The Way of Slow Travel Articles, tips, and stories about Slow Travel
WSJ Magazine discusses Slow Travel in Easy Rider, an article from 2010. It certainly captures the yearnings that give rise to Slow Travel:
There’s been a fundamental shift in mind-set, says Henry Harteveldt, principal analyst for Forrester Research Inc.: People want to understand their world more. They want to take their time exploring locations and absorbing cultures.
Unfortunately, the remainder of the article makes it clear that Slow Travel, at least in the form that WSJ promotes, is out of reach of the average American holidaymaker:
[Slow Travel is] traveling the Seine aboard a barge that meanders from Paris through the Champagne region; seeing 1,852 miles of breathtaking Australian countryside aboard the Ghan train; renting a Tuscan villa for weeks at a time and discovering neighboring villages by bike and foot; or hopping aboard a freighter for a 48-day trip that begins and ends in Houston but stops everywhere from New Orleans and the Bahamas to Italy and Mexico in between.
In other words, if you’re part of the overwhelming majority of Americans who don’t get months off at a time, you’re out of luck because this movement is not for you. And if the time requirements don’t make it clear, the prices will; the article recommends Slow Travel options such as a train ride along the Silk Road ($14,395 for 21 days), or a trip aboard an ultra-deluxe French passenger barge ($6,150 for 7 days, satellite TV included).
Goes to show that the Slow Travel Movement captures the public’s imagination; but until now, it remains the exclusive resort of the rich and idle.
