We didn’t always love slow travel.
Or at least we didn’t always know we loved slow travel. Our standard trip over the past couple of years has followed a pretty intense model and most have been the polar opposite of “slow” travel. We’ve tried to pack in as much as possible to the annual leave and public holidays available to us and that’s meant spreading that leave out throughout the year and smashing as much as possible into those trips away.
We’ve also had our 100 Things List as a bit of a goal which has meant a lot of our trips away over the past couple of years have been focused on ticking something off that list.
We still look back on all those trips fondly now but the hangover from all that fast-paced travel on the Monday morning back at work was often been pretty bad. We’ve come back from trips feeling like well, we need a holiday.
Often we’ve tried to get to as many countries as possible in one trip (as seeing new places is exciting for us and we want to see them all!). I think our record would be our Luxembourg to Koln to Amsterdam trip which involved a whirlwind tour of three countries in four days.
Our trip to Florence included a stop in Pisa to see the Leaning Tower but we only spent half a day there. Having a very short stop like that means we didn’t get any chance to get to know what it’s like to live there or what is great and unique about the place. All we’re left with is a token photo of the tower and memories of having to fight off tourists to get it.
Now, we’re in no way complaining about these trips and know how lucky we are to be able to see all these place but we are becoming aware of what we’re missing out on by rushing around so much and what actually makes us happiest when travelling.
There have been some days on these otherwise hectic trips that have been at a much slower pace. Days where we wake up and start the day by strolling leisurely to a local cafe to spend a few hours drinking coffee & people watching. Days involving no plan at all and we just get lost exploring a new city with no set aim (still my favourite thing to do in a new city…often when you’re lost and off the beaten track is when you’ll find the coolest, most interesting stuff).
Putting slow travel into practice
We are happiest when we’re able to spend hours getting lost with no set destination, to sunbathe and laze by the pool, to stroll around the local markets, to drink far too many coffees, beers or wines in a local cafe, or just sit and watch the sun set. We’re happiest when we get to live like locals and really get to know what a place feels like. We want to think back on trips and remember how a place made us feel, not just how big the queues at the tourist attractions were.
Our favourite trips are the ones where we’ve been able to do all of this and come out feeling like we really have a sense of what a place is like to live in.
We kept this goal of slow travel in mind when planning our 2015 trips to Iceland and the Maldives. We made sure we had rest days on our Iceland road trip and allowed 10 days to circumnavigate the country. Given it was our first slow travel trip, we still had lessons to learn and felt afterwards that we should have added a least an extra week to our road trip (especially when we decided to record a daily Vlog for the trip!). But we also came back knowing that changing to slow travel was definitely the right choice for us.
Luckily, we got it right with our trip to the Maldives (and we still managed to record some videos). It was our first real holiday where there weren’t a multitude of sites to see or things to tick off (an ideal honeymoon really!). It was just us and all we could do was relax, read books, swim, snorkel, sunbathe, go fishing and eat & drink to our hearts’ content. We came back from that trip so refreshed and with a really good idea of the kind of balance we needed to aim for with our future trips.
So how will we be planning trips in the future?
Some of the most obvious but best advice I’ve heard is simply to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
That’s actually a quote about financial trading but I think it applies quite well here too. We are happiest when we go slow and take our time rather than rush around like mad ticking things off a list.
There are also a few other benefits of going slower and being more flexible with our time. We can go see sights when they’re quieter, get to places that have odd opening hours, be open to unplanned adventures and also save some money. The cost of slower trips will usually work out for us as half or less what those shorter trips cost in terms of cost per day and that is unsurprising given the flights are a big chunk of the cost of a short trip.
Flying on a Friday night and coming back on Sunday is always more expensive than say, leaving Monday/Tuesday and coming back the following week (if completely flexible on days then there are some great deals on flights). The same goes for accommodation, prices can go way up for the weekend compared to during the week (especially around events like Oktoberfest) and you can often find discounts or deals that make staying in one place for longer a better financial option (e.g. book 4 nights get 1 for free).
Slow Travel = Cheaper
Slow Travel = More Relaxing
Slow Travel = Better, More Memorable Experiences
Our future travels are going to look a lot different with this in mind. We’re excited about these slower adventures and can’t wait to learn more about the wonderful world of house-sitting, campervanning and other slow, longer term options for some of the big, exciting trips we’re planning.
What about you? Do you prefer those short, exciting weekends where you tick off a bunch of must see items off your bucket list? Or those slower, more relaxed days of chilling out and exploring without an itinerary?
Definitely prefer slow travel, with rest days! Husband likes to rush rush rush and gets bored if I make him sit by the pool too long, but we make sure to always have downtime. Unfortunately over the past few years we’ve had the wedding etc so have had long extended periods in NZ, so next year we’re looking forward to having some week long trips where we can chill out. We may even take a long travel trip home when we move back. We have 2 weeks in Italy from Friday but that’s 5 cities in 14 days, so it’ll be about finding time to chill in all of that.
Yay for downtime! We have sucked in the past at planning trips to have downtime to be honest. We had that problem with the wedding trip taking all our leave too (was such a nice change this year having some longer trips). 14 days in Italy sounds awesome (plenty of time for relaxing there I bet even with 5 cities!).
I think I definitely like a combination of both, because I agree with many of the points you’ve made. I love seeing things and being on the go, but I also love relaxing and just taking the day as it comes. On my recent trip to Italy, I had a few days at the end of the trip where I had only one thing booked and one walk that I wanted to do. I was so exhausted from the busy-ness of the previous two weeks that I basically sat on my AirBnB patio, drank wine and read for the majority of that time. It was the best thing, and just what I needed to decompress.
Yeah I get the combination – I think a balance is a good way to go. Our rough idea now is to have at least one chill out/slow day for every busy or travel day in each place we go. I think our problem before was that when we planned trips we booked all the things in ahead of time (because time was limited on the short trip) and then had no time for chilling out, drinking wine and reading on balconies :p.
I totally agree, we much prefer slow travel these days, but it wasn’t always that way. When we first hit the road we were so excited about travelling and we’d been dreaming about our trip for so long that we went crazy, zipping around as fast as possible, cramming as much in as we could. After about six months of this we were totally burnt out and realised we needed to slow down. It took us a while to get used to moving slowly though and we had to learn to give ourselves permission to just relax rather than go out sightseeing all the time.
Yeah, we still feel a bit weird at times going slow and giving ourselves permission to relax. We’re the worst when we’re planning – we’ll want to do ALL THE THINGS so now we’re constantly trying to add more days in our plans than we think we’ll need. We’ll get there eventually!
I must agree with you here, slow travel for the win. Going somewhere with a jam packed itinerary completely inhibits one from integrating into the community, taking time to meet new people, or even letting a new local friend take you on a spontaneous adventure.
Wise words!