If it took you X hours to get somewhere, for how many hours would it feel worth it to stay at bare minimum?

No. It depends on what I went to do.

Exactly. I once drove 12 hours to save $6k on shipping. I was there for 45 minutes while four pallets were loaded.

More than 1h drive and I should spend half a day there.

More than 2h, I should plan the whole day (leaving in the morning and coming back end of the day)

More than 4 hours and I need to spend at least a night there before coming back.

I don't like to drive long distance at all. Obviously, all of that depend what I'm doing there.

It takes me over an hour to get almost anywhere (rural). I sometimes drive over an hour each way just to eat a meal out. The trade off is it makes my cost of living much, much lower. And I like driving, so I guess it's not so bad for me.
- Same! My psychologist and doctors are 40 min away, the big shops also, we have just the supermarket, the pharmacy and the post office near us, for everything else you need to drive a lot! And forget about public transport

For travel I usually use as a rule of thumb, that you need to stay the same number of days as there were hours in the flight to get there. So for example a quick two hour hop lends itself nicely to a weekend getaway, whereas a transcontinental flight implies staying a week or two. This tends to be advantageous anyway, for jet lag purposes.

Nifty.

If I hike up a hill for an hour, it was about the journey and I only need to stay at the top for 5 - 10 minutes.

I would want to stay for as long as I enjoyed it and no longer, no matter how long it took to get there.

I really wanted to try taco bell. Unfortunately the nearest taco bell to where I live is 4 hours away. So one day I hopped in my car, drove 4 hours, crossed a country border and ordered some. I ordered almost the entire menu which was only like 5 different items. Then I drove back 4 hours, eating my taco bell order.

So that gives some perspective as to how long I'm willing to stay somewhere

How high were you to think an 8 hour round trip for taco bell was worth it?
You put way too much trust into fake meat.

Depends where.
DMV? 0h.
Family? 2x minimum.
Friends? Whatever I can get.

It really depends, my friend was having a hard time once so in the evening I drove 3 hours to go see them, had a beer with them, then came home. I think it was absolutely worth it. I've also driven that far to buy something that took 15 minutes.

But say, a museum, I'd definitely want to make a day of it if I was driving that far. Maybe more.

7X. If I have to travel a day to go on vacation I will be staying for at least a week.

Doesn’t matter at all. The answer is stay as long as you want to.

For a one night stand 1/4x. I guess it really depends on the action if you now what I mean.

X/2+7 is like the 80-20 rule: it fits 80% of the time.

Given a travel time of X, half that time plus 7 more hours seems reasonable, until it isn't. 1 hour? Full day. 2 hours? Also a full day. 8 hours? Now were talking 2 days with an overnight expense and 80% per diem.

Math. It works.

Do you mind explaining a little more? How do you get two days from 8 hours (8/2 + 7 = only 11 hours not 48)?

Edit: Oh, because nobody's spending 8 hours traveling and then 11 hours at the place and then going back home without staying overnight.
Isn't that also the equation for finding your youngest possible date? I'm 27 and according to that my lower limit is 20.5.
- It's like the 80-20 rule, I say!

If Neil Armstrong was resting this, he would laugh. So many months of preparation, just to walk a very short while on the moon

It's not about the travel

I've done .25x so I guess it depends how good the destination is and who I'm going with.

I wouldn’t put a time on it.

I would drive for a dozen hours for things that last a few minutes.

JS Bach walked hundreds of miles to hear someone play the organ.

I love my audio books, so driving isn't a huge complaint. I once drove 12 hours to hang out with family for Thanksgiving (~4 hours) and then drove back (another 12 hours).
Bach didn't have planes trains and automobiles...

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It depends really, but my go to in general is about as much time as I'm going to spend driving.

Sometimes though I don't need to stay that long if the company is great or the place is great.

An example of a fun time with a 3 hour drive (1 way) and less than 6 at the destination: I went hiking with a good friend of mine and the hike only took 4.5 hours. The views were worth it and the company made it that much better.

An example of a crap time with a 2 hour drive (1 way) and less than 4 at the destination: hiking (again) except the person I was to be hiking with spent the night before getting drunk and rather than tell me they were too hung over to hike, came along anyways. He started vomiting 30 minutes into the trail, so we have to turn around and go home.

2/3 of X^2 seems pretty close

Obviously it depends (for work when I can work on the train I am okay with longer journeys) but there has to be some sort of non-linearity involved, I agree!

Depends on other factors like who I'm meeting, time of day, etc. Purely on the time to get there though I think 2x minimum to make it feel worth it imo

I don't mind driving, especially through the mountains. So I don't really think twice driving for 3 hours each way to spend an hour apple picking, for instance.

X hours. I prefer 2X hours, but X is my minimum.

So you're saying a 1:1 travel to staying ratio?
- I think it's a 2:1 ratio because it's X hours traveling there, X hours spent at the location, and then X hours coming back home, totaling 2X hours in transit.

I'd say x1.5 the amount of that time.

But sometimes the journey is more important than destination.

I regularly have to drive 6 hours round trip for a call that takes 5 min.

Why are you traveling to make a call? You could just call.
- I interpreted that in the sense of "service call", like going out to some remote site to do something menial

Depends on what I'm there for. I've done 0.8X for a pretty long trip and would have gone faster if it wasn't for bureaucracy.

PS i dont enjoy traveling

Everywhere is an hour away from where I live, so X hours is my standard for high quality experiences, to reference your formula.

Generally around 3-4X for me, except if I'm riding a motorcycle or driving a sports car, where the travelling is the main event.

I drive to the office once a fortnight. 4 hours driving total for 6 hours there. It's necessary and recharges my enthusiasm because we have a great team.

2 6 2

So 3x or 60/40

X + 4 at minimum but it's very situationally dependent.

Yeah, but for short trips this doesn't apply. E.g. I might drive 30 minutes for a 10 minute stay/task.
X+4 what? Hours?

I've been to stores 4 hours from where I live and been there for like half an hour before. has to be like a full day of driving (10 hours) for me to feel like i have to stay over night

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X^2