> Both are valid, and combining the two is great.

I'm a big fan of combining the two.

When I spent 3 weeks in Türkiye solo traveling (from the US) I tried to have a few home bases. For example 5 full days of hiking 15-20 km in Cappadocia, 3 days near Selçuk and the rest in Istanbul.

You wouldn't think a massive city like Istanbul would be relaxing but it is when you're out of your hotel for 15 hours a day on foot with nothing but a list of bullet points that don't depend on planning anything ahead of time other than to make sure the thing you want to see is open when you're near the area.

Everyone is different but for me, I like not needing to be at X location at Y time a bunch of times in a row. A few of those are fine, but it can't be a majority of the trip. I try to treat road trips the same, 3-4 nights per stop (maybe 2 nights if it's a smaller place).

Time to decompress and explore is important IMO. Walking around while seeing new things is the ultimate form of decompression for me.