Life.Culture.Discovery.

From cycling to hiking, six ways to slow down on holiday and truly take in the surroundings

As overtourism puts pressure on destinations across the globe, do the world a favour and veer your vacation off the beaten path

From slow boats to horseback riding, you might not get anywhere fast, but that is part of the joy of travelling

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Hiking the Carpathian Mountains, in Transylvania, Romania. Photo: Alamy

Published: 11:00pm, 1 May 2019Updated: 2:44am, 2 May 2019

As holiday destinations across the globe grapple with the effects of overtourism, a soul-nourishing alternative is gaining traction. Following in the footsteps of the slow food movement, which started in Italy in the mid-1980s, slow tourism prioritises the pleasures of travel while encouraging us to get in touch with our “inner tortoise”, as Carl Honoré, author of the 2004 book In Praise of Slow, puts it.

Slow tourism means immersing ourselves in a place and enjoying meaningful experiences, rather than trying to see and do as much as possible in a limited time, while Instagramming it all. It overlaps with a number of related forms of travel, including eco-tourism, sustainable tourism, ethical tourism, nature-based tourism and responsible tourism. Perhaps it’s easier to say what slow tourism is not.

Cramming 12 countries into a whirlwind two-week trip is the antithesis of the philosophy. The flag-following sightseer is likely to arrive home so exhausted they need another holiday just to recover.

Slow tourists steer clear of the throng and spend longer in each place, meeting the locals and learning about their lives, traditions and cuisine (locally sourced, of course). Slow tourism might involve getting off the beaten track on a bicycle in Taiwan; savouring the sluggish progress of a canal barge in rural England or watching the world go past from the window of a dawdling train in Patagonia.

The Celestial Mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Photo: Shutterstock

An appetite for improvisation is another characteristic of the slow traveller, who realises that detours and diversions can lead to serendipitous discoveries – an amazing trattoria in a hilltop Italian village maybe, or a medley of glaciers in the mountains of Mongolia.