Through running the Shoestring Travel Club, I've said a lot on how you don't have to just go on one trip a year, planned months or years in advance for thousands and thousands. One of the core Shoestring ideas is that you can go away for a few days, come back and immediately book another one, since the trips you can go on can be routinely affordable.

However, it's worth highlighting excatly why going on multiple different trips really is not the same as just going on the one main trip for a week or so (or in other words, why going on only 1 trip in 12 months is so massively different in feeling to going on 12 trips in 1 year).

What I mean

I have a theory. With only booking 1 main trip in a year, the problem is it often gets overhyped. You want to spend loads, have the best time, do the best things... which is understandable. You've waited 12 months and probably spent a tonne of money, it has to be an unreal time to live up to its hype, right?

Thing is, I believe that trips like that can only ever really match your expectations. They can never really beat them since you expected the trip to be so good anyway, and they are often even sub-par or slightly worse than expected thanks to the massive amount of money people can spend on a main trip, and the time they spend overhyping it.

Think about it. Even if you have an incredible time, it's like "well, yeah. Of course I had a great time, I paid €1000 for this so it better be amazing!". That also means if the trip is even slightly sub-par, you'll probably think negatively of it. Or you overhype it so much that the things aren't quite as 'oh my god!' as you secretly might have hoped.

Then What's So Great About 12 in 1?

The 12 in 1 approach is entirely different. Firstly, you get a trip to look forward to every single month, for probably the same total cost as most people would spend on their one big main one each year. Just imagine every time you get back from a trip, knowing that only a few weeks later you'll be stepping through the airport doors again jetting off to somewhere new?

Secondly, there is far less pressure on each trip. Since each one costs so much less, and because you go on them so often, its okay if one isn't the absolute best thing in the world. Even if you go and have some nice wine, but that's it, it is still probably worth going for the price you paid! Plus, you'd be going somewhere else in a few weeks, so you can just look forward to that!

So overall, I think there is a lot to be said for spending less on a main trip and instead just hopping away shoestring-style every few weeks. See more places, less pressure on the trips you do take to be perfect and ironically you'll probably save money too. Cool, eh!