Hardly a week goes by these days without a journalist from somewhere in the world emailing me to talk about the rise of Slow Travel. And no wonder. The fast-forward approach to travel and tourism is taking a heavy toll. The environmental damage caused by our penchant for globetrotting in airplanes is well documented, but it is just the start. When we travel in roadrunner mode, we miss the small details that make each place thrilling and unique. We lose the joy of the journey. And at the end of it all, when every box on our To Do list has been checked, we return home even more exhausted than when we left. That is why Slow Travel is gaining ground. It’s about savouring the journey (traveling by train or barge or bicycle rather than crammed into a middle seat on an EasyJet flight); taking time to engage and learn about the local culture; finding moments to switch off and relax; showing an interest in the effect our visit has on the locals. The current issue of Newsweek Internationalhas a cover story devoted to Slow Travel and its title says it all: Slow is Beautiful.
Category: Travel
What is a slow city?
I’ve just arrived in Lisbon to give a talk to a group of business people. My hotel is in the Bairro Alto, the old quarter where narrow, cobbled streets trickle live rivulets of water down the hill to the sea. It is hard to get anywhere in a hurry, and you wouldn’t want to anyway because the architecture is so beautiful. It’s all a million miles from so much of North America, where the roads are laid out so that cars can hurtle through, and the functional, disposable buildings offer nothing to arrest the eye or make you want to linger. When it comes to slowing down, Europeans, with their wonderful, old cities, definitely have an advantage…Now I’d better hurry up and rehearse my speech….
Slow vacation
We’ve just come back from the ultimate slow holiday – travelling round Holland by barge and bicycle. I can’t think of a better way to see a country. Pedalling through the countryside and villages, stopping to picnic or sightsee or join in a pick-up soccer game. Cycling offers the perfect speed, fast enough to cover lots of ground, slow enough to take in the details. In the evenings you can smell suppers cooking as you glide past the open kitchen windows. Our unorthodox tandem sparked more than one conversation with the locals. Holland is amazingly bike-friendly, with dedicated cycle paths all over the place, even in the cities. The Dutch cycle everywhere. In Amsterdam you see businessmen in smart suits pedalling home from work. Or elegant women in high-heels cycling off to meet friends for lunch. Even bad weather doesn’t put them off. If only the rest of the world would follow suit. Imagine if you could cycle round London without fear of being squashed by a bus or an SUV. No one in Holland wears a cycling helmet, by the way. Apart from the tourists.
Don’t judge a book…
It’s not very often that I find myself applauding the US State Department. But recently Condoleezza Rice’s fiefdom joined forces with leading US companies to issue tips for Americans traveling abroad. One is: “Slow down. (We talk fast, eat fast, move fast, live fast. Many cultures do not.)” Another is: “Speak slower. (A fast talker can be seen as aggressive and threatening.)” Sound advice for everyone, it seems to me, not just Americans.