Why We Love Slow Travel
In 2023, we were lucky enough to take our daughter Maeve on a 4 ½ month journey around the world. When we were planning for the trip, we made the quick decision to not try to see everything. We chose to spend each month, or close to it, in one location, setting up a home base and exploring from there. In Vietnam, that meant getting an apartment in Hoi An, a smaller town in the center of the country. In Spain, we booked an Airbnb in Seville and immersed ourselves in Andalusian culture for a whole month. We did this for two main reasons:
1. Traveling with a toddler is not conducive to packing up and hitting up a new destination every few days.
2. We embrace the idea of slow travel.
What does slow travel mean to us? It means choosing to not see 10 cities on a 10 day trip to Europe. It means not seeing 5 different historic sites in Rome in one day. In fact, we usually only try to do one “touristy” thing per day on our travels. It means settling in to one location, figuring out the culture and moving on when we are ready and feel we have seen all we would like to.
France Slow Travel
When You Try to See Everything, You See Nothing
We recently chatted with a retired woman who took a group tour through Spain, Portugal and France. They were mostly in a different hotel each night, with a few nights in Madrid and Barcelona. She raved about the hotels (although being confused why Europeans eat cold cuts for breakfast) and the tour guide. Yet when we asked her about her favorite landmarks and towns, she couldn’t remember the names of any. “I’d have to look through my itinerary again for the names.” Clearly, at that pace, nothing stuck. We definitely buy into the idea that if you try to see everything on a trip, you end up seeing nothing. For instance, if you only see the Colosseum and the Vatican in Rome, you could miss out on some amazing other sights that you actually might appreciate more.
Slow Travel Adventures
Slow Travel is the Best Option for Family Travel
This is obviously a personal opinion, and one that might not work for every family, but for us, it works best. At Maeve’s age (she’s currently 4), it just doesn’t make sense to pack up and switch locations every few days. While we tend to travel light, we still have to bring toys and books on top of clothes for her, to occupy her when we are not out exploring. On our extended trip, Maeve was transitioning out of diapers. I couldn’t even imagine trying to fit in several cities in each country, and when we did push ourselves, we felt so burnt out and didn’t end up enjoying ourselves.
Slow Travel with Children
You Get a Better Sense of A Country’s Way of Life
When you immerse yourself into a specific nation’s customs and traditions, you get a better understanding of why and how they live. When you are not rushed and have more time to stay in one place, you can actually take that cooking class, or check out that famous church off the beaten path. On top of that, we find it is so much easier to meet new friends when you are not town hopping every few days.
Italian Slow Travel