If you’re the type of traveller that enjoys the journey as much as the destination and prefers to experience every detail of their trip at a relaxed pace, then “slow travel” might be just the thing for you.
“We embrace the notion of slow,” is one of Original Travel’s mottos, and the London-based tour operating company is one of the leaders when it comes to slow travelling experiences, and their numbers confirm the popularity of this form of travel. “Enquiries about boating and walking holidays are already up 40% compared to 2017’s inquiries,” Original Travel told Lonely Planet.
It’s not just boating and walking, though. The tours include all kinds of transportation, as long as it allows guests to breathe and enjoy the slow pace of the journey. Some of their guest-favorites slow travel experiences include cruising down the Nile from Luxor to Aswan in Egypt and sailing around the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador; enjoying a ride in a colonial-era train from Kandy to Ella in Sri Lanka and turn into Agatha Christie by rolling into Venice on the Simplon-Venice Orient Express; doing a horseback-riding safari in Kenya where 4x4 can’t reach or trot through the hills of Andalucia in Spain.
If you’re more of a bike person you can choose a cycling tour of rural Japan along the shores of Lake Biwa, or pedal along the base of Uluru in Australia; and for walkers, there’s a tour of Epiros and Meteora in Greece that will let you reach the Vikos Gorge, the deepest gorge in the world, or you can choose the Dagala Thousand Lakes adventure in Bhutan.
But why are slow travels gaining so much popularity? “With an ever-increasing pace in our daily lives, full of overflowing schedules, [we find] clients are wanting to slow down, relax and reconnect with travel,” Original Travel told Lonely Planet.
If you feel like you too need to relax and slow down, you can learn more about Original Travel’s tours on its official website here.
