GuardTrails
What it means
Two objects that get confused systematically, and the confusion falsifies every diagnosis.
A stage is a zone of content: Arches and Canyonlands, the Gauja, Jotunheimen. A lodging is where you sleep: Moab, a farm, a campground.
Naming a stage after its hotel leads to visible errors of judgement. You propose to cut "Moab", believing you are cutting a town with nothing in it — while you are cutting two national parks.
Human judgement operates on content, never on the bed.
How it is measured
A stage's name carries both, in this order: "Arches and Canyonlands (base: Moab)". Not "Moab" alone, which hides the content, nor "Arches and Canyonlands" alone, which does not say where to book.
A trip's fragmentation is counted on zones, not beds. Lodging rotation becomes a separate, logistical question.
An example
Our camper trip through the American West shows 1.59 nights per lodging (our trips). Recounted by zone of content: 2.08 nights, or 31% more (our trips).
Six campgrounds in six nights, for two parks (our trips). We were not moving; we were changing pitch because that was what remained bookable.
Why the pitches kept changing: Six campgrounds in six nights.
The same trap appears when a stage is judged by its label: in Jūrmala, a stage we had marked as a candidate for removal, because it had only one night, turned out to hold two days of content (see Jūrmala is not a spa town).
What it does not say
The gap only exists where inventory constrains — campers, mountain huts, high season. In ordinary hotel travel the two counts converge.