Is the Next Destination Better than Alicante? On the Couch, Week 25

When One City Becomes the Benchmark

When you start traveling to multiple cities, it almost automatically happens that you begin to compare them.

For us, Alicante has ended up being the city that others must beat.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Alicante is the best at absolutely everything. It’s more about the overall experience. How the city feels when we are there, how easy it is to find things to do, food, people, atmosphere, and all the little things that together determine whether we want to return.

Once a city hits that combination, it becomes hard to compete with.

At the same time, it makes the next trips a bit more interesting.

Gothenburg Had Its Chance

Gothenburg was one of the cities that was naturally compared to Alicante.

Of course, these are two quite different destinations, so this is not a scientific comparison. What’s interesting is how we experience the city when we are actually there.

That’s also part of the point of these trips.

I’m less interested in making a list of which city has the most attractions or the highest scores on various travel websites. What interests me is how well the place works for us.

Do We Want to Go Out and Explore?

Do we find interesting places without having to plan the entire day in advance?
Are there places we want to visit again?
And most importantly: Do we want to come back when the trip is over?
That’s where Alicante has so far been hard to beat.

Planning Doesn’t Always Go as Planned

Another part of traveling is the planning itself.
On paper, you can create a very detailed plan for what to do every single day.

Reality Rarely Works That Way.

Some things take longer than expected. A place turns out to be less interesting than you thought. You discover something else along the way. Or you simply don’t feel like following the plan.

I actually think that’s an advantage.

The plan should give the trip direction, but it shouldn’t be so rigid that there’s no room for discovery.

This also applies when the trips are to be filmed. I want to come home with a story, not just a checklist of places we have visited.

The Next Challenger is Riga

The next trip is now booked, and the destination will be Riga.

This gives us a new city to compare with Alicante.

Riga is not interesting because it necessarily has to be "better" on paper. What’s interesting is how the city works when we actually get there.

That’s also the difference between reading about a destination and being there yourself.

You can research restaurants, attractions, transport, and prices in advance, but you can’t plan how the city will actually feel.

It Must Be Experienced.

Can Riga beat Alicante?
I obviously won’t know that until the trip is completed.
And I actually hope I don’t know either.
If the conclusion is already determined before we leave, the whole project becomes far less interesting.

So Alicante retains the top spot for now.

Gothenburg couldn’t knock the city off the top.

Now It’s Riga’s Turn.

And if Riga can’t do it either, the search continues.
For there is definitely a city out there that can beat Alicante.
The question is just which one.