Lining up too many car destinations within the metro and trying to hit them all. Could be food, could be shopping (record stores are a weakness), could be a museum or some tourist site. Thanks to the Internet it's easy to research beyond your time capacity and try to do too much.

If you superimpose that onto a real sprawler city, like Dallas or Houston or Phoenix or even Kansas City, the trip will inevitably become too drive-bound and the traffic stress will get to you. Just like commuting at home. @:-) Places like New York or Paris or Bangkok have transit alternatives that would save a lot of the stress.

With food I try hard to avoid the chains and find something unique. It leads to eating too much but you want to make the calories count (i.e. no McFood).