Definition of travel - to go from one place to another. Well, that’s simple enough.

   Before the advent of agriculture, nearly all of newly evolved homo sapiens were nomadic, hunters and gatherers, moving from place to place, season to season in the search for sustenance. Travel is indeed deep inside our very DNA.

   Throughout recorded history, the concept of traveling for pleasure was not part of the equation. The world was unknown. We went someplace new at our own peril. The fear of sailing off of the edge of the world was one of the least frightening specters compared to walking into the jaws of a ferocious animal or fellow human being waiting to tear us apart.

   So it is a only a recent notion of modern history that has us flitting about simply for entertainment, rather than as an action springing from necessity. There are innumerable forms of travel done for for this last reason - to enjoy ourselves. In this piece I will categorize them and naturally express my own views. In a separate essay I will relate my own story which tells how I came to develop my preferences.

   I have often been accused of elitism when I write about travel, yet this has never been my intent. I talk about what works for me, what brings me happiness and feeds my passion. None of this is meant as a judgment on anybody else. As I hope others will tolerate my own eccentricities, I extend the same courtesy in response. My personal distaste for certain forms of travel is exactly what I say it is, personal. Just because I do not care for something that you totally enjoy is not a reflection of me judging you, condescending to you or casting any other type of negative aspersion. Feel free to read this as a curiosity, not as an attack to defend yourself against.

   Vacationing - People work hard. Life is full of stress. You want to get away from it all, rest, relax, party, be pampered, enjoy luxuries you cannot afford in ordinary life. This may include a week on a tropical beach, staying at a resort, all-inclusive or not, taking a cruise, signing up for a tour of a place or country you are not familiar with, and many other permutations. Naturally you have to travel, go from one place to another, to arrive at your vacation spot. But for me that does not make it travel, thus the title vacationing. My chosen life-style has been unconventional, to put it mildly, and I have virtually never taken a vacation of any kind. The only exceptions were during the years when I was a single parent of a adolescent girl who was following a normal school schedule. We took a number of trips that fit into the definition of a vacation, a couple of weeks visiting Utah’s National Parks, an Alaskan cruise, a Christmas vacation in Thailand, another in my present home Mazatlan, Mexico, a week in Maui, a graduation trip to Disney World. These were all certainly vacations, but they were chosen and designed for her needs and interests, not mine. I am certainly not saying that I didn’t enjoy myself. I had the best company in the world, and it was diverting to see places that I would never have chosen under my own speed, most particularly Maui, the cruise, and Disney World. That does not include Thailand which I have visited about a dozen times, nor my present Mexican home. Away from the real world, a visit to the Magic Kingdom was like a week-long anthropology seminar on a foreign planet. Who were my fellow voyagers anyway? Ah, I suppose my elitism is showing through the cracks.

  Just to repeat, vacationing is not my thing, but if it is yours, wonderful.

   Tourism - In my mind tourism is going somewhere to see something beautiful, fascinating, interesting or famous. Tourists often have bucket lists of attractions they want to see. It could be any lace or thing, Venice, the Louvre, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, the Taj Mahal, and of course countless others. The tourist industry profits tremendously from the desire to visit these famous destinations, herding travelers into a very small minority of them while charging big money along the way. We are all aware how so many sites have been “ruined” by hordes of visitors. We complain about these mobs while not wanting to admit that we are part of the problem. Most tourism is designed (I am completely aware that there are many exceptions) to allow us to visit these mystical names that we yearn to see while enjoying the comforts and familiarity of home, lodging with all the amenities, restaurants created for the tastes of foreigners, every excursion and tour conducted in our own native language, or these days in the omnipresence of English. Tourism generally avoids mixing with ordinary local people, being confronted with the discomfort of not knowing the language of our hosts nor there customs, not eating local peasant foods, not using public transportation etc.

   Here is an interesting example. My family spent five months living in Costa Rica in 1995. Our daughter was adopted from Colombia when she was seven months old, and we thought it important that she learn to speak her indigenous language. So beginning in June we headed south, rented a small house and enrolled her in a good private school. This may sound a bit hoity-toity for a Voluntary Simplicity hippie like me, but the tuition was still only pennies on the dollar compared to US prices.

   I have encountered numerous people who have visited Costa Rica as tourists. And without doubt the country has plenty to offer. Almost always these visitors have raved to me about how incredibly friendly the “Ticos” are. Now I have traveled very extensively in Mexico, Central America, and South America, and as I said, spent five months living in Costa Rica. IMHO that country is one of the least friendly and welcoming in the entire hemisphere. I don’t mean to suggest that I haven’t met many, many gracious local people in my time there. That goes without saying. But as a generalization Costa Ricans have a tendency to be snobbish, stuck up and not particularly welcoming. They feel that they are “white” without the taint of indigenous blood, and superior to all their bordering nationalities. In both the school and the district where we rented, we felt more tolerated rather than being treated as valued guests. Almost all of our neighbors ignored us. My daughter’s skin tone was too dark for the affluent kids in the private school, and they were derisive when she insisted on participating in sports unlike all their other girl students. Of course she did it anyway. She was not raised to be a wallflower. Again I am not trying to impugn the entire society. They have much to be proud of including fabulous natural resources, no standing army, and much tax money invested in public education.

   So why the big disconnect? Visiting tourists are shepherded around by guides who depend upon their custom. Likewise the folks who provide their lodging and open restaurants specifically to reflect their imported tastes. It is no wonder that they are extremely friendly, that is their bread and butter. And likely most workers in the tourist industry are friendly and outgoing people to begin with, indicative of their choice of occupation. But please don’t tell me how friendly Costa Rica is. In terms of Latin America, it is anything but. Which still makes it friendlier than many parts of the United States, but that is a different subject.

   Another thing that happens with mass tourism is that cultures get changed and local people get jaded. I am not blaming anyone, it just happens. How many times have I seen visitors asking bus drivers in Mazatlan questions in English, even getting frustrated when they don’t get a response? How many locals in service industries start getting accustomed to out-sized tips, becoming miffed when ordinary people don’t keep up? I could put down a whole litany of these effects as I’ve been seeing all this for decades, but I am sure that you get the idea.

   I am not better than anyone else. I have been to the Taj Mahal (three times, it is magnificent) and plenty other attractions of note in my lengthy travel career. I would be crazy to be nearby and not do so. I recently visited San Miguel de Allende for the first time in 37 years, as I happened to be in Queretaro an hour away. It is gorgeous. It is also overflowing with foreign visitors. The difference between what I do and arriving as a tourist? I don’t travel because I want to visit these places. I visit them because it is convenient to do so as an adjunct to my regular traveler activities. But worldwide for fifty years, I have mainly stuck to small towns mostly off the beaten track. And once again, I have zero interest in raining on your parade. If you are happy, then I am happy.

   For almost eight years I have helped moderate a Facebook group devoted to slow travel. It was once called Earth Vagabonds and represented a certain lifestyle extolled by its creators. The group is now called Budget Slow Travel in Retirement, but it has now strayed far from its intended mission. It has devolved into a standard tourist group and very few of its present members would have been interested in the Earth Vagabond life-style championed its most recent incarnation.

    Here is a curiosity about the present group which now sports well over a hundred and fifty-thousand members. Despite its appellation, ther are very few posts regarding “slow travel, “ budget or otherwise. And even more curious, I would estimate that a significant percentage of the posts focus on Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Southeast Asia, where enormous parts of our planet are never mentioned. And that, my friends, is herding in all its glory. As the Senior Moderator, I am swimming against the tide in an unequal battle that I am fully aware that I am losing. So why do I stay. Outside of some nostalgia, the reasons are far too complicated and personal for this forum. Meanwhile I continue the lonely fight to champion what I call slow travel and which I will write about below. For those who are interested, a small splinter group has broken away and founded a new group called Retired Nomads.

   Travel for business, education or religious/spiritual reasons. These sub-categories do not fit easily into any pigeon holes and fall outside the limits of this discussion.

   And finally ………… drum roll …………Slow Travel

Before we get enmeshed I need to present an adage which is a truism in regards to all forms of travel: There is an inverse ratio between time and money. The less time you have, the more you spend, and vice versa.

  Slow travel. The kind of travel that has always drawn me has no official title. Clearly the name travel, which I am differentiating from all those above, is inadequate and somewhat inaccurate. After all, everything I have described comes under the umbrella of “travel.”

 So exactly what is slow travel? When I first embarked upon this adventure in 1972, the most important characteristic was an almost total lack of information. So how did I plan? For the most part, I didn’t. Does that make you feel uncomfortable? Bear with me for a while.

   When I first took off, I had only one concrete destination in mind, visiting a small town in the French Pyrenees where I actually had a contact, a local high school teacher. This worthy, Monsieur Daries, had befriended my parents ten years earlier when our family also comprised by 12 year-old me and my nine and seven year-old brothers resided in Argeles-Gazost for three months. Remembering the beauty of the region along with its stupendous hiking opportunities, i wanted to return. Other than that one destination, I had nothing. My plan, if you want to call it that, was to go to Europe and stay until my very limited funds were in danger of running out (much more about this in my personal history essay).

   Outside of Argelès, every other place I wound up in had its impetus supplied by the traveler’s grapevine, bumping into kindred spirits and sharing a few glasses of red. Where to go, where to avoid, what might be on offer, it was all grist for the mill. That trip eventually covered nine months (during which I spent $500), and the majority of it was spent in only four locations. Otherwise I mainly hitchhiked and slept rough. For me that represents the essence of slow travel. Finding a place you like, drilling down into the local culture, learning about the people and their lives, eating their food, patronizing their restaurants and lodging, using their public transportation. You stay until you feel like moving on. Your next destination takes shape in your consciousness when that urge to continue starts to grows inside of you.

  I mentioned lack of information. There was very little available in my local library apart from Europe on Five Dollars a Day. But that Europe was London, Paris, and Rome. None of those places called out to me, I was after something totally different. I couldn’t put it into words, but I knew that I would recognize it when I saw it. Lack of information enforced lack of planning. Communication with the rest of the world was sparse and difficult.

  Traveling in this fashion had its own component of advantages and disadvantages. The most salient advantages were mystery, romance, adventure, spontaneity, flexibility, and the ability to turn on a dime, to change plans, to accept an offer for an activity or an invitation to someone’s home. Most of all was an intense sensation of freedom, the likes of which few people ever experience. Nobody knew where I was or cared - well maybe mom - I could wake up and do anything I wanted or nothing at all. No bosses, no assignments, no bells, no bills. That sense of freedom penetrated into my very core. Fifty-three years later I am still addicted to it and seek it out whenever possible. That is easier said in today’s world. Back then you reported in to nobody - except my weekly aerogramme to mom 😄. Now if someone doesn’t hear from you in a couple of days, they start to get anxious.

   Speaking of anxiety, I stayed with a Couchsurfing host in Switzerland some years back before the pandemic. We took a lengthy hike, then climbed down from the hills to a village railway station. The electric signboard noted the time of the next arrival, which for some reason was running three minutes late. All the other passengers were glancing at their watches every few seconds and pulling at their hair in frustration. Each to her own.

   So I have noted the old advantages. Here is the flip side. Occasional loneliness and isolation. Getting stuck by bad weather in a place you didn’t care for, where nobody spoke your language, and you were without a book, music, television or any of the distractions we take for granted. Waking up in a field with no idea where you would wind up sleeping in the evening. Having no one to turn to if something bad happened.

You pretty much had to carry travelers checks which were a hassle to sign and sometimes more of a hassle to cash. You needed to have someone back home to handle your practical affairs, not that I personally had any of those. Communication back home was reserved for emergencies. It was both expensive and unreliable.

  I will not go into today’s world of travel. Almost none of my list of disadvantages exist anymore. Everything is easy. It is also boring and predictable. Many older travelers want to know it all in advance, where they are going, where they will sleep, where they will eat, what they will do and see. I would rather cut my throat. The price for this ease is the loss of wonder, romance, mystery, adventure, flexibility and spontaneity. Choose your poison, I know mine.

   That would be a pure form of slow travel. No schedule, no itinerary. Arrive somewhere, stay as long as you felt like it and move on. Wash, rinse and repeat. I did my share of it back then because I was young, free of responsibilities, nearly broke.

I miss it and at moments have a yen for it. But it’s not possible anymore. I just have to do the best I can.