Mastering the 3-Day Quick Escape
- Brian
- Oct 30, 2025
- 3 min read
Don't have a ton of time to spend on a vacation? No problem. I've mastered the art of creating great 3 day "quickie" vacations that will leave you wanting more. It gives you the opportunity to explore more places, although it can get a bit expensive on airfare.
Getting Started
There's a huge world of adventure out there waiting for you. With so much to see, I've learned over the years that taking long vacations is great but it is limiting. Going on a short 2 or 3 day quick escape can help you see more places and have more experiences than you could by limiting yourself to only longer vacations. Quick escapes come with their own challenges. The rewards, though, at least from my own experiences, can overwhelm those challenges though.
The first thing you need to do is make a list of places you want to go and see. Then mark the ones that are close enough that could possibly allow for a shorter timespan. If you live in Nashville, TN, taking a quick escape to London, England probably won't work very well. But taking a quick vacation to one of the many great lakes nearby could.
Once you have your list, let's get to work on the next big challenge: when. I have always found that doing these trips over a long weekend tend to give you the most flexibility. Whether that long weekend is around national holidays or just one you manufacture yourself is up to you. Just be aware that a lot of popular places can get crowded on weekends and especially around holiday weekends. I would recommend that you give yourself a few options just in case flights and/or hotels are cheaper on one of your options versus another.
Distance Matters
Getting to your Quick Escape is a big deal and the method of transportation can have an effect on places I select going to. If I am driving, I try to keep Quick Escapes within a 4 hour drive, but sometimes will extend to as far as 6 hours. But anything over 6 hours, I default to flying only.
What I've found over the years is that anything over a 2 hour flight or 6 hour drive starts to become sketchy and may make time at your destination limited. So I would recommend sticking within those constraints. My general is under 2 hour flights and 4 hour (or less) drives (mainly to prevent fatigue from driving).
What To Do?
Once you've picked your destination and dates, start looking through what there is to do. What sights do you want to see? What activities would you like to do? Take a look at various online blogs or even city websites that might have suggestions for you that you may not be aware of. The list can be as long as you like, but keep in mind that you're limited on time.
After I have a good list, I typically will highlight which ones I want to do the most and focus in on those. Anything else is kept on the list as a "if there's time" activity.
One of the things I've found helpful is to take the activities and places and look at a map and see how far they are from one another. I don't want to spend all my time traveling between places on such as short trip. I also leave plenty of time between my expected arrival at the destination and the first activity.
A Typical Playbook
Most of my Quick Escape trips follow a pretty standard "playbook" and have worked well for me. Here's generally what it looks like:
Travel to destination
Drop off stuff at the hotel or rental property. If arrival is later than planned, sometimes I might skip this or try to delay my 1st adventure. Or if you drive, this may not be needed.
Head over to your first stop!
I try to go as late in the day as possible to maximize time, but remember that you don't want to go so late that you're fatigued the next day.
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