Making the Most of Too Little Travel Time

Everyone has an opinion when it comes to travel. I touched on this a little bit in my post about our Christmas in Ethiopia last year, which a lot of people teased us about for being too short. There are plenty of reasons why you might be stuck traveling without a lot of time to spare, though: maybe you don't get a lot of vacation time or want to lower your budget for hotels or can't spare the extra days for personal reasons. My advice to all jet-setters is: not only is that completely fine, but it can still be a great travel experience!

We recently experienced the exact same conundrum in San Diego. We were there for a wedding, but we decided to maximize our time visiting family and friends back home in Virginia instead of building in a lot of tourist time in California. As a result, we discovered we simply wouldn't have time to fully enjoy most of the places we had originally planned, from the USS Midway Museum to the San Diego Mormon Battalion Historic Site. Between the driving time and the hours we'd rather spend not feeling rushed, we decided against all the main attractions.

Finding ourselves in Fallbrook (where the wedding was held) with beautiful weather and only half a day to spare, we did some quick online research for a short activity to get us out of the hotel. We stumbled upon Batiquitos Lagoon, which was a short trail not too far away. We went there on a whim and enjoyed a lovely walk and wonderful views. We also encountered this bizarre sculpture called "The Creature from Batiquitos Lagoon" that kind of looked like an early ancestor of a chicken. Surprisingly, it has yet to make an appearance in my nightmares.

Once we had worked up an appetite, we stopped by a restaurant called The Crack Shack, known for chicken. We may have gotten a little carried away with our orders, but the service was fast and the food was tasty.

We followed that up with some homemade ice cream nearby that really reminded me of my beloved Moo Thru from back home.

Best of all, our more relaxed program gave us plenty of time to get back to the hotel and get ready for the wedding that evening. Of course, there are things we'd have loved to see that we couldn't, but that doesn't make the trip a waste - no matter what others say. It happened to be the right plan for us for now. (Plus, it just gives us another reason to come back again!)