Chat with a van lifer changed my whole take on slow travel

I met this guy Mike at a co-working space in Medellin last month. He's been living in a converted Ford Transit for 4 years now. I always thought slow travel meant staying in one AirBnB for a month, but he showed me his setup. He said "I don't move more than 50 km in a week, I just change the view out my window." That hit me different because I've been bouncing between countries every 2 weeks and burning out fast. He spends whole seasons in one region and actually builds routines with local people. Now I'm rethinking my whole schedule for next year. Has anyone else had a random conversation that flipped a switch on how you travel?

2 comments

2 Comments

mia_singh2418d ago

Read something similar on a travel forum once where a guy talked about "microtravel" instead of slow travel. Said he spends two weeks in one tiny town rather than two days in a big city. Kind of changed how I plan my trips too.

brooke7118d ago

That quote about changing the view from the window really stuck with me too. I read a blog post once where the writer compared it to how you can sit in a park for hours and notice something new each time, versus rushing through a museum in twenty minutes. It makes you wonder what we miss when we're constantly packing up and moving on.