The Benefits of Slow Travel
During a recent and rather whirlwind weekend trip to Vienna, I realised once again why I am so fond of travelling slowly. The truth is, I find travelling quickly stressful, and if, as in my case, you mix limited time in a destination with a persistent and uncomfortable cold, you end up with a zombie-like traveller walking the streets of Vienna in pain because she just can’t bear the thought of staying at her accommodation and resting when she’s flying home in two days.
Of course, I know very well that there are as many travelling styles as there are travellers out there, and while many bloggers have made the point (which I agree with), that one should do what makes one happy and people should not criticise other people’s travel style, I do believe that while there is no right or wrong way to travel, there are benefits and disadvantages to every style. In my case, today I would like to share what I think the benefits of Slow Travel are.
-It usually works out cheaper in the end. Some things are pretty obvious. Staying in one place, region or country in one period of time instead of flying to three is obviously less expensive, as is, say, settling in one area of the European continent for longer and exploring it more fully as opposed to rushing all over Europe via train. Accommodation also often works out cheaper if you stay for a while, and vacation rentals often offer cheaper rates if you stay for one week or one month. Staying longer in a place also means that you don’t need to book yourself on group tours because travelling around independently would make you lose precious time, and instead you can use the extra money to dive more fully in the food, life and culture of a place. Staying in one place longer also means that you will soon know where to get the best things for the cheapest price, instead of simply heading to the closest spots for convenience’s sake.
Can you think of any other ways in which travelling slowly can save you money?
-You move from seeing to experiencing. Heading to a very famous touristic site, walking a bit around it, taking a few pictures and then heading on to the next for me sounds like ‘seeing’ a place. Sitting down and watching how locals and travellers interact which such a place, and somehow interacting with it yourself apart from just taking its photo then becomes ‘experiencing’.
-It allows you more time to stray away from your schedule and plans. So you’re somewhere and you find that you have to choose between seeing a couple more sites or spending an hour lazily enjoying a cup of coffee and a slice of cake in a local cafe as you watch life go by on the street. You have to make a choice because you haven’t got time for both, and whatever choice you make you’ll feel like you’re missing out. I had to make such a choice during my weekend in Vienna AND I HATED it! I want to have time for everything (Or at least, almost), but this time I just didn’t.
-It’s ethical. It creates less pollution and less refuse than faster travel, and it gives us the chance to move around with more environmentally-friendly means of transport. Hey, we’re even more likely to walk around because we have time, instead of using motorised transport. Plus, the longer we stay in a place the more likely are we to to treat it as our home and therefore to take care of it, the more time will we have to seek recycling bins for our trash or avoid take-away meals with lots of packaging, for example.
-It’s actually relaxing. I don’t know about you, but I can only manage a small amount of hours per day running around seeing sites. After a while, I get hungry, tired, grumpy, and my shoulders muscles start to burn. When this moment comes, I want to go back to my accommodation and relax, or have a cup of coffee in a cafe and hang around for hours reading about the destination I’m visiting. I actually like to make sure I have time to eat healthy and sleep a long, restful sleep.
-I just find it immensely more fulfilling, because it gives me time to understand a place. In Hungary, while I had plenty of time to explore beautiful Budapest, I also spent a week at Boyfriend’s parents’ house down by lake Balaton doing very very little because it was very cold. However, I got to see how Hungarians live, where they shop and where they eat. In Korea, I spent one month practically only in Seoul, trying to understand the difficulties faced by the younger generation of Koreans who long to have more freedom but are still inextricably tied to tradition. I visited the same places over and over again and just watched locals interact with them, so that by the time I left I had at least some form of understanding of what it means to be a Seoulite.
-As a travel blogger, I believe it gives me much more insightful material to share with you lovely readers, and for me, that’s extremely important.
Can you think of other benefits of travelling slowly?
Editor’s note: This is a sponsored post written by yours truly as lovingly and objectively as a standard post.
-Text by Denise Pulis, photos via Flickr (click on images for attribution) @ www.theartofslowtravel.com
3 Comments → “The Benefits of Slow Travel”
Leave a Reply
Browse by Continent/Theme
Portfolio
Navigate
You make some good points for lingering in one place for awhile instead of trying to end up #1 in the Guinness Book of Records category of “Most Places Breezed Through” in the shortest period of time.
Our first trip to Europe lasted 14 days (including the three total days of travel, two going due to the time change, one coming back) between the U.S. and Europe. “Plan A” was to try to spend some time in Rome, some in the Italian countryside, two-three days in the French countryside, a few days in Paris. Too ambitious. We opted for a 4 days in Rome, 5 in Paris, an afternoon in Orvieto, a day in Assisi, and a afternoon in Florence.
Our next two trips were longer (26 and 34 days) so we had time to rent a farmhouse for a week (Tuscany first, Normandy next trip). That gave us an opportunity to shop locally, hang out, chill out, and get a little more familiar with each community.
On both trips, we alternated these longer stays with 2-5 nights in various cities and towns, sometimes traveling between them by air, sometimes by train, sometimes by rental car, depending on which form of transportation best suited our needs.
Our fourth trip to Europe lasted a month (plus travel time). We couldn’t make the start/end of a vacation rental (often Sat-Sat in Europe) fit into our itinerary, but still managed some reasonably long stays in some stops along the way.
Rick Steves (who provides a lot of useful ideas for Americans traveling to Europe, but travels like the Energizer Bunny, only stopping long enough to recharge his batteries) said Dresden could be done on a “hop off, hop on”, visit of a few hours while traveling by train between Prague and Munich. Instead, we opted for a two night stay in an apartment, loved the place, and wished we could have spent a few more days there.
In forty years of traveling, we’ve only done one trip were we “put down roots” for longer than a week. That was a two-week stay last July on Maui (thanks to friends who lent us there condo) where we “vegetated” and did little exploring (having visited the island three times before).
I think the moral our our travel story is figure out what works best for you given the time, money, and energy that you have to spend, and then just forget about trying to cover all of the “must-do, must-see, ’cause we’ll never get back” things and have a good time wherever you go,and whatever you do while there.
Hi!
You have mentioned some very good points, especially about the fact that one has to figure out the best way to travel according to one’s character and personality. However, I do get upset when people express their disappointment with a particular trip/destination, or say that it was boring/unimpressive etc. and then you discover that these people spent a very short time in a place or did only very cliche touristy things. To effectively decide you ‘dislike’ a place, I believe you need to show you have explored it in depth and only then decided that it’s not for you.
1000% agree with everything you have said here. We tried the Speedy Gonzales style of travel, and ended up crying on a hostel bed after six months in South America and vowing to do things differently. Huge benefits of this, for all the reasons you’ve mentioned. It’s not for everyone, but suits us perfectly!