BUT.
There is a limit. And at certain points on a crazy ramble through four countries over six weeks some travellers just might hit it. Several times.
This means that, mystifying though it might seem to those at home who are expecting the distant traveller to pack their days with ancient buildings and various increasingly esoteric historical sites, sometimes they'll just want to veg. To soak up the scenery, to recharge the batteries. They may, not unreasonably, consider their trip also their holiday for the year (or longer).
And they're not evil for wanting to enjoy it. Even if that means they miss out on some stuff they could conceivably have seen if they had raced around the place. Europe, for example, is a big continent, containing big countries, with big cities, full of sights and sites with at least some interest and point to them. But you can't possibly see everything. And the more you see, the less special and unique each individual sight becomes. You can see a few things and ponder them slowly, or you can try to cram everything in and be left with a meaningless blur. Sure, you'd be able to tick all the boxes on the Things You Must See In Europe checklist and impress your more shallow friends (ah yes, I was there! Here's a photograph of me pointing at it!) but so what? Is that really why you spent
As for me, I get a lot more pleasure out of wandering random streets in France brutally mangling the language to the horreur of passing French people than I do out of visiting another over-touristy monument.
Some may have a different approach, and that's fine - different strokes for different generations within the same family.* They're not wrong just because they have a different perspective to me. Different people have differing priorities at different stages in their lives; and they have different overall interests as well. The key concept to grasp here is that people are DIFFERENT. And travelling is about having an experience that results from the decisions the individual traveller chooses to make - not one based on simply adopting the approach of other people who've had wonderful experiences and therefore think everyone else should do exactly as they did (or, if they've had bad experiences, exactly the opposite). Far from helping, being constantly prompted to justify an alternative approach would in all likelihood instead have the effect of being a taint on the trip, and is thus a manner of communication many travellers would be wise to avoid.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to assault some innocent patissiers with what I choose to believe is a well-phrased request in French for a strawberry tart but is in reality probably an unbearable affront to the victim's entire culture.
I can't do THAT at home.
*The French don't have a word for "subtle".