The pursuit of slow travel.
“When you’re travelling, you are what you are, right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” — William Least-Heat Moon
I wrote in my last writing about how it is so good to uncover our values, knowing there is no one size fits all formula, the goal is to figure out the version of ourselves. There is no right or wrong, only what works for each one.
Now we can tackle how we can spend and manage the most precious asset in our travels — our time. Time is the most precious variable we have because it is finite, so we need to value this resource. There is always a trade-off with time. It is up to us to wisely choose how we value and manage time in our travels, and a travel journal supports out to uncover what brings us to life and our emotional well being while we travel.
A notebook helps us to see our thoughts on a piece of paper and make them clear, driving us to move into experiences we grow and are meaningful to us because we return to our values. It simplifies life, and we can take more control over the experiences we embrace in the tracks we make.
We choose slow because it makes us understand the root of why we travel. We value quality over quantity and always select conscious living, whether a cultural, educational, spiritual, sustainable or humanitarian cause. Those wanting to get lost in transformation often achieve their quest by pushing body and mind to the limits where there is nothing like a comfort zone, using our skills wisely.
Choosing to do it away in a remote location provides the bonus of a digital detox or off-grid experience — immersion with the locals, a place in the wild natural world where a few have been.
Our minds will need to be ever-present. There’s a journey between the destinations that are there to enjoy. If you’re near your hometown or halfway across the globe, see how close you can get to the local experience where you stay, how you dine, and how you interact, learn and feel.
I woke up to the reality that time is scarce. This realization, combined with the desire to want better quality time and meaningful experiences for myself, motivated me to begin respecting the scarcity of time and prioritizing it according to what matters most.
I have stopped doing what I didn’t need to do. I leant into the joy of letting go and the joy of less during my travel journeys.
