Pausing Travel as a Priority

from fast to slow travel

Trends of the past

Thinking about travel in the short-term has hardly crossed my mind recently. As I finish my second month in my second round of living in Spain as a public school English language assistant, planning my vacation time has been sitting on the back burner. 

The fall of 2022 was my first school year living in Spain and visiting Western Europe at all. With the European Union experience comes the privilege of proximity to some of the world’s most popular travel destinations… and budget airlines. Vueling, Ryanair, Volotea, easyJet and Wizz were to blame for my eagerness to take advantage of each school vacation; they were also the ones that often chose my destinations.

Bajina Bašta, Central Serbia, 2021.

Before I found the cheap backpack-only flights, I honestly didn’t have a plan or particular desire to see some of the places I visited. Last year, Italy was not on my list of places to see (for some crazy reason), but by the end of the school year I visited four Italian cities thanks to affordable fares. The catch was that the length of my urban Italian getaways ranged from an eight hour layover in Rome (to get to Serbia for Christmas) to a two-and-a-half-day stay in Milan. From Milan, my friend and I hopped over to Bologna, Venice, and Valencia (Spain) all within ten days. 

The short time frame I had in the land of decadent history, food, and fashion was what forced me to really take advantage of each day experienced in a new place. On my final day in the fashion capital of Milan, I rushed to a vintage fair called East Market that I’d read about online. Having read that it only happened once a month with no information about the next event, I was excited to find its flyer in the fashion-forward neighborhood of Porta Ticinese on the day of the event. Overestimating my few hours to spare, I was almost late for a rideshare to Bologna (see Blablacar). I was impressed with the way I quickly navigated public transport that day, although I did end up hurting my wallet by calling a cab back to my hostel in the end. Sometimes you make risky financial decisions. You gotta do what you gotta do!

East Market secondhand event, Milan, Italy. 35mm film 2023.

In Bologna, we met up with my friend from high school, who was teaching English in France at the time, and her German coworker. Spontaneously, we meandered to a concert at an intimate underground music venue. The US-based band was playing punk industrial metal pop (?) music with quite an intense performance that I’ll never forget.

Being on time meant being the first people at the venue. Freakout Club in Bologna, Italy, 2023.

With one day in Venice, I got lost in the many corridors that turn eerie as the sun sets, rode in a gondola for pocket money, jaw-dropped at St. Mark’s Basilica, saw The Migrant Child by Banksy, sat in Giardini Reali and romanticized my experiences in my journal, on top of other simple delights. Later that night, a roommate from my hostel came with me to watch the Venetian orchestra perform Vivaldi in an ornate theater that used to be a church.

Behind the gondola terminal and fog sits Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Italy. 35mm film, 2023.

Back in Spain, I went by myself to an outdoor concert by the port in Valencia, laying in the grass and appreciating the sun kissing my skin with my cafe con leche and Spanish omelet (aka “tortilla” aka my favorite Spanish food) sandwich digesting in my stomach. Taking advantage of the short time frames in each place, I found peace, amusement, and satisfaction everywhere I went, ready to go home.

My first vegetarian paella in Valencia. (Sorry in advance to any Valencians reading this eek)

Gratitude

I’ve never regretted traveling. There’s always something to appreciate and learn and be grateful for. Thank you to the cheap flight from Bilbao to Milan, from Venice to Valencia, and from Valencia to my then-home Santander for making that trip work out. 

Another thank you to last year’s fast-paced tour, for now I know I never want to hit four cities in ten days ever again. City-hopping is not for me. I came home exhausted— maybe because the stiff plastic plane seats didn’t let me nap, or because the sleep debt and excess caffeine had accumulated from all those days of nonstop action.

Thanks to working at a restaurant in Chicago (shoutout to Coalfire Pizza and the Lakeview-Wrigleyville neighborhood — love you guys), I was able to save enough to travel for the hell of it: to see new things, explore new cities, and attend engaging events. Now, I’m being a bit more conservative on what I’m spending on (especially considering student loan payments have reached the end of their grace period, what a joy!). Sustainability in saving is now the priority, as I have some future (as in years from now) travel plans that are looking forward to some financial stability. Thank you to the NALCAP program and private English classes for making living in Spain possible.

enough said

I like my travel the way I like my relationships — slow.

The thing is, simply by living in Málaga right now, a new city in a country I’m barely familiar with that speaks a language I’m still learning, I’m traveling. Slow travel is what I’d like to experience more of these days. Slow travel reaches below the superficial and into the depths of what it means to experience a place. Hopping from city to city every few days is fun and exciting, but it only offers a surface-level interaction with its people and sites. A few days is not enough time to engross oneself in a community, to learn about the pop culture of a place, to understand the attitudes of the locals, to hear the history that tourists get the censored and digestible version of, to meet new people and share memorable moments together. In a few days, I can visit the museums and admire the beautiful architecture and read Trip Advisor’s recommendations, but how relevant are these things to the daily life of a local? How many of them have even been to Trip Advisor’s top ten list of things to see or places to eat? If travel were just about the things I saw and took pictures in front of, that’d be a big waste of time, money, and opportunity. What are the customs of the locals that make us feel uncomfortable? What about us is weird to them? What do their suburbs look, feel, smell, taste, sound like? Travel that’s fully taken advantage of is not romanticized — it requires getting to know the heart of the destination through the eyes of people encountering it on a daily basis. 

This year, I’d like to be more strategic with the way I travel. No more one-day-one-place madness. Although I definitely plan to make a few trips this year, they will be thoughtful, intentional, and present.

Silence for the sunrise in las Alpujarras, Spain, 2023. Photo by Sophie Allen, from Be Moved’s Sacred Mountain yoga retreat, 2023.

Permission

Although my last post about urban biking avidly promoted going outside our comfort zones, there’s nothing wrong with having the support of our plushy warm huggable safe space while confronting uncomfortable or new experiences.

Spain is my comfort zone right now. Other priorities have come to the table, like my health, wellness, and creative practices. I want to take advantage of the extra time I have this year to create a routine and set myself up for success in all spheres of my life. I don’t want to be the same person I was last year; I want to evolve. I want to be able to do a handstand, learn advanced pole tricks, take my yoga practice with me off the mat and into my daily life, read the books I own, become fluent in Spanish and learn a new language. I want to make writing a daily practice, learn how to be more compassionate, put myself out there and create an ecosystem that supports my success as I cheer on others’. I want to keep learning how to engage in politics, political discussion and debate, host events, visit my friends in Europe, be a plant mom, and work on the experiences in my discomfort inventory. 

Let me tell ya something, it’s not a myth that sunny places breed more motivated people. Almost everyday, cold or warm, the sun comes out to play in Málaga. Even if I only get five hours of sleep (because I’m still not used to going to bed early enough for my wake-up time), taking a nap while the sun’s being such a good friend feels so wrong! But of course, sometimes the need is dire, so I shut the blinds and rest, an activity I’m finally letting myself do.

Ubered to random park after WaffleHouse during long layover in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Photo by Vince Filippini.

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Ocurrencias

Currently learning how to stick to a writing schedule and manage my time around writing. These last few weeks have been action-packed — this weekend and the last, my parents have been in Málaga, the weekend before that I was in Bilbao and Santander visiting loved ones, and the weekend before that I had a friend from high school visit me. It’s been an eventful and memorable last few weeks, full of love and laughter and food and dancing and hiking and goofing off on playground ziplines by the beach. I’ve learned a lot about myself these last few weeks, especially how important it is for me to recharge.

Here’s some Substack reads I’ve appreciated this week:

To Stay or Not to Stay on Instagram

If Belize was your family member

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Thank you for reading! Have a lovely weekend!

With peace, love, and compassion,

Tea