The Importance and Pleasures of Slow Travel

The history of Slow Travel is intertwined with the Slow Food movement of the 1980s in Italy by Carlo Petrini. With concern for locality, ecology and quality of life, Slow Travel has spread over the past decade. It will continue to grow as the need to reduce our carbon footprint becomes vital to our lifestyles.

Slow Food evolved to prevent local food cultures and traditions from disappearing. It aimed to raise public interest in the food we eat, its origin and how our food choices affect the world around us. 

Similarly, Slow Tourism involves the tourist slowing down and often doing less to gain a deeper understanding of the surroundings, community, and authentic culture. Visiting the most famous locations doesn’t mean one has actually experienced the place.

There’s a deeper need to explore, and you would find there are serene locations with a steady rhythm of life which is monumental in soothing down ragged nerves; it’s a chance to rediscover yourself. The main purpose of travel is to relax and enjoy, and it’s what everybody seeks at the core. But instead, by travelling ‘fast’ to check off everything on Your To-Do List, you end up even more exhausted. Slowness is not about anti-speed. Rather, slow is embodied in the qualities of rhythm, pace, tempo and velocity, creating a harmonious relationship between the traveller and the world.

Dickinson and Lumsdon (2010) define Slow Tourism as:

‘A conceptual framework that involves people who ‘travel to destinations more slowly overland, stay longer and travel less’ and who incorporate travel to a destination as itself an experience and, once at the destination, engage with local transport options and ‘slow food and beverage,’ take time to explore local history and culture, and support the environment.’

1) It Educates Us

There is an old saying: “It’s the journey that counts, not the destination.”

This is great advice when going on a slow travel expedition. When you slow down and open yourself to the wide range of experiences that come before you, you’re able to embrace the journey instead of the destination and get to learn many useful things that will be with you for a lifetime. 

2) To Be More Relaxed Is The Need Right Now 

When we are in the present moment, we are free to enjoy everything that surrounds us. There’s no strict agenda to follow as fascist. Besides, hopping locations is extremely hectic. Here comes Slow Tourism in the picture, which keeps you more relaxed as you give more time to one destination at a time. The idea is to reconnect you with the importance and pleasures of travelling slow and in balance, healthy for you and the community.

For instance, one can wake up in the morning and go to the beach, or go shopping nearby, or can relax in the hotel, or can rent a motorbike and go for a ride. It controls the emotional drive to do whatever you feel like doing. 

One true thing is that when you’re living in the moment and accepting everything as it comes, your sense of detachment increases, you live every moment as it comes and not react negatively if things don't happen as meticulously as you planned them on paper. You start to move spontaneously and organically; this zen-like attitude is way more relaxing than making sure your itinerary is full with all the necessary tourist hotspots. By adapting the Slow Travel ideology, you can breathe, slow down and enjoy everything that’s around you.

3) Easy on the Pocket

With Slow Travel, you spend more time at one location, saving your vehicle costs for hopping to other destinations. One can opt to stay away from the overpriced tourist areas; instead, you can avail of local services in cheaper areas. And being a friendly tourist in an area full of locals often gives you many hidden perks.

4) To Get Richer Experiences

When you travel at a slower pace, you can start paying attention to what’s going on in front of you instead of what you expect it should have been. One may see fewer things but get to experience more. We can understand the value of quality over quantity. Thus, the experiences become rich, intricate and more fascinating. 

5) Eco-Friendly

As spending more time at one particular place, there’s less need to travel between two places. Long-distance travel is expensive; it’s bad for the environment and expensive; it expensive; causes more pollution due to the emission of harmful gases from vehicles.

6) It Gives Real Time Knowledge

While doing slow travel, one knows the insight of everything in that particular destination, e.g. which cuisine is best to have at which place or restaurant? Which route takes you where? About the regional languages and many other useful things. It also helps us build strong connections with the locals, which can help at any point in time. 

7) To Experience What It’s Like To Live In A Foreign Country

Well, this can’t be possible while you are on a short trip. Being on a slow travel thing, you can actually experience how your society, culture, traditions differ from the destination you are staying in and know what it’s like to be an outsider. You get to know about it in detail.

8) Make Strong Connections

You will have time to hang out with new people, get to know them. Who knows, you might even make some life-long friends or find your soulmate there. Building strong relations with the locals can advantage you to know about the places and people residing there. 

9) One Can Revisit The Places

Imagine, what if you loved a place you visited once and given a chance you can revisit it, isn’t it interesting. You don’t have to feel like visiting a place is your only chance to see it. Suppose you forgot to click pictures of a good view of a certain place; you can revisit it anytime and take as many numbers clicks as you want.

10) Flexibility To Stay Longer At A Place

Here, you have an option if you loved a place you can stay there as much long as you want. You don’t have to hurry up to move to another destination. And that’s the beauty of it! If you get to know any new place you haven’t been to before, you can modify your plans accordingly as you may have time here. When tight schedules bind us, we cannot enjoy our vacation; however, we can take advantage of every moment in slow travel.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was: go slow to go fast. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day, but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress. -Viggo Mortenson