How and Why to Slow Travel as a Family

Have you ever come back from a family trip feeling like you need a stay-cation to recover from your vacation? The long flights, the unpacking and repacking to move from hotel to hotel, the hassle of constantly trying to herd kids from one place to another, crashing into bed at night and drinking 3 extra cups of coffee the next morning to get enough energy for the next day… Travel can be exhausting, and especially with kids!

That’s not to say it isn’t fun, it definitely is lots of fun! So many experiences, so many memories, so much time spent together as a family. All well worth it. But, what if there was another way to travel that could eliminate the exhaustion part? Save some money along the way? Increase the quality of your experiences? And is good for the environment?

Well… There is!

Slow Travel

What is Slow Travel?

Slow travel is a way of traveling, not a length of time. It is not about how long you are vacationing for, it is about the how you do it. You can slow travel for just a few days, or a few months. The key to slow travel is the method.

Slow travel means not moving from place to place quickly. And, when possible, taking more eco friendly modes of transportation to get there. A road trip or train trip instead of a flight. Walking instead of taking a taxi. Often stopping along the way to see things of interest instead of powering through to your final destination. The journey becomes part of the adventure, not just a means to an end.

It’s about doing more than just collecting stamps in your passport. It means slowing down and visiting deeper. Not jumping around all over the place trying to check as many places off your list in the smallest amount of time possible. While its great to get 6 new stamps in your passport on a 6 day trip to Europe… how much of each country did your really see in just one day? Probably not much.

Benefits of Slow Travel

Slow travel saves you money

By cutting down on the amount of transportation you need, you cut your costs drastically. Each flight from one country, or city, to the next adds up. Flying with a family you could easily cost you several thousand dollars on flights alone. Cutting out some of those flights will save you a lot of money.

Slow travel is good for the environment

Airplanes are one of the worst offenders in transportation carbon emissions. Flying less simply pollutes less. But beyond cutting flights, slow travel can be even greener still. You could, and should, walk or take a bicycle to visit places within a city or village instead of taking a taxi. You get to see a lot more of the area when you travel this way as well.

When you run from one place to the next as fast as you can you miss a lot along the way. Slow travel is, indirectly, a form of eco travel. The intent is to move at a more relaxed pace and see more of the place you are visiting, but by doing so it helps alleviate some of the stressors of travel on the environment.

You get to experience so much more

While it would seem that adding four stamps to your passport instead of just one or two would mean that you are experiencing more. Realistically, it doesn’t. When you cover a lot of ground on a vacation, you are spending a lot of time in transit. Whether riding in a taxi, sitting at an airport waiting for a flight, flights themselves, or packing your bags for the 4th time to change hotels… that is all time you are not spending exploring.

In general, if you are traveling a relatively short distance, say France to Germany, you can assume that you are losing half a day of vacation time to get from one to the other. Taxi ride to the airport, waiting in lines and at gates once there, the flight itself, then another taxi ride to your new hotel… that easily takes a half day or more. And if you didn’t get an early or late flight it is half a day taken out of the middle of the day when things are actually open.

If you change locations 4 times, you have lost two full days of your vacation to transit. And if you are traveling longer distances, you can assume an entire day lost per location change. So the total number of hours experiencing a new place is drastically less on a trip that covers many places instead of a few.

You will make more connections

Slow travel allows you to immerse yourself in a culture, and make connections to both to the place and the people in it. Fast travel often involves tour groups, and/or simply whizzing through a place so fast you don’t stop to talk to locals. But when you slow down and chat with the people, you will learn so much more about the place you are visiting.

The locals know all the best spots. If you are traveling fast you will probably hit only the spots that pop up first in an internet search, or the only places the tour groups want you to see. But to really find the best of a new place, you need to find the little spots, the local spots, the hidden gems. The little food stall on the corner might just be the best food in town. And the locals will know about it. If you don’t slow down to ask them, you’ll never find it. And tour groups probably won’t take you there unless the food stall is paying them to do so.

Best of all, you (and the kids) won’t be exhausted

At least, you won’t be exhausted from the travel itself. But this is an article about slow travel with a family, and we all know our own kids…

But you will more than likely find that your kids are actually less exhausting (emphasis on the -ing) when you slow travel. And that is because they are less likely to get overwhelmed. Being constantly on the move is exhausting for everyone, but especially to kids. And it can be overwhelming on top of exhausting for little ones. That’s a recipe for not sleeping well.

Have you ever gone for a walk down the street with your kids? Of course you have. Did they just walk in a straight line? I doubt it. Kids like to ‘stop and smell the roses’. They want to investigate everything along the way. And, for parents, that can get really annoying. But when we are traveling, it is actually better for us to take a page out of our kids books and slow down to stop and investigate anything that catches our eye. When we slow down to our kids pace, we spend a lot less time nagging them to keep moving, and we all experience more. That is less exhausting, and more fulfilling, for everyone.

And, as all parents know, kids don’t do ‘sit-still’ very well. But transportation almost always involves lots of sitting still. Being strapping into an airplane seat, or a taxi seat, or standing in lines, or waiting at an airport gate, or or or or… Travel involves a LOT of ‘sit still’. But slow travel involves a whole lot less. And kids who haven’t been sitting still in an airplane seat all day, sleep better because they are physically tired. When the kids sleep better, so do the parents.

Choosing to walk or bike is great for kids and all their energy too. And taking a train instead of an airplane is more kid friendly because everyone can get up and move around. Taking a road trip is great too because you can stop as often as you like to stretch your legs. In an airplane you must sit, and stay seated unless going to the bathroom. And even that is only okay when the seat belt sign is turned off.

Planning a Slow Travel Vacation

The most challenging part of a slow travel vacation is choosing where to go. You will probably feel very limited upfront because you have to choose just a few stops instead of many. There is a sense of “I’m going all that distance, I should really see as much as I can while I’m there.” That is totally understandable, I feel it too every time I plan a new trip. But, if you can overcome that feeling, you will ultimately be rewarded by your experience. You will see all of a few places instead of a little of many.

Flying is Still Okay

Slow travel doesn’t mean you can’t fly. Obviously it isn’t realistic to eliminate all air travel from your trips. When you are going long distances flying is just so much faster and easier. So choosing to get to your destination by air is completely reasonable. Getting from Chicago to Paris without flying is a little bit crazy. You’d have to take a bus to New York, then a boat to London, then a train to Paris, and it would probably take about a week… yeaaaah no. Just fly, and spend all the time you didn’t lose on all that travel exploring France.

The idea is simply to change location less.

Be Prepared

Spend some time before your trip researching the location. And I mean researching deeper than simply looking up the ‘Top 10 Things to do in Bali’. That is a good starting point, but when you are slow traveling, you are going to have the time to do a lot more than just 10 things. So dig deeper, and see what else is around. Try searching for ‘hidden gems’, ‘off beat places’, ‘secret spots’ or other things like that. Look for the less popular, off-the-beaten-path, attractions. That is where you will find more locals and less tourist crowds. Those are the best places to ‘dig deeper’.

Scheduling

My family has always done slow travel, though until a few years ago we didn’t realize that our style had a name. We’ve never liked the running around type of vacation. And when we had kids we slowed down even more. And discovered that we liked it that way.

The way we schedule things, and the way we recommend you do to, is to pick the top things you want to see. Not necessarily the recommended top ten for the location, but the top ten that interest you. Then make a second ten list, things you would like to see, but wouldn’t be heartbroken if you don’t get to them. Maybe even make a third ten list. And unless you have to buy tickets in advance, or if any of those things happen on a specific day of the week, don’t schedule a time for them. Just make the top ten list your priority, and do what you feel like each day. If you run through your top ten list, start on the second ten. And so on.

Doing it this way takes a lot of the pressure off yourself. You can more or less go with your whims. If you had planned to go hiking on Monday, but then when Monday arrives you would rather visit a museum, you can. Then just do that hike on another day. Whereas if you had scheduled the hike for Monday, you would have felt like you must do it that day, but probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it quite as much because you weren’t in the mood for it.

This method of relaxed planning is especially useful with kids. We all know how moody they can be sometimes. If the baby kept everyone up one night, doing an activity that requires a lot of energy is probably better saved for another day. Do a family beach visit instead. You get the idea.

Choosing Accommodations

Hotels work just fine for slow travel. And if you are planning on spending all day every day out somewhere exploring, a hotel is probably the best bet. Some one else is doing the house keeping for you. All you really need is a place to keep your suitcases, sleep, and shower.

But if you are planning on spending some time relaxing as well, a home rental is worth looking at. Airbnb or Home Away or anything like that. You get the comforts of home and more space to spend that time relaxing in. This is especially nice when you are spending a little longer in one place. Planning in a little relaxing time is a good idea. And the extra space is a huge pro with kids.

We make our ‘Airbnb vs hotel’ choice based on where we are staying and what we will be doing there. If we are visiting a city, and/or won’t be in the rental much, we choose hotels. Home rentals in cities are fine, we simply figure if we are going to be in a small place anyways (and most city rentals are small) we might as well get one that has a pool and an on site restaurant. But when we will be spending time relaxing, and/or are in a more rural spot, we almost always choose Airbnb. (Not sponsored by Airbnb, we just like it.) More space for the kids to run around in, and more comfortable for everyone.

Time to Explore

The bottom line is; More time spend exploring, less time traveling from place to place. Slow Travel is good for everyone, but it is especially good for families. So next time you plan a family vacation, consider doing it slowly. You will probably be surprised by how much more you enjoy yourselves.

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What is Slow Travel?