Slow-travel 101

You have probably heard the sayings “chase the weather,” “budget travel,” and “weekend warrior” in reference to travel decisions. But slow-travel can mean different things to different people, so today, I will talk about how our slow-travel criteria helps guide our travel agenda.

Slow-travel defined

For two years now, my wife and I have been looking at the map, picking where we wanted to go next, and booking plans. Working full time means we may have more criteria than most. But what do we mean by slow-travel?

Our definition of slow-travel is staying in a single city for between 4 and 6 weeks before moving.

Slow-travel benefits

As you can imagine, an important benefit of slow-travel is lower cost of living. AirBnB has a monthly discount benefit that many hosts adopt, benefiting those who choose a long-term stay with healthy discounts on the most expensive part of travel: rent.

But cost is not the only beneift.

Staying for 4 to 6 weeks gives you time to really know the area, have a favorite cafe and restaraunt, and be on a first name basis with some people. You visit some nice parks and neighborhoods that have nothing to do with the “top 5 things you must see in city XYZ.”

Slow-travel distance

We also prefer travel to cities that are in close proximity to our current city, either in the same country or adjacent countries. Trains and busses between nearby cities means a much lower on-going cost for travel.

Eventually, we will need to change regions, either because of Schengen restrictions, or individual country tourist visa time restrictions. But if we can limit flights to once every few months, imagine what that does to the annual travel budget.

To compare to our pre-nomad life, we probably spent between $500-$600 per month on transportation, between insurance for two cars, gas, and regular maintenance. That is more than we spend now as nomads.

Slow-travel planning

As we look at our plans, we have several factors to take into account.

Where does my employer allow me to work? What weather do we prefer? Do we want four seasons each year? What is the cost of living in a country overall, and in a given city? Are there interesting sights on our bucket list? Does it seem like a place we might want to live?

And why that last question? Because you never know what the future holds. We want to see the world, but in a crazy world, we don't know where we will retire.

For us, we prefer mild to cold weather all year, which has been a challenge to figure out. When we had 90-100 f degree temperatures in Serbia, we were struggling.

Then my new employer had some country restrictions, which led us to move to the UK.

It helped us find one of our Summer destinations.

Liverpool has enjoyed highs between 65-75°f in July and now into August. Perfect!

Intercontinental plans

We want to visit family and friends at least once per year if at all possible. For us that means a trip to the USA.

Timing will change from year to year, but we are formulating a framework. Nothing is in stone, just brainstorming.

USA for the first couple of months of the year.

Spring in Europe, Mexico, Central America, or South America.

Summer in either the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Canada, or other cooler climate countries.

Fall in Europe, Mexico, Central America, or South America.

Christmas and New Year in a city that has amazing or interesting decorations or celebrations.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

At least that's our current approach. For the uninitiated, I hope slow-travel has more meaning now.

Until next time, have a good one.