Sofia Sato

It's a good perspective. The duration of a trip is controllable, but seasonality is just noise. What's important is to focus on the experience, but one must also consider seasonal closures of certain places, like museums or mountain hiking trails, which can limit what we can do, regardless of duration or budget.

Neither the duration of the trip nor the seasonality are the only masters of the budget; this is to ignore the true lever.
Forget this binary, the real trick lies in the flexibility of the itinerary and the ability to adapt to last-minute opportunities.
Here in Japan, duration is a constraint, yes, but not a dictatorship; seasonality has its say, but it's not everything.
A friend saved a fortune on a three-week trip to Korea by agreeing to leave a week later than planned due to a last-minute cancellation; it's the dance with the unexpected that pays, not a fixed equation.

Forget the binary between duration and cost as decisive factors of a trip.
The real problem is not whether a two-week stay is better than a longer one in low season for budget reasons, but rather what we want to experience.
Here in Japan, seasonality is intrinsically linked to experiences like cherry blossoms or summer festivals, making date flexibility often impossible.
Trying to save money by shifting a trip to see sakura in low season is a contradiction, as the event is ephemeral and fixed.
The lived experience, even if brief and more expensive, takes precedence over financial optimization, like buying a ticket for a specific art festival.