How many bases should a trip have?
A simple rule that saves more trips than any other single planning decision: fewer bases, longer stays, and never a base for one night unless it is buying you something.
The instinct on a first visit to an unfamiliar country is to spread out — a night here, two nights there, so that nothing is missed. The result is a trip spent mostly in transit, where every place is met in its least interesting state: arrival tired, departure early.
A workable starting rule is one base per four days, rounded down. Eight days, two bases. Twelve days, three. Fourteen days, three with one longer stay rather than four evenly split. Add a base only when the geography genuinely forces it, or when a single night is buying something specific — a desert camp, a night train, an early flight.
Longer stays also change what a place gives you. The second morning in a town is different from the first: you know where the coffee is, which street is the shortcut, and what happens at seven in the evening. That is the part of travel that photographs badly and matters most.
Where a country really does demand movement — a road loop, a rail spine, an island chain — the answer is not more bases but a slower loop covering less ground. Cutting the map is nearly always better than cutting the nights.
Basis for this note. Written from planning practice and publicly verifiable sources. Not a first-person trip report.
General planning method; not specific to one destination.