Friday 16 May 2008

Slow down


This week I discovered the website Slow Planet. It promotes the idea of ‘slow’ travel – making sure that when you’re seeing the world, you’re really seeing it, not just ticking off a to-do list.

Here at Tracks HQ we’re all for this. But for some people it seems to have become something that they do just for the sake of it, hopping from place to place without really seeing it. The ‘gap year’ has become the norm, but maybe we shouldn’t be trying to see the whole world in a single year – but breaking it down into more manageable chunks.

Slow Planet is an example of the backlash against the wham-bam approach, and this week the US held the world’s first ever National Train Day, a ‘slow’ way of travel far superior to the plane (if only it could get you everywhere). Just take the Terminal 5 mess as an example, or this week’s story about a man being forced to sit on a toilet for the duration of a flight.

Hopefully the idea will catch on. Let us know what you think at Tracks online - how do you like to travel?

Ruth x
Tracks Deputy Editor


No comments: