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Tag: slow travel

  • The Art of Slow Travel: How to make the most of every moment

    The Art of Slow Travel: How to make the most of every moment

    Slow travelling is something we touched upon in a recent blog called ‘Fast Travel vs Slow Travel‘ which compared slow travel and fast travel. It’s understanding what they both are and which would be better suited to your travel needs and plans. It’s not a topic many think of when deciding to travel but really provides insight on how to plan your trip and helps you to make the most everyday.

    For those who aren’t aware of what slow travel is, it’s pretty simple. Slow travel is the design to travel at a slower pace. Now, this can be for a number of reasons. And this is what we look to delve deeper into later on in this blog. But slow travel isn’t usually the common type of travel for most.

    Fast travel seems to be a lot more popular and here’s why. The main benefit of fast travel is so you can see more place compare to slow travel. It’s like visiting a sweet shop and buying one of everything. You know you are buying too much, but you don’t know when you will be in the sweet shop again so you make sure you don’t miss out. When travelling there is so much to see and do, travelers often get FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). It’s common and leads people to visit more places just to cram it all in. This partnered with the fact that many travelers only do this part time or rarely meaning they aren’t likely to be back at this corner of the globe any time soon. So they think ‘while I’m here I might as well make the most of it.

    But this is enough about fast travel, after all, it’s not the topic of conversation.

    Benefits of Slow Travel

    As mentioned above, slow travel comes with a lot of benefits which we will put under the microscope now.

    Becoming A Local

    The main benefit of slow travel is being able to enjoy the places you visit more. Picture this, you have 2/3 days in each location and you are constantly rushing around to complete to ‘top things to do in each location’. By doing this, you will be missing out on the rest of the activities in the location as well as a host of things to do there. This includes the best coffee shops, places to eat and so much more.

    Slow travel really allows you to savour each moment and enjoy the little things. If you are just racing through each place you may not remember much about it other than the ‘big activity’. Some of the fondest memories is the ones where you weren’t necessarily doing the craziest of activities, rather, the most simple. An example of this would be enjoying a late night sing along with locals in Indonesia where a local was playing guitar and we sat with him and his friends for hours singing. It was amazing!

    Sometimes you need to just embrace the place you are in, take a moment to be present to enjoy it the most.

    Recovery Days

    Traveling will be an amazing experience no matter where you go. Whether you enjoy partying, living off grid or just exploring new cultures, you will be sure to have the time of your life. So many memories will be made and you will likely see more than most. However, a lot of people don’t mention one of the downsides to travel.

    It. Is. Exhausting.

    First of all, living out of a backpack or suitcase is pretty simple for a few weeks but when you are venturing into months or even years, it can be quite a challenge. Not to mention the endless activities you have planned each day to make the most of each trip. The last thing you want to do is have an ‘off day’ and miss out on some awesome experience!

    So don’t!

    It’s super important, if not a necessity to allow for down days. Days where you can relax and allow your body to recover. You have to think, a lot of your travel time will be lugging round a heavy bag and moving from place to place so 1-3 days every so often is so needed.

    For traveling, we would recommend roughly a 2 day break every 3-4 weeks depending on how fast you travel and how much of a veteran you are at traveling. After a busy few weeks jumping from place to place and completing daring, once-in-a-lifetime activities, there’s no better way to spend some time.

    For this, we would recommend you to find a place near the beach (if possible), a pool would work well also. And spend time to yourself, reading a book, or relaxing in the sun and taking the days easy. For adrenaline seekers, this may seem boring. However, your body cannot keep going at a fast pace forever when travelling so make sure to take this breaks to avoid travel burn out.

    We would suggest to maybe revisit some old fond memories you enjoyed before travelling such as tennis or hiking but do it without feeling the need to be somewhere. Have a wander up the beach or through some shops and really let your body recover. It’s important to note that your mind would need a rest also. Having a few days without a packed schedule might help with this.

    Avoid Missing Out

    Travelling really is an open ended book. You have the possibility to experience whatever you want in each location and it’s your job, as the author, to make these decisions. A slow travel plan will allow you to learn about travelling on the way and maybe even be informed by fellow travellers of new, unheard of experiences that you are interested in. Research can only give you so much.

    The idea of slow travel is learning more about each place and embracing the little things so when you go you will have added time in each location. This will give you a buffer so that if there are any other activities in a location you might not of planned for, then you have the time to schedule it in.

    If you are running off a fast paced travel schedule, you will either have to miss out of the activity or substitute it with another which either way, you will be missing out.

    Flexibility

    Even if you have done hours and hours of research into where you are heading, and planned it perfectly, it doesn’t mean your schedule will work perfectly. You have to understand you are heading into new places which running totally different to what you are used to. They may have poorer transport, or different open and closing times which you can’t always plan for.

    Slow travel lets you substitute your time and move about days to suit any issues that may arise. An example would be in Philippines which have poor transportation links which require a few days buffer. If not, you will have to lose out on parts of your plan. If we had planned slow travel, then we could of worked around it with the added days as safety. This is a mistake we aim to not make again as we missed out on one of our top activities because of this and we don’t want you to do the same.

    Overview

    Slow travelling is, at least for us, the desired way of travelling. It really allows you to make the most of your time and be flexible when deciding on your plans. There’s so many things that can delay your travels that are out of your hands, it’s best to have a little buffer. Therefore, you can still see everything you want plus more without missing out on your bucket list activities. Obviously, this is location specific but we would look to use this method when visiting most places. Your body will always need a day or more to recover when travelling so make sure to adhere to your bodies needs before getting travel burnout.

    Thank you for reading this blog and we hope you enjoyed! If you did, make sure to subscribe for more blogs and check out our social media’s below to follow along with our daily travels. This includes a VERY exciting trip to Thailand over the next month where we will give you loads of Thailand related content!!

    We post weekly Youtube Videos! Please check out our newest Vlog from Bangkok!

    Looking for more Thailand inspiration? Find out how to see elephants in Thailand, or maybe our Khao Sok National Park guide!

    Find our Travel Essentials!

    We have a full list of recommendations for any travels! Check out our:

    We also recommend using these when planning your next trip!

    • Trip.com – Find amazing flight deals, with over 2 million flight routes, and being one of the world’s leading online travel agencies.
    • Airalo – With over one million people using Airalo, it is our go to eSIM provider for our worldwide trips! Having data packs from over 200 countries, find combined area packages and deals to suit your travel style and data needs!
    • Booking.com – Offering over 28 million accommodations to book, we will always use booking.com! Having a rewards system built in, the more you book, the more perks you get!
    • HostelWorld – You cannot budget travel without hostel world! Having over 17,000 hostels, boasting over 13 million reviews, hostel world is one our of top websites for budget travel! They are now offering more ways to meet people abroad, with meet ups, group chats and more available!
    • Get Your Guide – Book unique (and common!) experiences and activities worldwide, including skip the line tickets to big attractions worldwide!
    • Eat With – Experience authentic travel experiences with locals worldwide! Use eat with to book unique and intimate dining experiences, such as dinner parties in big restaurants, big feasts with a local family, cooking classes with a local and more!
    • ETKA – Every age from 3 to 85 can buy ETKA’s travel insurance, offering multilingual 24/7 chat support, and your insurance policy within 2-3 minutes!

    Bangkok is a bustling city that truly never sleeps so make sure your Instagram posts don’t either! There’s an endless supply of activity so make sure to keep your posts booming for all your followers and get them dreaming of their own Bangkok adventure’s!

    Also, check out our Social Media’s for our amazing travelling journey! Hint Hint: we have just came back from our trip to Thailand!!

    Finally, share this post with your friends! Let’s build those travel plans and make memories!

    We post daily content of our travel experiences and also must know travel tips so be sure not to miss out on this!

    Thank you for reading this blog, and have a good day!

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  • Fast Travel vs Slow Travel: The best way to Backpack and Travel!

    Fast Travel vs Slow Travel: The best way to Backpack and Travel!

    Travelling is a daunting thought especially for first-time travellers. You have so much planning and decisions to make before even getting there and it can definitely feel like a full-time job if you are unsure on what you are doing. The best way we found is to break it down as shown in our blog post here which is a great step-by-step guide to planning your first travelling experience!

    *This post contains affiliate links, which we may earn from. This does not come at an additional cost, but helps us to pursue this dream 🙂

    Jack of Ourtwostepstart on Rabat Beach in Morocco. This is a location where we chose not to slow travel, but instead opting for fast travel through Morocco.
    1. Slow Travel vs Fast Travel
      1. What are travel styles?
      2. Fast Travel
      3. Slow Travel
    2. How should I Travel?
    3. Our favourite must-needed travel resources
      1. Where to Fly
      2. Where to Stay
      3. Where to Explore
      4. Where to get Connected
      5. Where to be Protected
    4. Our Top Traveller’s Essentials
    5. Thank you for reading our Slow Travel vs Fast Travel Guide

    Slow Travel vs Fast Travel

    What are travel styles?

    Let’s get back to types of travel.

    For us, there are two main styles of travel. The first being fast travel, and the second being slow travel. Now, what do they mean?

    Fast travel is when you go travelling and move through each location at a quicker pace. And as you guessed it, slow travel is the opposite! This is where the locations you travel are travelled slower.

    We need to look at the best parts of each and even the drawbacks to see which of these types of travel will suit you or the places you are going.

    Fast Travel

    Let’s start with Fast Travel.

    It all really depends on the type of person you are and the places you go. But Fast travel is all about moving fast and doing all the ‘important’ activities and places in each location. This can be a desired way to travel due to time constraints, but not necessarily due to the love of travelling fast. If you are travelling for the summer and want to visit loads of places, then you might only give yourself just enough time to do everything.

    When doing this you won’t generally have much downtime to relax or wander about to find activities. This is usually following a plan and having many of your days pre-planned so you don’t miss any of the main activities!

    A major benefit to doing this is you get to see many amazing places, more than what you would see if you did slow travel. You can tick off many top locations that are spread across different places in a shorter time.

    However, even with the benefit of seeing more, there are definitely some drawbacks.

    The first major one is money. It’s likely to cost more than slow travel as you are requiring to book accommodation or transport at a shorter notice than slow travel. Also, you don’t have to luxury of chill days where you won’t be doing activities I(so called cheaper days). As you are strapped for time, convenience is really the importance when travelling like this so make sure to budget for this.

    Burnout!! Travel burnout is a real thing, especially when you are doing fast travel. If you are constantly on your feet, moving locations and dragging you backpack around, it will mentally tire you out. Some days you will need ‘days off’ so be sure to take these when required!

    There’s also so much more chance to go wrong! The travel plans will be packed so any setback will make a difference. Even if it’s a delayed flight or finding out a place of interest is closed, it will push EVERYTHING back and you won’t have any time spare to make up this time.

    Be careful when doing fast travel. We think it’s a good option if you really are strapped for time and don’t have a choice but would always recommend to leave 1 day free for every 10 in case of delays or problems. Trust us, you’ll need it! Also, if you have a lot to see make sure you are organised when planning so you don’t make mistakes and miss any of these once-in-a-lifetime experiences that will leave you in a grump.

    Slow Travel

    Now, let’s talk about slow travel.

    Slow travel is a lot more popular for travellers to use even when they don’t know they are using it. Slow travel is the desired style of travel for us. But sometimes it’s not always possible. So lets deep dive into the different benefits of slow travel and the reasons why people may avoid using it!

    Slow travel is great for giving yourself the time for recovery on down days so you can enjoy the best of each location. Here, you aren’t forced to run around everyday looking to complete all the best activities of each location. You can take your time and plan it well instead of cramming it in.

    An example was when we travelled Bali, we booked a jewellery class for the morning but had to catch a ferry at lunchtime so had to cut our jewellery time short and almost didn’t complete our makings! If we had the option to slow travel we could of completed the jewellery class on a day where we didn’t have much else planned so we didn’t miss part of the experience.

    When going back, we would like to complete the full experience!!

    Also with slow travel, you have these extra days or even parts of a day to relax. These pockets of time with nothing booked are heavily needed to recover and calm your body before.

    You may want to fill this time with another activity if you feel up for it, but if you are long term travelling, it’s important to have this type of downtime. This could be in a bar drinking and playing pool with friends, or even as simple as laying by the pool or beach with a book. Your body can regenerate and gain energy ready to go again.

    We see a lot of travellers get the ‘travel burnout’ by not giving themselves this time off. We were the same when we started but make sure to pace yourselves so you make the most out of every opportunity!

    Slow Travel gives you time to appreciate the places you have been by seeing things you wouldn’t necessarily if you fast travelled. You will see parts of each place that travellers miss and these could be the best memories for you. An example is befriending locals who you see everyday or you visit to eat at their food spot. These relationships are built overtime and cannot be accomplished in one meet.

    In Bali, when taking time to recoup energy we found ourselves visiting the same breakfast spot daily at a similar time and they always greeted us well and served amazing food! They would reserve the spot for us as we became regulars in our favourite spot and would speak with them daily. It wasn’t a busy food spot but rather a quant brunch shop we ended up loving. Similar happened in Krabi, Thailand.

    When you look back on your travels you will have these memories of a small food stop or a local you spoke with which you may not have if you only visited the top places in each area. You have to think, when you visit each location you are only experiencing 1% of what it has to offer usually so make sure to expand your horizons to see what else the place has to offer. And there’s not better way to do this than have a few days extra to visit the local market, speak with locals or go for a walk in the centre to see what you find!

    Believe it or not but slow travel is cheaper!! If you are on a budget then you might want to look at this as an option (if you can!). Anytime you book something last minute or only a day in advance, you are likely to pay more for it. That’s why they say if you are to book a flight, book it for next year. Sometimes you cannot do this but if you are booking your transport and flights last minute as you are moving quickly through countries, you are likely to spend more doing so.

    You are also limited to the itinerary you have organised so if you need to be at one place in 2 hours and the cheaper option is a train which leaves in 3 hours, you will have to find an alternative. This may be spending two or even 3 times more on private transport.

    However with slow travel you can book a few days in advance. This provides more options for you including more budget friendly options. It’s always good to note that public transport is nearly always cheaper than private.

    Slow Travel also has some drawbacks that many may not consider when travelling. One being that many people choose to fast travel and not slow travel so when you are meeting people, it’s easier to align your itineraries with friends if you travel fast. A lot of the time when travelling slow you may find that you will meet friends who will soon leave the place you are staying in making you envious.

    A lot of popular places follow a similar route so if you are travelling at the same places with similar itineraries, you will stick together. Slow travel can disrupt this and give you a massive feeling of FOMO (Fear of missing out!!).

    If you are keeping your travel plans open, you can definitely change between fast and slow as you wish but for some can be quite daunting!

    Also, slow travel can be limiting if you are spending a lot more time in each location. Most people who are travelling have a plan roughly on how long they want to travel for and where. But if you want to see many countries, you may have to sacrifice a few to travel slow.

    If your dream is to travel all of south east Asia, and you have 3 months, you may have to bookmark some countries for your next travel as you won’t be able to fit them all in.

    Yes you have the benefit of seeing more of each country, but you may miss big bucket list things like swimming with whale sharks in the Philippines or island hopping in Thailand as you may miss whole countries all together.

    Unfortunately it’s the sacrifice we have to make, whether it’s fast travel and missing the little things or slow travel and missing some bucket list activities. You cannot have it all!

    How should I Travel?

    All in all the type of travel is totally dependant on the type of experience you want and where you go. We would always recommend checking your itinerary and deciding based on your travel plans but it’s always good to know the benefits and drawbacks of both types.

    Fast travel is such a whirlwind of activities, emotions and bucket list activities which is amazing but definitely including many highs and lows. Basically a lot more can go wrong and it’s likely to be more expensive! So be careful and strap in for an amazing ride.

    Slow travel is more like a nice cruise, it’s amazing to see each location and the intricate beauties they have. But there’s only so many locations you will see as not many people have unlimited travel time. You will unfortunately be limited to less countries and locations but deep-dive into each location.

    As we look forward towards our travels, we would love to slow travel as a rule. However, some places would work well for us with fast travel like cities. An example of this was our trip to Morocco! You can see our Fez Vlog Part 1 & Fez Part 2, Meknes Vlog, and Rabat Vlog which can show how fast travel worked for us!

    Let us know your thoughts on fast and slow travel and your preference when travelling. We would love to know any benefits or drawbacks to either that we haven’t mentioned to see further insights to your travels.

    We plan to travel long term in the future so will update in the future on our travel plans as a blog in the next 12 months! If you do want to follow our social media’s to follow our day-to-day travels, they are provided below!

    Aimee’s next trip is to Croatia so look out for A LOT of Croatia content coming your way in the next few weeks! Such as this Youtube vlog here!

    Watch the first stop in Osijek, Croatia!

    If you did enjoy this blog of fast and slow travel, please drop a like to help support us in post more regular content and subscribe if you want to see more things travel related!

    Our favourite must-needed travel resources

    Where to Fly

    Trip.com – Find amazing flight deals, with over 2 million flight routes, and being one of the world’s leading online travel agencies.

    Kiwi – Use Kiwi’s amazing service that is pioneering in the flight space! They use virtual interlining, which means they can provide seamless connecting flights into one single itinerary!

    CheapOair – Being one of the fastest growing online travel companies in the US, CheapOair offers great flight deals, hotel rooms, rental cars and more!

    Where to Stay

    Booking.com – Offering over 28 million accommodations to book, we will always use booking.com! Having a rewards system built in, the more you book, the more perks you get!

    HostelWorld – You cannot budget travel without hostel world! Having over 17,000 hostels, boasting over 13 million reviews, hostel world is one our of top websites for budget travel! They are now offering more ways to meet people abroad, with meet ups, group chats and more available!

    Vrbo – Find stunning vacation rentals with Vrbo! Offering over 2 million paid listings in 190 countries, find memorable experiences with this accommodation service!

    Where to Explore

    Viator – A trip advisor company, viator offers over 300,000 experiences over 200 countries, including water sports, walking tours, boat trips, food tastes tours and more! Including activities for many budgets, check out Viator!

    Eat With – Experience authentic travel experiences with locals worldwide! Use eat with to book unique and intimate dining experiences, such as dinner parties in big restaurants, big feasts with a local family, cooking classes with a local and more!

    Get Your Guide – Book unique (and common too!) experiences and activities worldwide, including skip the line tickets to big attractions worldwide!

    Where to get Connected

    Airalo – With over one million people using Airalo, it is our go to eSIM provider for our worldwide trips! Having data packs from over 200 countries, find combined area packages and deals to suit your travel style and data needs!

    Where to be Protected

    ETKA – Every age from 3 to 85 can buy ETKA’s travel insurance, offering multilingual 24/7 chat support, and your insurance policy within 2-3 minutes!

    Our Top Traveller’s Essentials

    Backpack – Osprey Farpoint 40 – This backpack is a staple amongst many travellers! Being a lot cheaper than the luxury brands, this is a quality backpack from a well known brand. It boasts quality durability, is lightweight with a great framework and is a great option for most people! This backpack has a hip strap to help carry the bag, a breathable harness strap, and comes in multiple colours!

    Compression Packing Cubes – Compression cubes are our favourite packing accessory! These cubes are similar to the normal packing cubes, but feature a compression zip, meaning you can compress your clothes down… this makes packing easier, limits the space you are using, and means more room for souvenirs etc!

    Powerbank – Don’t lose power when travelling! It isn’t always guaranteed to find charging ports, so we would always suggest carrying a spare power bank, just incase you do run low on power when you need it!

    Universal Travel Plug Adapter – Most backpackers/travellers visit multiple countries during one trip. And that means it isn’t guaranteed you will be using the same plug head during each place. A universal plug is great as it lets you switch between each plug head style all in one item! We love ours, it has USB slots meaning multiple items can be charged at once.

    Find our full packing list guide here.

    Thank you for reading our Slow Travel vs Fast Travel Guide

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    We post weekly Youtube Videos now! Please check out our newest Vlog!

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