The Idle Traveller: The Art of Slow Travel Book Review

I just finished re-reading one of my favorite books about travel, The Idle Traveller: The Art of Slow Travel by Dan Kieran. I really love this book because, as someone who often struggles with FOMO (the fear of missing out), and once made it an ambitious mission to try to visit every place I could featured in the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Shultz, I began to wonder if I really would be able to survive not seeing all the famous destinations and tourist traps! Of course, famous places are famous for a reason, but is it really worth it to stand in line for hours with hundreds of cranky tourists on a hot day to see a well-known church or ancient relics? Perhaps in some cases, but I also really like the idea of taking it slow, walking around a new city, and getting a feel for what it would be like to live there. This book is exactly what that’s about.

The book reads almost as fiction, with the author painting a picture of his travels as romantic experiences moving around countries by rail. Kieran talks about how travel becomes part of one’s own therapeutic journey, rather than an escape. He talks about how slow travel helps us to reconnect with nature and ourselves (remember Cheryl Strayed’s journey in her popular book, Wild?).

“Paradoxically, now that we can move so quickly around the world, most of us don’t actually travel any more - we only arrive.”

Kieran mentions that most travel books are about slow travel, but they don’t help us learn how to travel slow, and that’s the aim of this book. He attempts to change the way we think about travel in a realistic way in the small time we have away from work. He explains how touristy places are often unauthentic, existing only in the minds of the tourists and reinforcing what they were expecting to find. We look for things that confirm our being there, but we haven’t traveled any further than our own pre-conceived idea.

The author’s adventures in slow travel began because of his fear of flying. He had to figure out alternative ways to get to where he wanted to go, which forced him to slow down. This was not always easy though! However, it gave him a chance to talk to more people and see things most people wouldn’t see traveling by plane. Along his journey, he discovered that this country is full of helpful people, and that the best traveling experiences are often the unplanned ones.

The author says, “If you allow yourself to be funneled into a series of ‘phonetic’ experiences, ticking off one box after another, life flies by very quickly”. He goes on to say that when you travel more slowly, time slows down too, and you feel like you’ve been away for longer. If we want our lives to slow down, we have to live in the moment and engage with it completely. You may notice this ties in with the “slow movement” idea we’re starting to see grow all over the world.

Some of the suggestions Kieran offers in his book to help us slow down when we travel are:

• Do a solo walking tour. Get lost in your thoughts. Most travel is made to provide distractions, and now we have laptops and technology that allow us to work while we’re on a train or plane instead of reading or staring out a window. Walking gets you back in touch with yourself. We also often suggest to our clients to do a self-guided city tour on their travels, which you can download for free online. (I admit, I haven’t done this too often, but would definitely like to—even if it’s in my own hometown!) I have heard some people who travel without itineraries say that, while they enjoy having the flexibility in their day, oftentimes they find themselves walking around a foreign city, looking at incredible buildings, but have no idea what their significance or history was. A self-guided tour gives you both the flexibility of your time and knowledge of the area.

• The author is actually against taking photos (what?!). He says he never looks at photos from his travels to remember them, he says the most important parts of any trip are what you felt and what you learned collect in your mind many years later — If it was truly important, you’ll remember it. I get where he’s coming from, but I have mixed feelings about this. I do love to go back and reminisce about parts of my trip later and I love looking at photos that friends and family took of their own vacations.

• Be your own guide. Kieren says guidebooks set your brain on a narrow path that leaves little for what you really want to do. With it, the world is reduced to lists—someone else’s itinerary. Without it, there is no pressure to actually do anything. He suggests to instead bring books that take place in the location of where you’re traveling to, so you can get more of a “feel” of the place. I disagree with this philosophy somewhat, as we have had some amazing experiences with small tour groups and a little pre-planning thanks to guidebooks. I do, however, absolutely love the suggestion of reading a book that takes place in the location of where you’re at. I have done that before, and it really imprints on my memories of the place. Whenever I see a title of a book I've read, it often takes me back to where I was when I was reading it.

“Slow travel is a meditation based on a profound sense of curiosity, finding new ways to see the world and challenging your sense of what it means to ‘know’”

Later in the book, Kieran talks about the right and left hemisphere of the brain working against each other when we travel. He says our most enjoyable travel experiences offer a combination of both: A balance between order and the unknown. When travel takes us out of a predictable routine we become more aware, as our conscious mind has been activated to deal with the new things we’re experiencing. This could explain why travel feels so vibrant and exciting. He also talks about the legacy and dark side of travel, how it was (and is still being) used to conquer and enslave millions of colonies. We often see this today in the tourist industry, where “vast swaths of the globe have had their indigenous sanitized and wiped clean to make way for the homogenous brands that continue to spread into the farthest reaches of the planet” (a reference from the book Wild: An Elemental Journey by Jay Griffiths).

The idea of slow travel has also permeated Kieran’s daily life. The author lives in the UK and prefers travel on trains rather than planes, and buses or walking through a city rather than taking the subway. He says it gives him a sense of place and he can take in parts of the city that are usually looked over by most tourists. For him, it also gives the city a greater sense of meaning. Arriving in a city by train, rather than an airplane changes the way you feel about the destination. He says being at an airport, you are pigeon-holed as a tourist, bombarded with advertisements and positioning you as a tourist, whether you like it or not. Then, you start to think like a tourist, being turned into an economic statistic to be converted into dollars.

This book has inspired me to let go of my travel FOMO, and to embrace taking my time while traveling. Obviously, it’s a lot easier to travel slowly when you live in the UK, like the author does, and I would love to be able to travel to other countries by train! However, since I read this book the first time, I have been making an effort to travel more slowly once I get to my destinations. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in learning more about slow travel to immerse themselves in and have a deeper connection with their destination, providing a truly unique travel experience.

And remember this:

“If you find yourself heading in the opposite direction to most the people around you it’s usually a sign you’re going a more interesting way” 

Let me know if you have read any books that have made you re-think your own travel goals!