Have you ever booked a dream rental for a long-awaited vacation — the kind of place with a hot tub, oceanfront views, and every amenity you could ever want — only to realize that by the end of the trip, you barely spent any time there? Between the early wake-up calls, busy sightseeing itinerary, afternoons spent lounging poolside, and those can’t-miss dinner reservations, the “perfect” accommodation ended up being more like just a place to crash at night.
That’s where slow travel comes in. By stretching a trip out over a longer period of time, you give yourself the ability to enjoy mornings with coffee on that oceanfront balcony, an afternoon nap in that king-size bed, or finally soaking in that hot tub you’ve been daydreaming about for weeks. Of course, everyone wants more vacation days, but for many, the default reaction to a longer trip is often to fill it with even more activities. More recently, however, more and more travelers are realizing that true luxury isn’t squeezing more in — it’s giving yourself permission to do less. If you’re ready to make that shift, here are a few practical ways to slow down and actually enjoy your next vacation.
Shift Your Mindset From the Get-Go
Sometimes, the hardest part about slow travel isn’t logistics, it’s letting go of the instinct to maximize every minute. Many of us are conditioned to value our precious few vacation days, so when you’re taking a full week off, the pressure kicks in to squeeze in as many activities as possible — especially if you are traveling with kids.
But cramming too many activities into too little time can backfire. Instead of coming home feeling refreshed, you’ll land back at the office drained, with memories that blur together — was that delicious cappuccino from the café in Florence? Or the hotel lobby in Rome? It turns out, the more you try to do, the less you actually absorb.
Staying Put (Without Staying Still)
Slow travel doesn’t mean doing nothing — it means anchoring yourself in one place long enough to let a routine have a chance to form. Instead of checking in and out of hotels and hopping on trains, consider renting one place for the entirety of your trip and letting it serve as your base. From there, you can still explore at your own pace — take day trips, wander through different neighborhoods, or return to your favorite spots at various times of the day and see them in a new light.
When you’re planning your next getaway, just think: do you want to come back needing a vacation from your vacation, or with the sense that you actually got to enjoy it? Even if you can’t add more days to your trip, you can always scale back the number of places that you are trying to go to — quality over quantity is the secret recipe here.
Live Like a Local, Not a Tourist
One of the most surprising perks of traveling slowly is financial. Longer stays often come with discounted nightly rates, and when you’re not spending half your trip on trains, planes, or rental cars, transportation costs drop significantly. Cooking a few meals at home with ingredients picked up from the local market not only saves money, but also gives you the chance to experience daily life the way residents do, making you feel less like a guest and more like a temporary local.
When you stay put for longer, a destination will also have less of a temporary stopover feel and more of a homey feel. Maybe it’s finding your go-to diner for pancakes, jogging the same trail in the neighborhood park each morning, or figuring out which grocery store has the best produce. Those little rituals turn a trip from a checklist of attractions into something that feels closer to real life — just lived somewhere new.
Reframing Luxury
Luxury travel used to be defined by appearances: five-star hotels, hard-to-get reservations, and multi-course tasting menus. The value was measured in price tags and exclusivity, while comfort and quality time were often overlooked. Slow travel reshapes that definition. Luxury becomes the freedom to wake up without an alarm, to not have anything on the day’s agenda, or to stay a little longer simply because you’re not ready to leave.
If the sun comes out, you can swap the museum for the beach, knowing that you’ll get back there another day. If you stumble upon a local event or festival, you can spontaneously spend the whole afternoon there instead of rushing to a dinner reservation. That restaurant you can stop thinking about? Why not go back a second or even third time? And if you wake up and just don’t feel like doing anything, you can take a true rest day without guilt.
Final Thoughts
At its heart, slow travel is about treating time as the ultimate luxury. Rather than prioritizing a checklist of activities or the number of stamps in your passport, it’s about giving yourself permission to enjoy where you are without rushing to the next thing. And when you return home, it feels less like you just visited and more like you truly lived somewhere else, even if only briefly.
Emily is a freelance writer who has been traveling full-time for over five years She has visited dozens of countries but can often be found in Spain and Mexico. In her Substack, Extracurricular Pursuits, she shares personal essays and travel stories that document the quirks, chaos and realities of living abroad.