There are many kinds of travelers. At opposite ends of the spectrum are those who travel exclusively for enjoyment and those who travel solely for knowledge. A traveler seeking enjoyment may return to the same place year after year,, perhaps staying in the same all-inclusive five-star hotel, lounging by the same pool, and being “entertained” by the same karaoke program. On the other end, a traveler seeking knowledge is essentially an explorer, venturing into places where books and written accounts no longer satisfy their curiosity. This traveler sets off to expand not just personal experience, but human understanding. Most of us, I suppose, fall somewhere in between.

Wherever you may fall on this spectrum, it’s likely that your time for travel is limited — typically just a few weeks of vacation each year. I’m far from being an explorer, but I do prefer to spend my limited time in ways that allow me to mentally recharge. And for me, the best way to relax is to engage my mind with things it doesn’t usually encounter.

With that in mind, therr are four levels of “exploration” that strike a good balance between comfort and curiosity. If thoughtfully combined, they can help make the most of the time we have for vacation.

Level 1: Explore Your Front Lawn

The first level of travel involves not traveling at all. We may only walk, but always have to return to the same base. That base might be the same place every year, or it might be your own home. But what is there to explore? Quite a lot, in fact.

In our busy everyday lives, we often don’t know our surroundings well. City dwellers, for example, tend to walk the same streets to the bus stop, shop at the same three stores, and perhaps take occasional strolls in a nearby park. Beyond that, they might have little awareness of what’s around them.

It can be surprisingly relaxing and rewarding to walk every street and create a mental map of your neighborhood. I now know every street and footpath within a 3 km radius of my home, and this exploration has given me a deeper understanding of where I live. It makes me feel more at home.

For those living in the countryside, or with access to cottages in nature, this is even more true. Walking the same paths throughout the year reveals more about nature than almost anything else. Observing how familiar landscapes change with the seasons is both exploration and meditation. Your mind is free to wander even as your senses take in the subtle shifts of the world around you. It’s worth slowing down and dedicating at least some time each year to this kind of exploration.

Level 2: Explore Your Count(r)y

Let’s start moving at last. While Level 1 took us from point A back to point A, Level 2 takes us from point A to point B. Slowly. As slowly as possible, in fact.

A reasonably healthy person can walk 20 km a day without much trouble; some can do double that. Walking is the perfect pace: slow enough to absorb details, yet fast enough to make meaningful progress. That’s why I see backpacking as the natural next step.

If you live in a small or medium-sized country and dedicate just one week per year to walking, you could cross it (or circle it) within a decade. Simply choose a trail, walk as far as time allows, and pick up where you left off the following year.

This kind of continuous exploration helps you appreciate the gradual changes in both nature and culture, step by step, little by little. It’s also one of the cheapest ways to travel. With patience, you’ll cover a lot of ground and gain a deep familiarity with your wider surroundings and the people who inhabit them.

Level 3: Explore Your Continent

Of course, you can’t walk everywhere. Eventually, you’ll want to take bigger leaps. Unless you live on an isolated island, chances are you can travel across borders by car or train with relative ease. Covering several hundred kilometers in just a few hours becomes feasible.

This next level of exploration involves such leaps. Pick a direction and travel several hundred kilometers. Stop for a few days and explore the area in depth. Then move on and repeat. Over the course of a week, you might make two or three such jumps, either continuing in one direction and returning in a single trip back, or moving in a loop.

This style of travel lets you observe broader changes in landscape, culture, and people. While you’ll inevitably miss the fine-grained detail of continuous movement, the steps are still small enough to maintain a sense of progression and connection. Admittedly, not everyone has the luxury of living in the heart of a continent with open borders, but unless you live in Transnistria, there is always somewhere to go.

Level 4: Explore the World

And finally, we arrive at the most obvious level: global travel. Hop on a plane and go somewhere truly far away. Of course, you’ll miss everything in between, but that’s the trade-off we must pay for our limited time. With enough distance between home and destination, almost everything will feel new, making the process of exploration effortless.

When I visited India for work, I didn’t need to plan elaborate sightseeing — it was enough to walk the streets and soak it all in. Just being there was a constant stream of new experiences. Such experience is only possible if you travel far enough from the places you intimately know.

Here is the catch: the levels are not meant to be experienced in isolation, in opposite they should be combined. They are like Russian dolls, one fitting inside the next. Fly to a faraway place, then take a week-long hike to get an intimate view of one part of it. Or drive somewhere remote, set up a base, and explore the local area on foot as you would in Level 1.

When done right, traveling will have at least two benefits. It lets you learn about other places and cultures in a way that does not feel like learning, it is learning by osmosis, through immersiona and natural curiosity. At the same time, traveling allows us to relax so that when the vacation ends and the routine is back in place, we can find new appreciation for the boring and the mundane.

It just feels like a waste to spend this time sitting by a pool, doing nothing at all. But, to each their own.