I can definitely feel myself slowing down. Its interesting that while I have been traveling for over 2 months, that I only just started to understand the draw of slow travel. I thought I understood it before. But I know now that I really didn’t.
The thing about how I’ve been traveling so far, is that I’ve been staying only a couple of days in each location. I’ve been hitting all the sights and then moving on. I may have a relaxing day or two here and there where I didn’t do much or just sat on the river/lake side and relaxed. But I haven’t integrated into a place, I haven’t taken them slow about 90% of the time. I think the closest I got was in Bled.
And I’ve found myself really thinking about that today as I was exploring Rome. I got up as at a reasonable time, but then I didn’t go anywhere until the afternoon – I just didn’t see the point. I wandered around the city – 20k steps – but I only hit 2 ‘must see’ places before I decided to head back to the hostel.
If this was even a month ago, I would’ve been out of the hostel by 11am and exploring until 9pm. Sure, part of that would’ve been because it was getting dark later, but part of that was also because I was trying to see so much. I still want to see everything, but I’ve found myself taking it slower. If I didn’t need to be out of the area by a set time and still want to get down to Naples and then have to figure out my route to Albania, I’d probably extend my stay in Rome so that I could take it slower.
I’m seeing the draw of staying for a week or two in one place – if not more. I’m seeing the draw of truly getting out of the tourist section. I am absolutely loving traveling as much as I am – but I can also recognize that if I continue to travel the same way I would on a 2 week vacation, I’m going to go from one type of burn out to another.
So I’m going to slow it down when I get to the Balkans and South East Asia. I’m going to stay longer in one place and only cut that time short if I find I’m not enjoying myself or if I hear about something elsewhere that I want to see more. I’m going to take the time and spend a day where all I do is go to the park and read/write. I’m going to stop trying to cram so much into one location in a limited amount of time. I don’t have a time limit – so why am I acting like I do?
I think everyone who does long term travel needs to come to this conclusion on their own time – it’s something that you can read about and recognize but also brush off. I know I did, without even realizing it.
