The Joy of Slow Travel
It was Peter’s trip to France that sparked the idea: go somewhere and actually live there. Don’t pass through a place, live in it. Live in a community for an extended period of time. Instead of touring an entire country in five days, stay a few weeks in the same town and saunter around. Take time to: visit the local bakery, meet people, experience life outside of the North American way. This can be difficult as most travel infrastructure is simply an extension of our North America culture (Hiltons, All inclusives, etc). It takes a concentrated effort to not be tourists.
Having spent the last five weeks in one place, with over two more weeks left to go, we are now slow travel converts. It is relaxing to have a flexible schedule. It is nice to be able to let your mood, the weather, and the local environment affect what you do and when you do it. This mode of travel is in complete opposition to conventional vacations. In conventional vacations you project your schedule onto the place you are staying. In slow travel the place you are staying projects its schedule onto you.
Since we’ve arrived on Margarita Island we’ve:
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Discovered a great bakery a flew blocks away from our apartment. We buy our bread, desserts, and water there. It is fantastic. The people there know we that we do not speak much Spanish and have always been helpful.
- We’ve met the French couple and their son who own the fabulous restaurant beside our apartment. We talk to them on the street. They wave to us whenever we see them.
- We have a regular cab driver who moved here from Colombia two years ago. He used to be a mechanical engineer for a beer company but lost his job. He is learning English and we’ve spent hours teaching each other our respective languages. We’ve become friends. We spend more time laughing than we do talking.
- We met a doctor on a local ferry who spoke little to no English. As we were going to the same town (about 1.5 hours away) we shared a cab. We spent the time talking in broken English and Spanish about the Venezuelan people, their government, and how much snow we get in Canada. He bought us lunch at a typical food stand. He wanted to show us what real Venezuelan food was like. He and the taxi driver worked together to find our accommodation (the signs had been taken down for repair). He walked us to the front desk and helped us get our rooms. He then gave us his home and cell phone numbers in case we needed help while we were in his town.
These are just a few of the many experiences we’ve had. It is these types of experiences that you will not have on week long jaunt to a Sheraton. Having done both I can tell you that these experiences make you feel much more alive than lying on a beach all day or waiting in line to take the 10 millionth picture of the famous statue/monument/scenery.
Slow travel can, at first, be stressful. It takes a few days to simply relax. Pick up a phrase book and make an attempt to learn the language. Maybe even enroll in a course before you leave. We’ve found that this means a tremendous amount to those around you. Often people, once they see you trying, will go far out of their way to help you.
The most important lesson we have learned during our stay: until someone has proven themselves untrustworthy you should trust them. Being suspicious of everyone you come across will ruin any chance you have of experiencing the joys of slow travel.
