10 Signs You’re a Slow Traveler
A slow travel guide to the Via Francigena.
Permission to gloat: I invented slow travel in the 80s, long before Al Gore invented the internet.
I had always dreamed of traveling the world, but with rent and student loan payments in my twenties, and a sizeable beer tab every month, traveling got pushed down my list. My father, who had married my mother in Germany when they were in their twenties, told me not to worry about when I got to Europe: “Europe is just old getting older. It will be there when you’re ready.”
Believe it or not, statistics show that people like preparing for a trip better than the trip itself. I never wanted to be that traveler. I was never a 20 cities in 20 days kind of person and the idea of a bucket list exhausted me. I wanted to live in a foreign country, learn the language, experience the culture, take it slow.
What my father forgot to mention is that I would get older, too. It turns out slow travel also meant it took me a really long time to travel abroad, even though it was one of my goals for decades. I finally gave up my ideal plan to live in another country to make my first trip to Europe when I was 44 years old.
It’s never too late to start slow.
Here are 10 signs that you might be ready for slow travel:
1. When you daydream about visiting another country, you imagine soaking up the environment and rejecting all traditional ideas about tourism. A long walk across a hot country sounded like the ultimate adventure in relaxation to me when my son and I hiked the Camino de Santiago across Spain.
2. Your WOTY (Word of the Year, people) is “Yes.” You’ve spent years saying no so that you can spend a year saying “Yes!” to new experiences and strange encounters. I had said no so much and so often by the time I met my new landlady at the bus station in Madrid that I vowed to say “yes” to everything for an entire year. I barely spoke Spanish and didn’t get out much, so this was much easier than it sounds.
3. You spurn the notion of entering an American chain outlet abroad. I had two rules when I moved to Spain: Say “Yes!” and never, ever enter a Starbucks.
4. Experience tells you that not everything in life is beautiful, but you can find beauty everywhere with the very deep connection that comes from truly seeing where you are.
5. You spent most of the last decade planning for retirement or your education or a dream vacation and now it’s time to plan less. You’re ready for a weekly itinerary instead of a daily schedule, and your guidebook is only a guide, not a manual.
6. The thought of a sleeping mat on the floor for a donation in a dormitory full of snoring pilgrims doesn’t make you want to run screaming from the room. You’re ready to embrace the uncomfortable because you know it won’t last forever.
7. You’ve memorized a dozen phrases in your favorite foreign language, and you’re OK with making the locals smile when you try to communicate. I carried a stack of homemade flash cards with me on the plane to Spain and studied such useful Spanish sentences as “My uncle got drunk so I had to take his car keys.” Language preparation is over-rated.
8. Your idea of a good time is living like a local, hanging out in coffee shops, parks and bars, eating the food and listening to music, and getting your next tourist tip from the ice cream vendor. One of my favorite moments after weeks hanging out daily in a neighborhood coffee shop in Madrid was realizing I understood a joke between two men at the table next to me. In Spanish.
9. Two days, two weeks, or two years: You’ve decided to explore more and plan less. I had a Spanish visa for a year and stayed for two. When I came home, I had learned to breathe deeply enough again to know it was time.
10. You know that exploring somewhere new is less about the destination and more about finding your way. Metro, ride share, train, plane, bus, cab, or on foot, the mode of transportation was as exciting and fruitful as where I was going.
Slow travel might be a state of mind more than anything else: making a low impact, taking your time, following your instincts, connecting with people and place. Are you a slow traveler?