Putting on the Brakes | Slow Train Travel Gains Steam

DolceTracker| A friend of ours traveled by train last week, commenting that while the journey was longer than on Jet Blue, he enjoyed the New York State countryside, lack of airport hassles and general ease of traveling by train. Posting yesterday the NYTimes article on the priority of experiences over things, in the new American consumer mindset, it seems timely to share a spring WSJ magazine article The World of Slow Travel.

WSJ confirms much of what we read in the NYT:

The recession’s impact on vacations has been to make them scarcer and shorter, but those lucky enough to have time off want to stretch their breaks out more. Hassles like airport security lines, full-body scans and packed planes due to reductions in flights have only made slow travel more popular. “Everyone is stuck in fast-forward but yearning to put on the brakes. There is a huge hunger for shifting gears,” says Carl Honore, a Canadian author whose 2004 book, “In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed,” has made him an in-demand spokesman for slowness. Over the past year, Honore says, he has had dozens of speaking requests from hotels, cruise lines and tourism authorities in cities and regions around the world. Places as wide-ranging as Nelson, New Zealand, and the country of Estonia are working on branding themselves as slow-travel destinations.

 More Reading:

Cultural Creatives Constitute the Core of the Slow Living Movement