Hello! New to slow travel

[Daniel]

Hi everyone,

I am a Portuguese living in the United Kingdom, although I also spend some time travelling. I've always enjoyed travelling, and I am still partial to a fast type of travelling, particularly if it is my first time in a place, and time is short. Still, I am trying to gravitate towards a slower lifestyle, travelling included. Looking forward to reading about other people's travel, and giving some tips whenever I can.

 

[Rome Addict]

Welcome. I understand your problem. Do you do a place once over lightly or do you settle in and learn a place? Our first 25 years of marriage it was all about the driving vacation. Wave as you drove by. And in America given its size and newness that probably is the way to go. Then in 1997 we went to Rome, rented an apartment and stayed for a month. We fell in love. Not only with the city but that way of traveling. Since then we travel for a minimum of a month. The one exception was last spring we went to japan on a cruise and hated it. It today is Tuesday this must be Tokyo. Not the cruise part the stopping somewhere for 8 hours.

So definitely hang around. You sound like you would be a great resource for places to explore in depth.

 

[Ian Sutton]

Welcome Daniel

Such a trade off fast vs. slow. It's not easy.

My golden thought is that packing/unpacking, checking in/checking out & travelling between accomodations (excepting where we can simply relax e.g. a ~ 2 hour train journey) is all wasted time. I don't want to do it, and I don't enjoy it, so want to minimise that time on my holiday. Day trips also take time out, but avoid most of this wasted time, and also involve NOT carrying heavy bags. So one way to ease back from fast, is to choose a good central base location and take day trips to give variety. What I tend to do, is take a number of day trip ideas with us, but at most these are pencilled in (say to match a market day or event that is happening). It gives us flexibility to decide either the night before, or that morning. Having done a fast race around Australia with a friend, I know how a schedule can become annoying in time.

Having a car can also allow a 'fast' mindset, but if the locations are chosen sensibly (often not large towns and cities), then all of a sudden the journey becomes part of the holiday, the packing/unpacking can be simplified to something the size of a day pack each, and in that scenario moving on every day or two can be quite a good way to travel. For this though, it really helps to have a love of the local, rural, non-famous, such that a small somewhat isolated village sounds interesting, rather than merely an inconsequential dot on the map.

and by way of welcome:

Portugal deserves a debt of gratitude for bringing these to the world . We're very lucky to have a Portuguese shop in Norwich!