Alright, let’s get down to it – what is slow travel? Be honest, when you first heard the term, part of you assumed it was coined by another ‘wellness’ expert, who, only able to afford the cheapest and slowest means of transport during their gap yahs, decided to then tell the rest of us how to do it, right?!
Call me cynical, but my natural instinct is to eschew mass opinion and the latest trend, especially when the slow travel movement seems to have more clarity regarding what it’s not rather than what it is.
Truth is though, most of you have probably always been slow travellers, and for me personally, going slow is how I’ve lived, worked and traveled for most of my life. It’s also how I run TTT’s sister tour company, Venture Vienna.
So, rather than jumping on another unnecessarily divisive bandwagon, I think it’s more helpful to be talking about a more attainable and inclusive form of slower travel, which helps us to connect more, promotes alternatives to flying, and encourages us to think a little deeper about where we visit, when, and why.
The Current Problem With How We Travel
Flying is cheaper now than it has ever been, and (dare I say it?) the world has opened up due to low-cost airlines. People have opportunities to gain new perspectives and to expose themselves to new cultures more than at any time in human history.
In theory, this should be a good thing for our species, but at the same time, the unstoppable rise of the internet now also means that many of us inhabit comfortable, algorithm-driven echo chambers, leading us towards the same ‘must-do’ travel experiences and bucket lists.
I call this ‘tick-box travel’ i.e jam-packing your itinerary with the same well trodden activities, in the same over-crowded destinations, such that your experience becomes watered down, impersonal and hurried.
I can’t imagine that this style of tourism provides much insight to the individual traveler (other than information they could already find on Google), nor benefit to the weary local host who is unable to make genuine connections with his/her guests given the sheer volume of tourists they receive.
Maybe some people don’t care about this, but I certainly do. It’s hard to live like a local when you’re surrounded by 17 other tourists, being herded like a sheep through the narrow streets of a new city.
This is why I mostly write about less-crowded, lesser known destinations, like the Wachau Valley in Lower Austria, Bologna in Italy, Santander in northern Spain, or Warsaw in Poland.
What is Lost When we Fly?
Besides feeling mundane and anonymous at airports and on short-haul flights, the concept of real distance travelled between destinations is lost altogether.
Slower means of travel (trains, ferries, bikes, piggybacks, horse and cart etc.) give you a natural sense of anticipation, excitement and awe as you gradually see (and therefore understand) what it means to move over long distances into different latitudes, longitudes, lands and cultures.
This all-important sense of anticipation became one of the first victims of cheap air travel (as well as ozone & a few birds). When was the last time that you genuinely enjoyed your flight? Or was it merely a means to an end that you couldn’t wait to finish? Shouldn’t the journey be fun too?
What is Slow Travel?
Considering the unstoppable expectation and drive that we humans have for making everything as easy as possible, slow travel can be hard to do well, or even at all, these days.
I’m not anti-flying, and I recognise that in many cases viable alternatives just don’t exist, or are way too expensive. My aim here is just to simplify the concept of what slow travel is.
I believe that the principles of slow travel revolve around the decisions you make before and during your holiday. These tend to span the following areas:
- Where you visit;
- What time of year you travel;
- How you travel (plane, train, ferry, car etc.);
- How you get around once there;
- Where you stay & what you do;
- Where and what you eat & drink;
- If and how you engage with nature/local people;
- What you learn about the place you’re visiting
So even small decisions you make that contribute towards your learning more about a place, reducing emissions, or supporting the local economy are all ‘slow’.
If you decide to use public transport one day instead of another Uber, that’s a form of slower travel. If you decide to visit Venice differently or you go to Lisbon in winter instead of July, then that’s a form of slower travel too.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, and you certainly don’t have to be perfect. I myself fly regularly – because I don’t have the time nor money to always take trains and ferries instead. I’d rather not, but I’m realistic.
Pushback From the Negative Brigade
For me, travel is all about feeling connected, and I get that feeling through the landscapes, experiences, and the people I meet along the way. It helps me to feel less isolated, and more in tune with my fellow species.
Some people in your lives, though, may try to convince you that travelling regularly is merely ‘escaping reality’. Well, first of all – what’s wrong with that? And secondly – these closed-minded, rather negative views probably come from those who’d rather keep you close than see you flourish and learn what is so magical and inter-connected about this world.
These are the same people that will try to tell you that you’re not a slow traveller because you took a flight to your chosen destination.
What is Slow Travel: Outro
At the end of the day, nothing really makes you a slow traveler and nothing prevents you from being one, because it’s not an identity. It’s just a term that someone made up, that a few other people thought was cool, cos it might encourage others to get involved.
So be realistic and just travel in whatever style that helps you to better understand and connect with a place, be that its natural landscapes, its food and drink, its history and culture, or its people. You’ll probably find that you’ve actually been pretty slow all along! And if not, it’s never too late to get involved.
Ready to put this into practice? Start with my ferry guides for an alternative to flying, or dive into a destination like Brno in the Czech Republic, or Slovenia’s capital city Ljubljana — both are exactly the kind of slower travel destinations I’m talking about.
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