The Slow Travel Media Scrapbook - Ha'aretz Article (translation)

Ha'aretz, a daily newspaper in Israel, in Hebrew, "So what if you will miss the train", by Moshe Gilad, August 18, 2006

So what if you will miss the train

By Moshe Gil'ad for the Ha'aretz newspaper in Israel. Read the article online (in Hebrew).

Translated by Doru. Comments from Doru in square brackets [].

[The article begins with an introduction about the "Slow" movement, the history of "Slow Food" and "Slow Cities".]

[The first two paragraphs make the transition to slow travel by mentioning the "Slow Islands" idea which started in Australia. Then.]

A much more practical approach is demonstrated by Pauline Kenny and Steve Cohen from New Mexico, United States. Six years ago Kenny and Cohen created the web site slowtrav.com. The web site, as they emphasize, is not a travel agency but functions as a virtual community which assists and persuades its visitors to adopt the principles of traveling slowly. In a long and detailed email in reply to my questions, Kenny defines slow travel as follows: "This is travel through which you enjoy a deeper experience thanks to the fact that you stay in the same place for a longer period of time and see those things closer to your location. This is an easier, simpler and slower way to travel."

"The idea", explains Kenny, "combines two simple elements: stay at least for one week in one place during your trip. Define for yourself a weekly basis for the trip, preferably in a vacation rental rather than a hotel. The second element is: look for what happens in the region through daily concentric trips. Do not look necessarily for the major attractions or the "important" ones which require long trips. Best to concentrate on smaller places, closer to where you stay. In this manner", adds Kenny, "the entire character of the trip changes. The experience and the understanding of the place are much stronger". The preferred phrase for the Slow Travel members is a quote from Woody Allen, who said: "I took a rapid reading course and I was able to read "War and Peace" in 20 minutes. It is about Russia". The comparison with fast travel, jumping from place to place, is clear.

Kenny believes that slow travel is the future of tourism: "Many people travel to exactly the same places. After a while, they will all have visited the "must" sites, but they will still wish to return to Europe and enjoy the atmosphere, the culture, the special food. For this reason they will seek a different experience, slower, of the kind that allows absorbing the views, the uniqueness of the place. And exactly for this reason it is worth staying for a longer time in the same location, giving up the non-stop running, the sleeping in places which are part of the same international networks whose rooms are identical everywhere in the world, but choose a local home distinguished by uniqueness and character.

As per information provided by Kenny, the web site receives daily 25,000 hits by visitors. Up to 5,000 visitors actually use the board and this facilitates exchange of information on specific places to stay. During last June the web site had approximately half a million American hits, 43,000 British, 20,000 Canadians and 18,000 Italian. Israel places 17th with almost 2,000 visitors of the site.

Kenny clarifies that the majority of users of the board are between 40 and 60 years of age. According to her estimate, these are people of medium income, since low-income Americans do not tend to travel much to Europe while those of high-income, she believes, do not use virtual message boards to search for places to stay. The Israeli users of the web site are not, she says, different from all others. They look in particular for recommendations for places to stay and to visit and are interested in special subjects such as vegetarian restaurants.

[The third part of the article, with the title "Without pressure", deals with Carl Honor's "In praise of slow" and ends with Ten Commandments for the reduction the stress when vacationing as developed by Honor for the British newspaper "Guardian".]

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The Slow Travel Media Scrapbook - Ha'aretz Article (translation)

So what if you will miss the train

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