Editor’s Letter: The Case For Traveling Slower—And Deeper

This is part of a collection of stories on slow travel—read more here.

After a few unhappy years of border closures and restrictions, travelers could have been forgiven for trying to make up for lost time by checking off as many bucket-list destinations as they could, as quickly as they could. The rather ugly term revenge travel did enter the lexicon, but many trip takers refused to take the bait, choosing to go deeper rather than just skim the surface; to get to know more of a single country instead of ticking off five in one go; to treat travel as a search for understanding, not as a trophy hunt.

What brought about this remarkable shift? It’s due in part to the changing nature of work, which has allowed people—especially people of means—to structure their lives differently. But in my view an even bigger factor is a broad rethinking currently under way about the very purpose of travel. As Catherine Heald, the cofounder and CEO of the Asia-focused luxury-travel agency Remote Lands, puts it, “The pandemic produced more slow travelers because people had time to reflect on what is really important to them in life—including mindfulness and meditation and meaningful travel.”

Her recent clients have included an emergency-room doctor in Cleveland who took a two-month sabbatical to immerse herself in Balinese culture, spirituality, and wellness, and a San Francisco couple who embarked on a four-week deep dive into Vietnam more than four decades after the husband spent his early adulthood protesting the war there. In our lovely package “How to Slow Down Now,” we offer eight travel experiences in this vein, plus two dozen additional trip ideas from trusted specialists like Catherine. (For the complete list of Condé Nast Traveler‘s 2023 Top Travel Specialists, click here.) I encourage you to reach out to one of them today to help shape your next slow-travel adventure. Because, in the wise words of Trevor Noah: “If there’s one thing you’ll never waste your money on, it’s traveling.”

This article appeared in the April 2023 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.