difference between North and South Germany… Honestly not sure.
April 15, 2011 @ 7:03 pm
Honestly, it could be that we sit in the tram and discuss things loudly in English. Including crude jokes. A friend figures they are trying to decide if they know you or if the loudness is a big enough problem that they can say something.