by Mark | Aug 21, 2013 | All-Time Favorites, Deep In It
Say what you will. As slow travel veterans, we have come to appreciate this staple of city tourism. We arrive in a city determined to know it — to walk, live, eat, shop, and cultivate a deep understanding. These city bus tours offer the opportunity to do the once around and orient yourself to a place. Hear the historical overview and pinpoint places for future probing, while snapping pictures and visualizing the directions and locations of key places. City tours are generally reasonably priced, and we like that.
One of our first slow travel experiences and city bus tour was in Granada, Spain. That one gave you 48 hours to get on and off. We planned it so we could visit some out of the way places like the Science Center while we got our bearings in the city. The cost was 17 euros.
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by Mark | Aug 21, 2013 | All-Time Favorites
The most (possibly only) tiresome part of slow travel is finding apartments. Sure, if we had unlimited resources or even just lots of money, it might be one of the more fun aspects. But for us, it usually involves a lot of searching and then hoping. Funky apartments can be charming.
We have found some good ones in our slow travel journey. Our apartment in Cuenca, Ecuador, pops to mind. The people we rented from in Crucita, Eucador, knew the people in Cuenca, so as we were ready to leave the beach we had a nice three-bedroom, 6th floor, modern apartment, close to the centre, to rent for $850/month. Of course we had struggled to find the Crucita house. Finding good beach rentals in Ecuador is challenging.
Those gems pop up, and we’ve enjoyed our share. The funky apartments are memorable as well. For example, we were in Berlin for our son’s graduation and planned to slow travel to spend some time with him. We focused on the Neukölln neighborhood, at the time a Turkish area with a thriving weekly market. The neighborhood was in the process of gentrification with new bars and restaurants opening almost daily. Rents were low and the variety of value-priced restaurants amazing, which made it a cool place to live.
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by Mark | Aug 21, 2013 | Deep In It
Antigua, Guatemala – San Pedro Church & Hospital & Volcán de Agua
Slow travel demands flexibility. For example, earlier this year we had planned to stay in Oaxaca, Mexico, for a few months, get some work done and take Spanish lessons. For a decade or more we had heard about this beautiful city and after a few days there, we understood.
Street scene in Oaxaca, Mexico
As background, our arrival in Oaxaca was preceded by a month of travel, at the end of which we were tired, overspent and anxious to settle down and work. (more…)
by Mark | Aug 20, 2013 | All-Time Favorites
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese
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Constantly off balance. Yep. It’s hard remember the exact months or sometimes even the year of where we have been when during the last four years. A recent acquaintance after hearing our story said, “You guys are really out there, living on the edge,” and quickly added, “but in a good way.”
We call it slow travel. We target interesting places where we might want to live, do some research, and then go about finding an apartment — sometimes for a month, but three months is better. We both work remotely and need a routine to balance our schedules between work and play in order to pay for our travel.
We would love to have more flexibility in how long we can stay, but most tourist visas are granted for 90 days. In Europe the Schengen Agreement covers 26 countries with a common 90- day limit. In Central America the C4 Agreement sets similar parameters. Mexico has a six-month tourist visa. Some countries like Argentina allow you to leave for a day or two and return with a new 90-day visa, but that can be fickle.
Two to three months seems like a good amount of time to experience a place, after which you can almost say you have lived there. Certainly it is more than a casual affair. It is time enough to get to know people and burrow under the covers of a place.
Some exciting places where we have spent some slow-travel time during the last four years include:
Crucita and Cuenca, Ecuador
Dupont Circle, D.C., and Baltimore
Granada, Spain
Key West
Berlin
Boston
Buenos Aires
Florida
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Antigua, Guatemala
Amsterdam
When we add housesitting, Morganton, North Carolina, and New Orleans get thrown into the mix. If we include one- and two-week places, the list grows to include Slovenia, Scotland and much of Mexico, Spain and Ecuador. (more…)
