Reading this article on slow travel made me think that travel for pleasure likely killed the concept of slow travel. For most people who have to earn their living, the right to leisure is one that has to be paid for through time and effort at work - no matter what the nature of that work. Once enough leisure has been earned, the person might take time off and travel. It is no surprise that the the earnings run out quickly and they have to go back.
The travel under such conditions cannot be be too slow. When travel was a necessity to live and survive, there might have been few if any constraints on how long it should take or last. People left their land and home on account of floods, famines, wars and the like. There was nothing to return to and the only way was onward until they came upon a hospitable place. It would take whatever time it took with stops and detours along the way. Modern day travel is not tethered in such primal life-saving purpose.
It’s hard to pinpoint its exact beginnings but the slow travel revolution—an intentional move towards more mindful, more environmentally responsible, less purely convenient modes of getting around—organically emerged from another revolution.
We can try to be mindful, environmentally responsible and take the less convenient options but that would still not imbue our travel with the purpose it had for our forbears. Everyone who has been an immigrant will recall very the smallest details of the their coming to the new country which would become their home. The first town they saw, the first meal they ate, the people that they spoke to and so on. No detail is too small to ignore or be forgotten. The journey itself could have been mundane but the purpose makes it "slow travel" in the person's mind.
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