Travel · Aug 21, 2026
Slow travel is mostly waiting well
The trip I remember is rarely the itinerary. It is the bench, the delayed train, the lunch that lasted longer than it should have.
I used to pack days as if they were drawers: every hour assigned, every street already chosen. It photographed well and felt like work. The places arrived on schedule and left the same way.
Waiting well is the opposite of that. You keep enough of a plan to not get lost, then you let the gap between plans do some of the seeing for you.
A city becomes itself in the minutes you did not schedule.
How I travel now
One neighborhood. Two meals I did not research. A walk without headphones. If there is a museum, I go late, when the rooms are emptying and the paintings have more air around them.
The point is not to be idle. The point is to arrive with enough patience that the day can still surprise you. Slow travel is not a personality. It is a willingness to stay with a street until it stops being a backdrop.