GRANADA ADVENTURE Chronicle copy editor Niki Harris juxtaposes American and European life as she studies abroad

One of the things I was most excited about when I went to Europe was the opportunity to travel. Flights are cheap, buses are constant and trains make stops in nearly every major city.
However, when I started making plans for my Spring Break, I realized how much traveling takes out of you. It’s exhausting spending nights in airports, making bus transfers and trying to station hop from train to train. So when it came down to the wire, instead of doing an Eastern Europe tour of four countries, I chose a relaxing beach week in the Canary Islands — and I couldn’t have made a better choice.
I’m not stressing about missing my train. I don’t have to change hostels every other day, and I get to actually enjoy where I am, instead of blocking out half my break for travel time. It’s a far better option to choose one destination to spend all your time than trying to jam six cities into as many days. Quality over quantity is a good principle to follow when traveling.
I know I’m only in Europe for a little more than four months and I want to see as much as I can, but I hate rushing through things. If I go to Germany, I don’t want to have only 12 hours to spend there. Such a cramped amount of time limits not only what you can do, but the extent to which you can enjoy what you’re doing.
Berlin deserves more time than just enough for a couple snapshots. In my experience, most people who dart too fast from place to place have a checklist attitude. They want to tell people, “I’ve been here and here and here,” and show off identical photos of them posing on the Lover’s Bridge in Paris. If that’s the European experience you want, that’s great. But you’re not really experiencing anything but two sides of a camera.
For me, it’s the cultures and the people that make Europe so appealing. I have no desire to rush my time here, especially not during my break from school. Yes, I have a week to travel, but I wanted to choose one destination to experience, not five.
As I have been most of my stay in Europe, I was pleasantly surprised by what I experienced in the Canary Islands. At my hostel, I met other Europeans taking a break from their normal lives. We were all visitors together. Instead of touring a city and barely dipping my toes into one culture, I got a mixture of everything.
Not only did I get to relax on gorgeous beaches for a week instead of freezing my face off in Prague, but I got to meet a Barcelona-bred chef who works on the top floor restaurant in the tallest building in London. I met Germans from three different areas of the country, learned Irish swear words and picked up British slang at breakfast. We Americans played the game “werewolf” with people from seven different countries, instead of hopping on an overnight train. I helped an Austrian musician workshop his pieces for his own music festival this summer.
All those experiences notwithstanding, at the least I had time to relax and enjoy the Canary Islands with others who were doing the same. I didn’t spend half my time or most of my money on traveling around. Instead, I opted to go to a less “exotic” European destination and have some quality time with my friends. That’s how a break ought to be spent.
No, I probably don’t have time now to make it to Switzerland. But you know what? I’m OK with that. When it comes to travel, quality over quantity is always the best option. The trade-off is well worth it.