In a really excellent column recently, Thomas Swick of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel travel section extols the virtues of slow travel. With the motto: “We travel to see the world, and we never see more than when we’re perfectly still,” Swick talks about the need to take a train or a boat where you’re going to catch the scenery, the vibe of a place. He recommends you OVERpack, so as to stay in place longer, to get to know it.
I like this. How often have you come across the traveler who boasts how he’s been to twenty places in ten days. Naw…don’t do that. Stay in ONE place for ten days, heck, for twenty days. A nice bit of advice for how to do the trqvel thing right. Here’s now Swick puts it:
“Travel for most Americans is what we do when we’re on vacation, and vacation, by definition, is a break from the marathon of our working lives. But because our vacations are so short, we often feel compelled to fill them with as much as possible, spend them in perpetual motion, which is never conducive to quiet appreciation.