The Year I Tried to See 14 Countries in 3 Weeks
I came home from that trip with hundreds of photos, a stack of passport stamps, and a persistent sense that I hadn’t actually been anywhere. I’d looked at things from behind glass — bus windows, tour group barriers, restaurant windows — but I hadn’t touched anything. I hadn’t been changed.
I’d been optimizing for coverage when I should have been optimizing for depth.
That was five years ago. Since then I’ve adopted what most people call slow travel — spending weeks or months in a single place rather than racing between cities. And it’s not an exaggeration to say it changed my entire relationship with the world.
What Slow Travel Actually Means (It’s Not What You Think)
Slow travel isn’t about moving slowly or doing less. It’s about staying long enough somewhere that you stop being a tourist and start being a temporary resident.
The shift usually happens around day four or five. You’ve found your morning coffee place. You know which street has the good produce market. The owner of the bookshop has started saving things she thinks you’d like. The waiter at the neighborhood restaurant knows you prefer your water still.
None of these things are dramatic. Together, they make a place feel like yours for a moment. And that feeling — that brief, tender sense of belonging — is what all the rushing in the world cannot buy.
The Practical Benefits Nobody Talks About
It’s Usually Cheaper
Weekly or monthly rental rates are dramatically cheaper than nightly hotel rates. A month in a furnished apartment in Lisbon, Tbilisi, or Chiang Mai often costs less than a week in a similar-quality hotel. You also cook some of your meals, which compounds the savings.
You Think More Clearly
The cognitive overhead of fast travel is enormous. You’re constantly recalculating: what time is checkout, what’s the address of the next hotel, which currency is this, how do I get from the airport. Slow travel reduces that overhead to near zero. Once you’re settled, your brain can actually relax and notice things.
You Meet Actual People
Tourists meet other tourists. Residents meet residents. When you stay somewhere for three weeks, you meet the people who live there — their lives, their concerns, their humor. Those conversations are irreplaceable.
You Learn the Language (Even If Just a Little)
A week isn’t long enough to learn anything useful in a new language. A month gets you to the point where you can order food, say thank you properly, apologize when you bump into someone, and make a shopkeeper smile. That’s not nothing. That’s connection.
How to Actually Do Slow Travel When You Have a Job
This is the objection I hear most often, and it’s a fair one. Most people can’t take three months off work. But slow travel doesn’t require three months. Here’s what it does require:
- Longer, less frequent trips rather than shorter, more frequent ones (2 weeks in one place beats 4 weekend breaks in 4 cities)
- Remote work, if your job allows it, turns a vacation into an immersive experience
- Using long weekends around public holidays strategically to extend a trip
- Rethinking what ‘vacation’ means — staying put is a legitimate vacation
For remote workers especially, slow travel has become a lifestyle rather than a phase. The digital nomad movement is real and growing — not because it’s trendy but because it works.
What Slow Travel Does to Your Sense of Self
This might sound like too much to claim for a travel philosophy, but I’ve heard it from enough people to believe it: slow travel changes what you think you need.
When you spend a month in a small city in Portugal with no car, one bag of possessions, and a routine that involves fresh bread in the morning and walking wherever you need to go, you discover that most of what fills your regular life is noise. Not bad noise, necessarily. Just noise.
And when you come home — if you come home — you look at your life with fresh eyes. Some things you’ll want to keep exactly as they are. Others you’ll question. Both are useful.
Where to Start: Best Places for First-Time Slow Travelers
- Chiang Mai, Thailand: Affordable, safe, excellent internet, welcoming to long-term visitors, endlessly interesting
- Lisbon, Portugal: Walkable, beautiful, affordable by Western European standards, English widely spoken
- Tbilisi, Georgia: Rapidly developing, genuinely welcoming culture, extraordinary food, low cost of living
- Medellín, Colombia: Transformed city with a proud, creative energy, warm climate, strong expat community
- Hoi An, Vietnam: Manageable size, bicycle-friendly, stunning food, charming architecture
One Last Thing
The world is not going anywhere. The city you’ve always wanted to visit will still be there next year, and the year after, and the year after that. The question isn’t whether you’ll see it — it’s how you’ll see it.
Fast travel shows you places. Slow travel lets you feel them. I know which one I’d choose.
