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‘Destination Saturation’ and My New 10-Day Travel Rule

By day 15, I liked this guy’s shirt a lot!

Phase three of my Extended Disney Research Trip was a bit challenging–and not because it was the solo portion.  As you may know by now, I love being on my own.  I can go wherever I want, do whatever I want, and stay as long as I want.  Heck, I drove to St. Augustine just because I could!  No, it was not the alone-ness that got to me during phase three.  It was something I’m calling ‘Destination Saturation’.

After a while, a place ceases to be somewhere you are visiting and it becomes the world in which you live.  This happened to us in Paris for sure (and really, what was I thinking?  Two weeks in a place I’ve never been?)  It happened to us on our road trip in certain locations, and it happened to me in Walt Disney World.  Destination Saturation doesn’t have a set-in-stone time frame–it might take a week in, say, London, but only two days in, say, Halifax.

It took ten days in Walt Disney World.

The symptoms of Destination Saturation also vary a bit from place to place, but typically it manifests in the following ways:

-extreme exhaustion at onset

-general lack of enthusiasm

-annoyance at all the little things that used to make the destination ‘special’

-extreme annoyance at all the little things that make the destination inherently annoying

-increased use of social media as a form of destination escapism, instazood bot helps you to increase traffic.

In Paris, this ailment created a serious problem.  In Disney World it wasn’t so bad–until my final day there.  I swear, if I had to take one more tram to one more monorail to one more happy fun park…I was going to scream.  And don’t even get me started on trying to feed myself.  That became a feat in and of itself–though that rant shall remain unwritten.

Why?  Because I now know that this malady isn’t the destination’s fault.  It is the fault of Destination Saturation.  I love Walt Disney World.  I love it on day one and two and three…all the way up to halfway through day ten.  And then I need to go home for a little while.

And so, all future Disney trips shall be ten days or shorter.  I think that’s fair (and fiscally responsible!)  In addition, all future single-destination trips shall be ten days or shorter.  Road trips can, of course, be longer–but we won’t stay in the same town more than three or four nights in a row.   In this simple, cost-effective way, I shall forever prevent another outbreak of Destination Saturation.

I hope!

Up next–I continue with my road trip posts and share our adventures on Cape Breton, PEI, and in Fundy National Park and Portland, Maine.