SLOW TRAVEL
A Different Way to Move Through the World
Most trips are designed around how much you can fit in. Slow travel asks a different question: how much can you actually feel?
It means fewer stops and longer stays. A morning with nothing scheduled. The patience to let a place reveal itself instead of rushing to check it off. In my experience, this isn't just a nicer way to travel — it's almost always the more memorable one. The dinner you remember years later rarely happens on a day with four museums crammed into it.
The River Cruise: Slow Travel at Its Purest
If I had to point to one kind of trip that captures this philosophy completely, it's a river cruise. There's no driving, no flights between stops, no rushing to the next thing. The ship simply moves while you sleep, and you wake up in a new village along the Rhine or the Danube — coffee in hand, watching the morning light hit a hillside vineyard or a centuries-old church spire. You step off, explore at whatever pace feels right, and come back to a floating home that's already become familiar.
It's travel with the effort removed and the experience left intact. Having sailed personally with AmaWaterways on the Rhine, and as a Uniworld Preferred Specialist, I recommend river cruising often — not just because the destinations are wonderful, but because the pace of it is exactly right.
France Has Made It Official, Too
The same philosophy is showing up elsewhere. France has actually written it into law: domestic flights are now banned between French cities when a train journey of under two and a half hours is available — routes like Paris to Bordeaux, Nantes, and Lyon are simply no longer flown. The TGV gets you there nearly as fast once you account for airport time, and you arrive in the middle of a city instead of out at an airport. Plus there's the lovely French countryside rolling by the window the whole way — vineyards, farmhouses, fields of sunflowers — instead of clouds.
What This Looks Like in a Trip I'd Plan
Slow travel isn't about doing less — it's about choosing well. A five-night stay in Paris instead of two. A week drifting down the Rhine instead of racing through five countries. A train through the countryside instead of a quick flight. One region explored properly instead of three rushed through.
This philosophy shapes how I build every itinerary I plan.