Specialist Guide: Slow Travel
I became a Slow Traveler long before I knew there was a name for it was a concept. Rather than ticking off the number of countries visited, or trying to squeeze in as many siteseeing trips as possible, slow travellers take their time to explore a location in more depth. They aim to get under the skin of a destination and connect with the local community.
Slow Accommodation
I’ve always preferred to stay in AirBnBs or find house sits in locations that interest me, to create a home away from home, rather than book into a resort and have somebody else cater to my needs. Choosing these accommodation options means you sometimes have to make compromises. Life isn’t perfect and I find it more enjoyable to encounter quirks than perfection in my accommodation choices.
Slow Eating and Sightseeing
My favourite holiday sightseeing adventure is to explore the local farmer’s markets to see what produce is in season, and spot what foods are in season locally. I also prefer to find out of the way eating locations rather than restaurants in tourist centric “bar-streets” or “restaurant-rows”.
Slow Modes of Transport
I much prefer relying on public transport than hiring a car. In your rental car you automatically cocoon yourself off from interaction with the local area, but when you use public transportation you have a greater opportunity of meeting locals and other travelers, but you also get a chance to slow down and take in your surrounding.
Mixing Slow with Fast Travel
I’ve traveled extensively, and even during my corporate life phase when my Fast Travel was funded, I still found a way to interject some slow travel elements into my business Trips.
For example, during my Sao Paulo trip I spent my weekend visiting the Municipal Market for traditional Brazilian food:
It would have been a whole lot easier to stay in the hotel and order from their menu, instead I ventured out of the comfort and security of my global hotel chain location to discover the local side of Sao Paulo. I ended up visiting as many markets as I could, and even stumbled across one that I wasn’t expecting.
Slow Travel
The whole idea of a slow travel holiday is to come back from it relaxed and refreshed. If your travel is hectic and leaves you exhausted, then maybe it’s time to change your approach.
Background resources for Slow Travel
The Art of Slow Travel
Slow travel is an offshoot of the slow food movement, which began in Italy in the 1980s as a protest against the opening of a McDonald’s in Rome. The slow food movement aims to preserve regional cuisine, local farming, communal meals and traditional food preparation methods. This cultural initiative has since burgeoned into a whole way of life known as the Slow Movement, which emphasizes connection — connection to food, connection to families and, in the case of travel, connection to local peoples and cultures. Source: Independent Traveller READ MORE
What is Slow Travel?
Slow travel is about fully immersive experiences. It’s centred around a prolonged and in depth experience, primarily with locals, but not always. Slow travel isn’t just skipping tourist attractions or popular destinations either. Not at all. It’s all about how we decide to enjoy them and every other activity we do. It’s about taking the time to embrace everything around us, to enjoy even the simplest things that aren’t necessarily the most popular or the most famous. Source: Slow Vegan Travel READ MORE
What is Slow Travel?
One of the pleasures of slow travel is the slow and thorough exploration of the local area – it is like an immersion process. Most slow travellers start by exploring everything within a couple of hundred metres of where they are living. This can easily be done on foot and is the area that is given most time and attention. Next they explore out to a few kilometres – this can easily be done on a bike. If there is time slow travellers then explore further afield, perhaps by train or hire car. Source: Slow Movement READ MORE
Slow as a Travel Guide Angle
The Slow Travel movement was spawned off the Slow Food Movement. There aren’t a great deal of Slow Travel guidebooks in the marketplace. The most well-known, and prolific publishers or Slow Travel guides is Bradt’s Slow Travel guides for the UK.
Their guides include contributions from local experts, and colourful and witty writing combined with the authors’ enthusiasm, which makes these guide as much a pleasure to read as an invaluable companion for exploring. They have an emphasis on car-free travel – walking, cycling and local buses – the detailed descriptions, historical and folk anecdotes, and personal accounts encourage visitors to explore each locale thoroughly. Hand-picked places to eat and drink, including all the local eateries.
If you’re planning on writing a Slow Travel Guide, you’d should visit Amazon and look through all of the Bradt guides to give you an idea of how they approach a location from a Slow Travel angle.
Background resources for Slow Travel
Slow travel is an offshoot of the slow food movement, which began in Italy in the 1980s as a protest against the opening of a McDonald’s in Rome. The slow food movement aims to preserve regional cuisine, local farming, communal meals and traditional food preparation methods. This cultural initiative has since burgeoned into a whole way of life known as the Slow Movement, which emphasizes connection — connection to food, connection to families and, in the case of travel, connection to local peoples and cultures. Source: Independent Traveller READ MORE
Slow travel is about fully immersive experiences. It’s centred around a prolonged and in depth experience, primarily with locals, but not always. Slow travel isn’t just skipping tourist attractions or popular destinations either. Not at all. It’s all about how we decide to enjoy them and every other activity we do. It’s about taking the time to embrace everything around us, to enjoy even the simplest things that aren’t necessarily the most popular or the most famous. Source: Slow Vegan Travel READ MORE
One of the pleasures of slow travel is the slow and thorough exploration of the local area – it is like an immersion process. Most slow travellers start by exploring everything within a couple of hundred metres of where they are living. This can easily be done on foot and is the area that is given most time and attention. Next they explore out to a few kilometres – this can easily be done on a bike. If there is time slow travellers then explore further afield, perhaps by train or hire car. Source: Slow Movement READ MORE
How would you approach the Slow Travel topic? Is there an angle or theme you’d favor?
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Read more articles in my How to Write a Travel Guide Series
I’m putting the finishing touches on my How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Series, which details a step by step approach for writing and producing your own travel guide. It’s part of a four-part series aimed at helping travel bloggers achieve passive income based on their passions and existing content.
